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Female employees have fled a “toxic environment” at the country’s top banking regulator. They alleged that senior employees sent photos of their penises and invited junior-level employees to strip clubs, a report has found.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – the agency responsible for protecting the public’s money in the event of a bank failure and ensuring financial institutions comply with regulations – has been accused in a Wall Street Journal report of having a “sexualized boys club environment” and not punishing bad behavior.
More than 100 current and former employees interviewed said at least 20 women had quit because of an alleged culture of “sexual harassment and misogyny.”
The claims against the WSJ – which span more than a decade – include a male supervisor in San Francisco inviting employees to a strip club, a supervisor in Denver having sex with an employee and telling others about it, and multiple senior employees taking photos sending their penises to female staff.
All of the men at the center of the claims are reportedly still employed by the FDIC, despite various legal filings, union grievances and complaints regarding their alleged bad behavior.
The FDIC building outside Washington – many of the claims center on the regulator’s 11-story hotel, which is used to house out-of-town interns
Lauren Lemmer (left) quit in 2013 amid claims she was repeatedly harassed and denied advancement opportunities, Kelsi Foutz (right) quit last year after senior male colleagues allegedly made inappropriate comments
Many of the allegations center on the FDIC’s 11-story hotel, a “party hub” outside Washington where employees stay while undergoing training.
The FDIC spent more than $100 million on the hotel in the 1980s. Former employees told the Journal that employees would regularly get drunk, throw up in the elevator and urinate off the roof.
Two of the former female employees who spoke out – Lauren Lemmer and Kelsi Foutz – said they were repeatedly harassed by their male colleagues.
One of the whistleblowers, Lemmer, quit her job as a trainee examiner in 2013 after working for the regulator for three years.
She told the Journal that during her time at the FDIC, she was followed to her Dallas hotel room during training by a male colleague, was invited by other bank examiners to a strip club in Seattle and sent an unsolicited nude photo of a colleague.
Lemmer said senior colleagues – including her supervisor Trevor McIntosh – regularly made comments about her appearance and her dating life.
She wasn’t the only woman to complain about McIntosh. In 2015, a union commissioner said he had also raised concerns about McIntosh.
McIntosh denied making sexual comments to the WSJ.
The FDIC is the top U.S. banking regulator and is responsible for insuring the public’s bank deposits
The FDIC is the top U.S. banking regulator and is responsible for protecting the public’s money in the event of a bank failure
An FDIC official said, “Harassment in any form is inconsistent with the FDIC’s values and our deep commitment to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace.”
She added that the agency strives to create a “safe and equitable environment where all employees can feel valued and respected,” and that it will always “investigate and take appropriate action.”
Another supervisor, Randal Ditch, was demoted to a non-supervisory role in 2014 after twice having sex with a subordinate female employee and a number of other agency violations, according to records of his case with the Merit Systems Protection Board.
He allegedly pressured her to drink a shot of whiskey at work, telling her not to be ‘ap****’.
Kelsi Foutz, a senior risk management examiner who worked in Salt Lake City and San Francisco, quit last year amid similar allegations.
She told the Journal that she was advised not to discuss a negative performance review with her reviewer because he is “just intimidated by tall, beautiful women,” while two male managers advised her to “just smile and make him feel good.” .
Her first experience with misogyny at the agency came after she joined the agency in 2013 at the age of 21.
She said a senior married examiner told her he wasn’t having enough sex at lunch, adding: “If I walked into this office and you were naked, of course I would be fucking you right here.”
The FDIC is an independent federal agency with fewer than 6,000 employees. It is financed by insurance premiums paid by banks, not by the federal budget.
Pictured are FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg and Vice Chairman Michael Barr testifying before a U.S. Senate committee in March
The FDIC announced the closure of First Republic Bank and its purchase by JPMorgan Chase Bank. The FDIC are the agencies that regulate banks to ensure they comply with federal regulators
About 60 percent of examiners were male in 2022 and occupied 65 percent of executive management positions.
According to the WSJ, layoffs of trainee examiners more than doubled to 54 percent in 2021, up from 24 percent the year before, and to 62 percent in the first nine months of 2022.
An internal FDIC review cited the struggle to retain examiners as part of the reason it previously failed to find problems with Signature Bank, First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank before they failed this year.
The high-profile failures are among the most high-profile since the Great Depression and have raised concerns about the country’s banking system.
In 2020, the agency’s inspector general found that the FDIC’s policies for preventing, identifying and disciplining sexual harassment were inadequate.
The agency reportedly called the tracking of misconduct allegations “decentralized, untimely, incomplete and inaccurate.”
Meanwhile, the agency’s 2020 report cited a 2019 survey that found 8 percent of more than 2,300 respondents said they had been sexually harassed. About 38 percent of those harassed said they did not report the incidents for fear of reprisals.
A 2021 arbitration panel survey found that 18 percent of female FDIC employees reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in the past two years.