North Carolina Democrats Silenced Employee Who Made Sexual Harassment Complaint

The North Carolina does not explicitly outline each of the internal managerial responsibilities of a state party chair, it says the chair’s first duty is to “serve as the leader of the party organization in North Carolina.”

The NCDP has denied that Clayton had any involvement with John Doe’s complaint, but three sources claim she had the right to intervene if she chose to.

“If she had said ‘stop,’ it would have had to stop,” said the second source, a North Carolina Democrat familiar with party operations, who confirmed details of what occurred and requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

A fourth person familiar with the NCDP’s operations but not with John Doe’s case, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said “the chair and executive director are always looped in whenever it had to do with hiring or HR issues, including in the Senate and House caucuses.” The source had no knowledge, however, of the chair and executive director’s level of involvement in this specific case.

Asked to weigh in on the substance of John Doe’s claims in the December complaint, Fink and Hirsch both noted that the legal standard is very high for demonstrating a “hostile work environment” in retaliation for a sexual tryst. Federal law does not, per se, prohibit sexual relationships between supervisors and employees — and neither does the North Carolina Democratic Party’s employee handbook.

Regardless of the legal merit of his allegations, however, John Doe’s right to lodge the complaint free of punishment was clear-cut, and based on the information that Hirsch and Fink reviewed, he could argue that the party’s response was retaliatory, they said.

In court, the burden would be on the employer to show it did not move up John Doe’s termination date because of his complaint, according to the two attorneys.

“Employment discrimination cases are very hard to win,” said Hirsch, who is also co-editor of the Workplace Prof Blog. “Retaliation claims tend to be more successful.”

In addition, Fink and Hirsch both said they advise employers to go beyond what may be strictly necessary from a legal perspective.

“The best practice for the employer would be to at least pursue the complaint, investigate the complaint … as opposed to just paying people to be quiet and go away,” said Fink, who was not speaking from knowledge about whether an investigation occurred.

Clayton herself has long underscored the need to treat campaign workers with respect.

“All I’m asking for is campaign accountability for people who don’t do their jobs and enforce a toxic work culture,” she posted on X in November 2020. “Campaigns refusing to fire people for the sake of saving face. This s*%# starts at the very very top of campaigns, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

Clayton was an underdog when she ran to lead North Carolina Democrats in February 2023. At the time, she was chair of the Democratic Party in Person County — a rural area just north of the Research Triangle where Donald Trump won 61% of the vote this past November.

She ran on reviving the party’s connection to rural voters with a 100-county organizing strategy — a departure from the party’s usual focus on the base and persuadable moderates in the suburbs. And in a state party where moderate Democrats have historically dominated, she was squarely from the progressive wing.

Following her upset win at age 25, Clayton was the rare state party chair to become a national figure, thanks to her charisma and status as the youngest state party chair in the country. During the 2024 election cycle, she was the subject of numerous national media profiles focused on the insight she offered into the youth vote. She is now leveraging her fluency on platforms like TikTok to keep Democrats engaged during a prolonged fight with Republicans over certifying a Democrat’s victory in the 2024 state Supreme Court election.

It’s not a big surprise that Clayton, now 27, is currently the strong favorite to win a second two-year term as chair. The NCDP’s state executive committee, which consists of more than 640 people, is set to vote on officers on Feb. 22. As of this writing, former congressional candidate Marlando Pridgen is Clayton’s only declared challenger.

Still, not all Democrats are happy with Clayton’s tenure as chair. Notwithstanding North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein’s triumph over a scandal-plagued Republican opponent and a net one-seat gain in the highly gerrymandered state House of Representatives, former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the state by two points more than former President Joe Biden did in 2020.

More telling still, Harris got 51% of North Carolina’s under-30 voters, compared with Biden’s 57% share, according to the ABC News exit polls.

“She is young, inexperienced, and arrogant,” said outspoken Clayton critic Gracie Galloway, a founder of the NCDP’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus. “For goodness’ sake, listen to people who have been around the block a few times.”

Clayton did not respond to a request for comment on Galloway’s criticism.