Lessons from the Shirley Sherrod Case

Much of the news coverage about Shirley Sherrod and the now-infamous speech she gave to the NAACP has focused on race – whether her comments were indicative of so-called “reverse” racial discrimination, whether conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart and the media outlets that promoted the showing of the edited version of Sherrod’s speech were motivated by race, and whether the incident and our short-term fascination with it indicates some racial prejudice within us all.

To me, however, the Sherrod story highlights another serious problem, and that is the failure of Ms. Sherrod’s employer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to investigate the claim against her before concluding that she had engaged in misconduct.

In the world in which I operate, an employer facing a complaint of misconduct against one of its employees will first conduct an investigation into the allegation.  Here, where the allegation came from an external source, the employer should have been especially careful not to assume guilt.  External complaints are similar to anonymous complaints in that the complaining person has no accountability for his complaint should it be false or misleading, as we see was a problem with Breitbart’s complaint against Sherrod.

A conscientious employer would have received the complaint and first considered whether it was credible on its face. Not all complaints require investigation. Some are clearly false, and others are clearly just attacks on a person’s character. For credible complaints, an employer typically assigns an investigator or hires an external investigator.  The investigator would probably sit down with the accused and explain the complaint against her, then ask her if she could provide any relevant witnesses or information.

In this case, Sherrod could have told the investigator right away that the video clip was part of a larger speech relating to an incident 25 years ago, the point of which was to highlight her transformation, not reinforce her old prejudices.  The investigator would have taken this information and sought out the entire video clip (which we now know was readily available). At this point, the investigation may have concluded with no finding of misconduct against Sherrod. Or, the investigator could have interviewed relevant witnesses if there were any additional concerns or questions before finally reaching a conclusion and writing a report of her findings.

Why didn’t Sherrod’s bosses at the Department of Agriculture take these basic steps? Could it be that the agency does not understand the need for an investigation? Not likely. More likely it is that agency heads feared being excoriated by conservative media outlets for not taking action when the culprit was a black woman instead of a white man.  So, instead of proceeding quickly to conduct a full investigation, the agency proceeded quickly to throw Sherrod in front of the proverbial bus. They just didn’t realize that their own hind parts were soon to follow.

Next time, Tom Vilsack and other government officials, go with the standard operating procedures. They usually work.

Katrina Campbell, Esq.
Vice President, Global Compliance

Katrina Campbell is an expert on employment law and ethics, and has conducted investigations of employee misconduct for more than 10 years.