The fact is...
From: Appendix to Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian. Noting that the OSC performed the original investigation and determined that it did not have jurisdiction. QUOTE
Specifically, tke OSC found that had Dr. Sternberg been protected by Title V of U.S. Code, the NMNH staff would have violated Section 2303 (b) (1 0) referring to the prohibition on personnel to discriminate against an employee for non-job related activities. Additionally, the OSC found that "there is a strong religious and political component to the actions taken after the publication or the Meyer article." The OSC letter concludes that the retaliation against Dr. Sternberg was supported by the evidence: "Our preliminary investigalion indicates that retaliation came in many forms. It came in the form of attempts to change your working conditions and even proposals to change how the SI retains and deals with future RAs. During the process you were personally investigated and your professional competence attacked. Misinformation was disseminated throughout the SI and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false. It is also clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI."
END QUOTE
So it is OK for the Smithsonian to perform such actions against an associate who is not an employee per se?
I loved the bias of that. For example, in quoting emails supposedly designed to organize discrimination against him, there’s this bit:
“One important thing to keep in mind, however, is the equal treatment of all RAs in the section. You must not impose more onerous restrictions on one particular RA than on other RA’s in the section”
No matter what they did, they remembered that they could not punish him. As far as a hostile work environment, well boo-hoo. He does something most others in his profession see as wrong and supports a view that most see as invalid, and he expects not to get heat? Whiner.
Now all RAs require a sponsor, since it is a privilege to work there. After this it didn’t look like anyone would volunteer as a sponsor. That’s obvious, nobody’s going to put his butt on the line to sponsor someone who has done what Sternberg did. So we got this email:
“Anyway, the core point, I obviously am not going to be able to find a sponsor for Sternberg, yet his official status is as a research associate for the next three years. If you don’t want to make a martyr of him, I’ll sponsor him.”
He actually had an offer of special treatment because of his status as a religious whiner. This is of course interpreted as mistreatment.