DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — An employee at the Atlanta VA Medical Center says she is being forced to work in the same department with the supervisor that a federal judge found harassed her.
It’s been more than 3 years since Marine veteran Courtney Robinson was fired from her job as an echocardiographer, performing ultrasounds of the heart at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.
“It’s like I’m the problem. They’re treating me like I’m the harasser. Like I did something wrong,” Robinson told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.
A federal judge with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission ruled in May that VA must give Robinson her job back, pay 3 years of back pay, plus more than $120,000 in damages.
But Robinson said VA is now placing her back to work on the same team as her harasser.
“My harasser -- they took her from being the supervisor -- they made her my coworker,” she said.
Robinson was 5-months pregnant when she was fired, after filing an equal opportunity complaint that she was being unfairly targeted and harassed by her supervisor.
“She would start giving me extra patients. At this time, I’m about four or five months pregnant. I wasn’t getting lunches. I was losing weight,” Robinson said.
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In the ruling, the judge ordered that “the agency shall take all necessary steps to ensure that, following her reinstatement, Complainant has no contact with (the harasser).”
Robinson said The VA’s actions violate the judge’s order and is refusing to return to work until the issue is settled.
VA claims she’s now been absent for the job for more than four months and could be fired again.
A VA attorney wrote in a letter to Robinson that the harasser is “no longer in a supervisory position,” was moved to a different floor and “ordered to have no contact.”
“We’re on the same team. We’re in the same department. What if we have a team meeting? You know, like, is anybody giving any kind of consideration or empathy to me?” Robinson said.
VA has also still not paid Robinson the more than $350,000 in back pay she is owed.
But in an August letter to Robinson, VA attorney Joy Warner wrote that “The only party not in compliance with the Final Order is Appellant for refusal to report to duty.”
The most recent letter Robinson received from the VA ordered her, the victim, to stay away from her harasser.
We reached out to the Atlanta VA who sent us a statement, saying:
“One of our top priorities at VA is making sure all employees feel safe and welcome at work as they serve our nation’s veterans. We have put preventive measures in place and ensured that the affected parties will have no direct interaction.”
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