Washington UTC chair who used racial slur asked to resign

Third-party findings

An investigator with the Bellevue-based Sebris Busto James law firm concluded that Danner and Rendahl violated three UTC policies, though the commissioners disputed significant portions of each witness account of the alleged violations.

The report relays the complainants’ accounts of Rendahl using the N-word during a February 2022 book club meeting to discuss the text White Fragility. She told the investigator that she only used it to relate an encounter she overheard at a conference where a regulator from Montana said it during a social event. She did not perceive anyone to be troubled by it, the report stated. 

The complainants also accused Danner of showing up late to the same book club and retelling the story using the full word. He denied that, but did admit to recounting the same story using the full slur during an April 2022 lunch with Maxwell and a Black author scheduled to give an upcoming DEI talk.

In a recent letter to the Governor’s Office, Danner said he “deeply regret[s]” saying the N-word at the lunch, but does not think it constitutes a policy violation. He accused Maxwell and the other senior managers who resigned of filing complaints against him and Rendahl as part of a “coordinated campaign” of retaliation for forcing Maxwell out. 

The letter also argued the Governor’s Office had acted in violation of the state Constitution when it recently reduced Danner’s salary amid the investigation. 

“I have done nothing that constitutes malfeasance,” Danner told Cascade PBS, referencing one of the legal thresholds for removing a UTC commissioner. “And to cut my salary as a workaround … if it is to try and intimidate me into resigning, that’s also illegal.” 

Within a few months of Maxwell’s appointment in 2021, a number of anonymous complaints accused Maxwell’s leadership team of bullying and demeaning subordinates. The report does not appear to follow up on those allegations and does not make any determinations about the validity of those complaints. 

But the report does outline employee allegations that one senior leader “discredits and actively puts down viewpoints or experiences that disagree with her,” and that another manager “lectured” BIPOC job candidates when she found their answers to questions about DEI wanting, telling them to “Go read White Fragility.” Senior leadership also allegedly dismissed feedback about their management style as motivated by sexism, the employee complaints included in the report claim.

Maxwell and other senior leaders reported that they considered these anonymous complaints harassment and repeatedly asked the commissioners to investigate their source and call a staff meeting to tell employees who were filing the anonymous complaints to stop. 

Rendahl agreed that the complaints were harassing and contained misogynistic language, but was counseled not to address them at a staff meeting, she told the investigator, adding that she could not remember who gave her that advice. 

Danner reportedly rejected the idea that the complaints against female leadership constituted gender-based harassment, calling them “sincere complaints made by employees who felt they were being bullied” and telling the investigator that one female administrator has “a history of being very histrionic about injustices put upon her.”

Danner further argued that the remedies suggested to him — such as calling a meeting and telling staff to stop filing anonymous complaints — could have been perceived as an attempt to retaliate against whistleblowers.

The report indicates the commissioners took no action to address the complaints. 

A third violation concerned allegations that the commissioners were hostile to and dismissive of equity and antiracism efforts. Complainants alleged the commissioners talked over female leaders and “chastised” a team for resisting edits that toned down equity language in a case order. Both commissioners denied the allegations, but the investigator found them to be in violation of internal policies that require UTC management to actively engage in promoting DEI efforts.

“I find that Mr. Danner and Ms. Rendahl failed to comply with directives in the policy by taking a passive approach to the agency’s equity work and not actively engaging with senior leaders to find alternative methods to advance the agency’s EDI efforts,” the investigator wrote.

The investigator was unable to substantiate numerous other allegations, including that the commissioners retaliated against a senior leader for using paid family and medical leave; refused to promote a senior leader based on her race and gender; exhibited preferential treatment of white male staff; and mispronounced “Tagalog” and compared the language to Klingon. Both commissioners denied those allegations.