Yellowstone harassment

The Interior Department on Thursday ordered additional harassment prevention training for managers and supervisors after an internal report found that men in a maintenance unit at Yellowstone National Park “created a work environment that included unwelcome and inappropriate comments and actions toward women.”

According to the report released Wednesday by the department’s inspector general’s office, six women in the park’s maintenance division said they were subjected to derogatory comments, verbal abuse and unequal treatment by male employees. One woman said six pairs of her underwear were stolen from a dresser drawer. Another called Yellowstone “a man’s world” where male behavior “is very dominating.”

Class-action lawsuits, consent decrees carried out 40 years ago and directives from departmental leadership have yet to end bias and discrimination against women in the Interior and Agriculture Departments, where employees work in some of the most isolated places in the country.