2 ex-staffers threaten to sue Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office for discrimination

Two female former staffers at the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office say they plan to sue their former employer for discrimination.

One, a longtime senior manager, alleged racism and retaliation. The other, a former prosecutor, said she was discriminated against as a new mother. Both are women of color, and both claim their careers at the office spun out after District Attorney Nathan Vasquez was sworn in at the beginning of the year.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has for years been dogged by accusations of mistreating female staffers. Vasquez himself wielded those allegations against his predecessor and political opponent, Mike Schmidt, last year on the campaign trail. Vasquez released ads that called attention to ways several women say they were treated in the office under Schmidt.

“Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you,” Vasquez said during a debate with Schmidt in March 2024. “Mike Schmidt has destroyed the morale in the DA’s office. Absolutely destroyed it. He’s devastated it.”

Now Vasquez finds himself on the receiving end of similar complaints. In a statement to OPB, Vasquez rejected the ex-employees’ claims that he or members of his leadership team discriminated against anyone. He said the ex-senior manager, Jamila Williams, lost her job during an office-wide restructuring.

“Ms. Williams served this office with distinction for over 20 years and we are grateful for her contributions,” Vasquez said.

Spokesperson Pat Dooris noted that the restructuring “affected nearly all divisions,” including some responsibilities of prosecutors. A policy advisor position was “repurposed” to create a new Chief of Staff role, he said. Still, Williams was the only person who lost her job after Vasquez reorganized the office.

“For the first time ever, fully 50% of the attorney managers are female and this is also the most racially diverse team in MCDA history,” Dooris said in an emailed response.

Williams, who noted in her tort claim that she worked under four separate district attorneys in her two-decade career, declined to comment for this article.

A tort claim is a legal document notifying a public agency it could soon face a lawsuit.

Regarding the former prosecutor, Stephanie Rivera, Vasquez said she was given two choices to help balance her work responsibilities and her life as a new mother. She resigned instead.

“The office worked with her and our human resources manager and provided her the schedule adjustments she initially requested. When she asked to extend them, the office offered a shorter extension with a plan to reassess,” Vasquez said in the statement. “We appreciated her work and were disappointed by her decision to leave.”

Rivera also declined to comment. Her attorney did not respond to questions.

The two ex-staffers are both seeking to settle for at least $325,000, according to their claims. Both sent their legal filings to the county in April.

While both women said their issues started under Vasquez, their claims lay much of the blame on his top lieutenants and shifting policies after the leadership transition.

Rivera, who went on maternity leave in July, said her supervisor approved her to return with a flexible work schedule in December. She officially returned to work Jan. 6.

After Vasquez was sworn in, Rivera said, she learned that her flex schedule would no longer be honored. Her supervisor had pivoted and emailed her that “the office was still trying to figure out how things would work under the new administration.”

The former prosecutor noted in her claim that she was offered a position at a specialty drug court by chief deputy district attorney Mariel Mota, but said the presiding judge told her that the court needed to stick to its schedule and couldn’t pause proceedings. According to the legal claim, the judge “understood” Rivera needed time to pump breast milk for her infant son, but said the county needed to backfill with another prosecutor while she took a break.

The only other option she was provided by Mota, Rivera noted, was to switch to part-time.

“I informed her I did not think a part-time schedule was necessary nor was it an accommodation I was seeking,” Rivera said.

Rivera said she was briefly allowed to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but was also told to log her hours. Rivera said other prosecutors who worked from home temporarily were not told to log their hours and she felt “intentionally treated differently than my peers.”

“This all was extremely stressful and took a toll on my emotional and mental health, which also resulted in a decrease in my milk supply,” Rivera wrote. “This further took a toll on my emotional and mental health because my son was having a hard time drinking from a bottle.”

Rivera said Vasquez “claimed the new administration wanted to support women,” but those promises have rung hollow during his first few months.

Instead, Rivera said she was at least the second prosecutor to depart after returning from maternity leave.

“Furthermore, MCDA has a history of choosing not to promote women who were on protected leave or return from taking protected medical leave. My situation is another example of MCDA’s continuous unlawful conduct,” she wrote.

According to an email provided to OPB by the district attorney’s office, Mota responded to Rivera’s resignation last winter by saying the ex-prosecutor “mischaracterized” the office’s efforts “to help you readjust back to work.”

“The team did everything we could to support your requests, and as far as I know, said ‘yes’ to everything you asked for,” Mota wrote Feb. 11.

Williams claims her issues also started in January and February. She described that she and other operations staff – also people of color or other protected classes, she said – had to move out of their windowed offices and were “relegated to windowless internal offices.”

Williams noted that she had been a “very public supporter of Mike Schmidt” by the time Vasquez took office. She said Chief Deputy District Attorney Kirsten Snowden – described in the legal filing as “an avid supporter of Nathan Vasquez” – put her under a microscope early on.

“DA Vasquez and Snowden began chipping away at Ms. Williams’ job responsibilities and excluding her from meetings which she previously enjoyed full access,” Williams’ attorney wrote.

In response to questions from OPB, Vasquez’s office said they had offered Williams a different management position that she declined.

Beth Creighton, the attorney representing Williams, said that the job offer came three weeks after the county received her claim. Creighton also said Williams inquired about moving into the role of Equity Manager but was turned away.

“There was an equity position that was available, that was in the budget, that Jamila said ‘Oh, you’re restructuring me, so I’ll take that position,’” Creighton said. “But they said ‘No thank you.’ And then they took the tort claim and all of a sudden they found a position for her.”

Dooris, with the DA’s office, said the equity role was not open at the time Williams asked about it.

Dooris did confirm that Williams was offered the human resources job weeks after she threatened a lawsuit, once the previous person in the position resigned. He said the restructuring left no executive positions for Williams. Her attorney disagreed.

“It seems to me that they created this Chief of Staff position and siphoned off all of Jamila’s job duties,” Creighton said. “You want to call that a restructure, that’s not what I would call it.”

Regardless of the outcome of the potential lawsuits, they continue a pattern of professional turmoil in the office.

During last year’s election for Multnomah County District Attorney, Schmidt faced criticism after several female prosecutors raised concerns about his management, citing sexism.

An investigation in 2023 from the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries found “substantial evidence” Schmidt’s office discriminated based on employees’ sex and gender. The investigation found Schmidt promoted more men than women during his first 18 months in office.

Schmidt disagreed with the findings and provided data showing he promoted 31 women and 31 men during his tenure. Eventually, a separate investigation led by a county-funded law firm corroborated Schmidt’s assertion.

Still, internal surveys of MCDA staff showed discontent among people of color and women.

Vasquez told OPB in an interview just before he was sworn into office that he was proud of the leadership team he had assembled, including Mota and Snowden.

“For the first time in the history of Multnomah County, we’ll have the most women on management team,” Vasquez said in December. “It will have the most people of color on management team, and it represents really an opportunity, I think, to see some dramatic change with some really experienced, very exceptionally talented attorneys that are coming into these positions.”