Lewd e-mails sent despite reprimand

The latest e-mails involved women’s genitalia, men kissing and Obama.

COLUMBUS (AP) — A state employee whose job is to prevent discrimination sent racist and sexist e-mails from his government account, an investigation found.

Robert Habern remains at his Ohio Department of Transportation position, despite being reprimanded last year for sending an e-mail joking about giving jobs to women with large breasts.

Jokes about men kissing and a woman’s genitalia, as well as a racial joke and a caricature of Barack Obama, were in the latest e-mails sent by Habern, according to an ODOT report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Habern, 55, is the department’s Equal Employment Opportunity contracts coordinator in the Lima office. His job is to ensure that vendors with agency contracts comply with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Habern, who makes $51,000, was suspended 10 days without pay in October for sending the new e-mails, which investigators said he confirmed sending.

He received the verbal reprimand last year for sending the e-mail about women with large breasts, and was suspended 20 days without pay in 2004 for viewing inappropriate material online, including sexually explicit Web sites.

“Everything’s all taken care of and squared away,” Habern said in a brief phone interview Tuesday. “It’s over with. I don’t even want to bring it back up. It’s done and over with.”

Highway department investigators say Habern’s e-mails, sent to fellow ODOT employees and nonstate workers, are troublesome given his job as an anti-bias coordinator.

A “significant number of e-mails reviewed portrayed activities inconsistent with federal and state anti-discrimination statues,” the Aug. 29 report on Habern said. “As such, Habern’s activities are even more egregious in nature due to his position at the Department.”

Department officials defended keeping Habern in his position despite the repeat violations, calling October’s unpaid suspension “pretty harsh.”

“We followed the appropriate disciplinary process,” said spokesman Scott Varner. “He’s been well aware that another infraction could lead to his dismissal.”

Habern signed a statement in 2004 acknowledging he understood the agency’s computer use policy. Nevertheless, he told investigators he wasn’t familiar with the department’s e-mail policies.

Varner said that statement was disappointing given the department’s emphasis on appropriate computer usage.

In addition to signing the computer policy, for example, ODOT employees see a pop-up reminder about the policy each day when logging on.

The agency launched its latest investigation into Habern after receiving an anonymous tip about the e-mails.