President Names Elaine Kaplan to OPM Counsel

The Obama administration has appointed lesbian attorney Elaine Kaplan as general counsel for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where she will serve under the office's gay director, John Berry.

Kaplan's appointment was announced Tuesday by OPM acting director Kathie Ann Whipple.

"With Kaplan's appointment, OPM gains the expertise of an individual with more than 25 years of legal experience in the fields of federal sector labor and employment law who is uniquely qualified to serve the agency in its role as the president's chief advisor on federal human resource issues," Whipple said in a statement.

Kaplan has worked as senior deputy general counsel for the National Treasury Employees Union in Washington since 2004. She began working as an attorney for the NTEU in 1984 and became known as an expert in federal workforce issues. The NTEU represents federal workers at the Department of the Treasury as well as workers in other federal agencies.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton named Kaplan as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which, among other things, is charged with protecting federal workers from employment discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation.

She returned to the NETU in 2004 after her term as head of the Office of Special Counsel ended.

Kaplan joined federal workers and gay rights groups in raising concerns over the policies of her successor at the Office of Special Counsel, Bush administration appointee Scott Bloch, who argued that existing civil service laws did not protect gay federal workers from discrimination. In statements to the media, Kaplan challenged Bloch's interpretation of civil service laws, saying the laws and regulations treat anti-gay job discrimination as a prohibited personnel practice in the federal workforce.

Berry is awaiting Senate confirmation of his appointment by President Obama as director of OPM. He served as a deputy secretary at the Department of the Interior in the Clinton administration and currently serves as director of the National Zoo, which is an entity of the Smithsonian Institution.

Kaplan could not be immediately reached for comment. She was scheduled to leave her NTEU post on March 27 and expected to begin her new job at OPM soon thereafter.

by Lou Chibbaro