A Longstanding Belief of Job Harassment -- Akin Gump

The following are pages 484 and 485 of the record on appeal in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998). In the April 1990 I sent a letter to the Anti-Defamation League inquiring into the anti-semitic nature of the harassment I was experiencing at Akin Gump. The letter establishes the long-standing nature of my beliefs. Akin Gump claimed that my belief that I was a victim of job harassment was the product of "ideas of reference," a technical psychiatric term. I do not know whether definitionally the term "ideas of reference" can apply to longstanding beliefs or whether the term applies only to momentary perceptions that the individual tends to forget over time.

May 10, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008

Mr. Donald M. Stocks
Case Investigations
D.C. Dept. of Human Rights &
Minority Business Development
2000 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009

RE: Docket No.: 92-087-P(N)
Gary Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Stocks:

Enclosed in connection with the above-referenced matter is a copy of a draft of a letter I sent, on about April 16, 1990, to the Anti-Defamation League, 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, (202) 857-6660.

The sending of the letter establishes that I had complained to a third-party regarding the harassment at least as of April 1990. Further, the letter establishes that my perecption that I was a victim of harassment was longstanding--that my complaint of harassment in late October 1991 was not improperly motivated by any bias against any particular individual at that time.

The letter actually sent, like the enclosed draft, did not identify the name of my employer.

I wrote the letter a few weeks after being transferred ["demoted" per Akin Gump in McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld] to the Respondent's Litigation Support Group under Chris Robertson, in March 1990.

I did not receive a reply to the letter, and did not follow up on the inquiry.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

April 14, 1990
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008

Dear Sir:

I am interested in any comments you might offer or any published material you might direct me to that discusses harassment on the job by fellow employees--harassment that is not explicitly anti-semitic but might be motivated by anti-semitism.

Specifically, the harassment includes:

1) the spreading of a rumor that an employee is a homosexual

2) shuning of the employee by fellow employees and alleging, in turn, that the employee is unsociable and perversely chooses not to "join in"

3) repeated use of sexual double entendres and sexual innuendo by fellow employees in an attempt to harass the employee, and

4) repeated attempts to devalue the employee in the eyes of his employer.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman