The Asbury Park Press has recently released a report showing that "New Jersey has paid millions in sexual harassment cases, but little has been done to change the culture in some agencies." In the report the project was mentioned and John Paff was quoted.
John Paff, chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy Project, lamented what he sees as a lack of transparency in government sexual harassment cases.
“My main problem is there doesn’t appear to be any ramifications in many cases,” with employees being disciplined, he said.
One of the tasks of the NJ Open Government Taskforce is discovering hidden government secrets. Many towns, county bodies, and state agencies, instead of fighting lawsuits, pay off the accusers. When this occurs we have no way of finding out the validity of the accusations. All we can determine is that someone decided that it would be easier to make an out of court settlement rather than take the issue to trial. Most often these settlements are done without announcement. When we find them we post them to this website, the Open Government Advocacy Blog, and/or various public forums.