More than a day after it was revealed that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s former communications director had been fired amid allegations of sexual harassment, misogyny, racism and different abusive habits, the mayor mentioned Wednesday night time that his administration wouldn’t tolerates such habits however has shed no additional mild on the scandal.
“While my Administration doesn’t touch upon particular personnel issues, I need to be clear to the folks of Chicago that any type of intolerance, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, xenophobia or abuse is totally unacceptable in my Administration,” Johnson wrote. in a press release to the Tribune.
The Tribune reported Tuesday that Ronnie Reese, a longtime buddy of the mayor who headed the mayor’s press workplace after Johnson took workplace in May 2023, was fired final month following three inner complaints over alleged behaviors starting from undesirable bodily contact to creating disparaging feedback about marginalized teams and intimidation ways.
A former spokesperson for the Chicago Teachers Union, Reese additionally served as press secretary for Johnson’s mayoral marketing campaign final yr.
In his assertion, Johnson didn’t say how a lot he knew about Reese’s alleged habits earlier than Reese’s firing. The mayor’s present spokeswoman Erin Connelly had no remark Wednesday night on what the mayor knew about Reese’s habits.
The assertion additionally doesn’t present the administration’s response to particulars of complaints that the mayor’s chief of employees, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, was knowledgeable of lots of the allegations however didn’t deal with them shortly sufficient.
Documents present that Reese stored his job for months even after a metropolis human sources investigator notified Pacione-Zayas of formal complaints about Reese’s alleged habits this summer time. When he organized a gathering with members of Reese’s employees, he confronted pushback for allegedly suggesting “peace circles” and “restorative justice” for his habits.
Reese on Tuesday “strongly and unequivocally” denied all allegations made in opposition to him, which the Tribune obtained by means of a public information request for Reese’s personnel file. The three complaints detailed a tradition of concern and punishment in Reese’s workplace as a result of he indicated that “he was ‘untouchable’ and couldn’t be fired.”
“There are many, many others who know my character and who know the reality,” Reese mentioned within the assertion. “I’m assured on this reality as I proceed to prioritize my spouse, my kids, and the well being of my household within the subsequent chapter of my profession.”
An administration supply mentioned Wednesday that it had begun the method of inserting Reese on the town’s do-not-hire checklist, which might prohibit any metropolis division or company from hiring him so long as he remained on that checklist.
Internal complaints relating to Reese’s habits started in the summertime of 2023 after three press workplace staffers had been fired after which positioned on the town’s do-not-hire checklist, an unusually controversial and punitive transfer , after they complained about how Reese and one other prime Johnson staffer handled them. Two of the previous staff, each ladies, now stay on that checklist, however one male employees member efficiently petitioned to be eliminated.
The administration supply mentioned Wednesday that the mayor’s workplace had begun a course of to take away any particular person Reese positioned on the do-not-hire checklist from that checklist, however didn’t share a timeline.
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