The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is responding after yet another racist message was found scrawled on a whiteboard at the agency’s Washington headquarters, becoming one of at least six anonymous notes found since this summer.
In an e-mail blast to employees, Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson said the agency “has no tolerance for racism” and will launch an investigation into the incidents, according to The Hill. Jackson assured workers the EPA was taking “every measure” to find the culprits and promised to “hold the individuals who are spreading these messages responsible.”
The EPA has been struggling to get a hold on several anonymously written racist messages found at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Image courtesy of FCW)
“If you have experienced these actions or have information you believe could be helpful to hold individuals accountable for these actions, please let your supervisors know,” he wrote in the email Monday. “We need to solve problems like these together because it affects all of us and is a problem no one at EPA should experience.”
Jackson has also asked the investigator general’s office to look into the racist messages. So far, the agency said it has no leads on who could be behind them.
The e-mail follows a report by POLITICO last week revealing EPA headquarters has been struggling to get a hold on a number of anonymously written racist messages, which include the N-word, scribbled on a white board of agency’s Office of Public Affairs. Last week’s message was just one of six since mid-August, according to the news site.
It was just last month that EPA director Andrew Wheeler came under fire for his social media activity, which included liking a racist meme featuring former first lady Michelle Obama. In 2013, Wheeler liked a Facebook meme depicting Mrs. Obama watching a sports game while a white person’s hand holds a banana in the foreground.
Wheeler said he didn’t recall liking the offensive photo.
“Over the years, I have been a prolific social media user and liked and inadvertently liked countless social media posts,” he told The Hill at the time. “Specifically, I do not remember the post depicting President Obama and the First Lady.”
