Corrupt Multnomah County District Attorney‘s Office
Work in Progress Claims of gender bias at Multnomah District Attorney‘s Office Last week, an attorney at the Multnomah District Attorney’s Office, Amber Kinney, submitted her letter of resignation to her boss, Mike Schmidt, who was elected in 2020 on his platform of criminal justice system reform and police accountability. Kinney explained that she was not quitting because of any “philosophical differences” with Schmidt’s policies — for which he was elected in a landslide — but rather due to her workload and his gender discrimination, which she stated had impacted the promotion and retention of women prosecutors. Kinney noted that the problem of gender discrimination predated Schmidt’s arrival at the office, but asserted that it had worsened under him — even going so far as to claim that “women’s forward progress” had been “set back decades” under his leadership. She included statistics in her letter to support her allegations: Women mostly have not been hired or promoted into leadership roles under Schmidt; and of the people who have resigned since Schmidt’s election, the majority were women. Those stats appear compelling at a glance, but Kinney’s data was produced in a relatively small office (77 attorneys) during an atypical period of time (Covid, Portland protests, absolute mess left after the dramatic resignation of Schmidt’s predecessor, etc.).¹ Under those conditions, it wouldn’t take much to skew the numbers dramatically and lead to a faulty hypothesis. More significantly, Kinney cannot speak for the other women who resigned. Regardless, the interesting part of Kinney’s letter — which the Oregonian wisely chose to exclude from its article about her departure — was her suggestion of work accommodations for women: “Increased workloads disproportionately impact women. Women, especially those of us who are also mothers, are often tasked with much of the domestic responsibilities in addition to… Read More
