Senior OPM leader used racial slur, sexist language, watchdog finds

He called a subordinate a “hot blonde.” He told another woman who worked for him he “hoped some studly guy would be rubbing oil on her back at the beach.” He used the n-word in a meeting with his staff.

These are among the litany of racially and sexually offensive behaviors by a former high-ranking Defense Department official that the Pentagon’s inspector general says it substantiated in a new report released on Thursday.

The misconduct by former acting comptroller Douglas A. Glenn — which investigators said included drinking with subordinates during work hours at least twice without authorization, in violation of Pentagon policy — happened as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised to eradicate racism and sexual misconduct in the military and President Biden pledged to advance racial equity in the federal government.

As the investigation into his conduct at the Pentagon was underway, Glenn was hired in November 2021 by the Office of Personnel Management, where he now serves as chief financial officer — raising questions about the vetting process used by the government’s own personnel agency.

“We concluded that Mr. Glenn engaged in an overall course of conduct that failed to treat subordinates with dignity and respect when he made sexually suggestive and racially insensitive comments in the workplace,” said the 36-page report by the office of Defense Department Inspector General Robert P. Storch.

Viet Tran, an OPM spokesman, declined to comment on Friday, leaving unclear Glenn’s status at the agency.

Glenn did not return messages left at his home and on his cellphone. In the report, Glenn denied intentionally creating a hostile work environment even as he acknowledged that a number of the allegations against him were true. “Mr. Glenn told us that his subordinates might have misinterpreted what he said as sexually suggestive, but his comments were ‘not intended that way in any way, shape, or form,’” the report found. In some cases, investigators said, they modified their findings in response to Glenn’s denials. But “we stand by our conclusions,” the report said.

Three former colleagues of Glenn from his decades-long career in the federal government — two women and one Black man — contacted The Washington Post to defend his record and dispute the report’s findings, though they said they did not have direct knowledge of the incidents in the investigation.

“I would count him as my best boss in 32 years in government,” said Vickie Jones, who worked for Glenn a decade ago when he served as deputy chief financial officer at the General Services Administration.

The decision to name Glenn in the report underscores a gradual shift by federal watchdogs toward going public when senior executives are found to have engaged in misconduct and away from protecting their privacy.

After working in the Interior Department, Glenn joined the Defense Department as assistant deputy chief financial officer in December 2018. He was promoted to deputy chief financial officer in December 2020, then was elevated to acting comptroller from January through April of 2021. Before leaving for OPM, he had returned to the deputy role.

The comptroller is the defense secretary’s principal adviser for budgetary and fiscal matters.

Investigators, who received anonymous complaints about Glenn’s conduct at the Pentagon in early 2021, according to the report, say they substantiated most of the allegations through interviews with 18 witnesses and hundreds of thousands of emails in the 21-month investigation. The behavior described in the report occurred in conversations with a small number of subordinates and in all-hands meetings with hundreds of Pentagon staff, depicting a public servant whose comportment around matters of race and sex was widely known and violated numerous Defense Department regulations.

In one incident at a large staff meeting in February 2021, investigators say Glenn acted against the advice of two subordinates when he questioned the motives of people whom former president Barack Obama described in a 2013 speech on his experiences of racism. Obama recalled hearing people lock their car doors as he walked past their vehicles.

But Glenn told the audience “that the people who locked their car doors ‘might not have been racist’ or had other reasons for locking them,” according to the report. Seven of eight people on Glenn’s staff told investigators that the comment “made them and other subordinates feel appalled, surprised, betrayed, stunned, and very confused, and that it was an inappropriate and insensitive thing to say.”

Interviewed by investigators, Glenn said he was trying to show how “people can look at things differently” on matters of race.

“Who are the people in the car that are locking their doors?” Glenn told the inspector general’s staff, according to the report “Maybe they’re racists. Maybe they’re looking at a Black man and assuming there’s a high potential for being robbed. Or maybe they’re just following National Highway Administration guidelines to lock your doors when you drive. It could be either.’”

In the same meeting, investigators found, Glenn called on an Asian American woman on his staff to describe how she felt as an “Asian female” in a department “that considers China its biggest threat.” Glenn acknowledged to investigators that the exchange was “awkward,” but said he thought he had okayed it with the employee beforehand.

Glenn “stated that his performance rating for that time period was ‘Exceeds Fully Successful,’ leading him to believe that nobody complained to his supervisor about his all-hands comments,” the report said.

A few weeks later, Glenn told some of his subordinates that he wanted to hold another all-hands meeting focusing on diversity and inclusion. During a discussion with a small group of colleagues, he described an anecdote he would bring up in which he used the n-word.

“[In the story], Mr. Glenn complimented a former colleague on a sweater [they] wore, and the former colleague replied that [they] wore it to stop all of the negative comments,” the report said. “However, Mr. Glenn misheard the colleague and thought [they] said to stop all of the n-word comments. [A witness] said that Mr. Glenn’s colleague corrected him and said [they] did not say the n-word but said ‘negative comments’ instead. [A witness] told us that Mr. Glenn said he thought the misunderstanding was funny because ‘when he relayed that story to a Black person, the Black person looks at him horrified. But when he relays that story to White friends, the White friends laugh and think it’s hilarious.’”

Glenn confirmed using the racial slur, but said the story was intended to “highlight the different reactions he received and to explain why it is difficult to discuss race.”

“One subordinate … was alarmed, appalled, and offended that Mr. Glenn thought it was okay to use the n-word,” the report found.

The inspector general also substantiated, through multiple witnesses, concerning comments Glenn made about female colleagues and subordinates. One recounted that Glenn told her that if he could line up all the women in the office, they would not look as good as she did. Another female employee said Glenn referred to her as a “hot blonde” at an out-of-office happy hour.

“Mr. Glenn responded to the sexually sensitive comments by denying that he made the comments, saying that he did not recall making the comments, and telling us that the comments did not sound like anything he would say,” the report said.

Investigators also said they confirmed two occasions when Glenn drank wine and craft beer in his office during work hours and offered them to subordinates. He acknowledged that he stored alcohol in his office and occasionally drank, mostly after hours, but stopped when he learned that the Defense Department requires written authorization to consume alcohol on the job.

Glenn’s fate is now in the hands of OPM Director Kiran Ahuja, who received the inspector general’s report from the Defense Department on Thursday and is reviewing it, Tran said.