The Army recently changed a policy and ordered sensitivity training for certain supervisors and employees following a dispute that arose due to monitoring of an employee’s online postings, the Office of Special Counsel has announced.
OSC said that the Army’s firing of an employee constituted a prohibited personnel practice under federal personnel law—specifically, discrimination based on conduct that does not affect job performance.
The Army moved to fire the employee, whom OSC didn’t name for privacy reasons, after supervisors and coworkers discovered his anonymous online posts that mentioned his sexual orientation. The removal was taken under a long-standing Army regulation that could disqualify civilian employees from holding sensitive positions based on their sexual orientation, a regulation that since has been changed to state that “no adverse inference” may be drawn solely from sexual orientation.
