The North Carolina Democratic Party moved up the termination date of an employee who alleged in a formal complaint that a female supervisor had punished him for a sexual relationship they’d had, according to the text of the complaint and three people with knowledge of how it was handled.
The NCDP offered the worker a severance agreement in exchange for his silence about the agreement’s terms, according to the three people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The three sources also said they had no knowledge of any investigation into the complaint but that if one did occur, it was conducted in less than four days, given the date the severance agreement took effect.
The male employee’s contract originally expired on Dec. 15, but the NCDP moved up his end-work date to Dec. 6 — cutting short his work period by a week — and paid him through the end of January. The man, who declined to speak to HuffPost, also waived his right to sue the NCDP as a condition of his severance. To protect his privacy and career prospects, HuffPost will call the male employee John Doe.
Two labor law experts, fully briefed on the matter by HuffPost, nonetheless said that John Doe would have had a strong claim in court to argue that the state party violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on retaliating against employees who make allegations of sexual harassment or related violations of labor law. (Employers, not individuals, are liable to be sued for Title VII violations.)
Jeffrey Hirsch, an employment law specialist at the University of North Carolina Law School, said the employee would have a “pretty strong retaliation claim.” Eric Fink, an employment law professor at North Carolina’s Elon University, had a similar assessment: “There’s enough here to suggest a plausible retaliation claim.”
Beyond the legal questions, the Democratic Party has broadly committed itself to protecting victims of sexual harassment, with many in the party criticizing the use of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence alleged victims following the Me Too movement.
“It shows that we’re not living our values,” said the first source familiar with the complaint, a Democratic operative who is familiar with the details of John Doe’s case and asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation. “We are the party of workers’ rights. We are the party of safe and inclusive environments where people feel comfortable.”
What’s more, this source believes that the NCDP’s response would have been different if the person filing the complaint had been a woman and the alleged aggressor a man.
“In our progressive ecosystem, we often say ‘trust women’ or ‘believe women.’ Abusers are often portrayed exclusively as men,” the Democratic operative said. “That’s true more often than not, but we’ve locked ourselves into thinking only women can be victims in this kind of situation.”
The woman accused of sexual harassment did not respond to a request for comment about the claims against her. HuffPost will call her Jane Doe to protect her privacy.
The NCDP confirmed the existence of a severance agreement with John Doe.
But neither the NCDP, its elected chair, Anderson Clayton, nor the NCDP executive director responded to questions about whether the party conducted a full investigation of John Doe’s allegations, the potential illegality of the party’s response, the potential progressive values conflict or the potential that gender bias was a factor in how the allegations were handled.
The North Carolina Democratic Party instead issued a statement suggesting Clayton and other leaders of the party were not involved with John Doe’s termination since he was an employee of Democrats’ state Senate Caucus — a semi-autonomous branch of the NCDP — at the time. “[John Doe] was employed by the Senate Caucus during the 2024 election cycle as a temporary employee,” the party said. “The Senate Caucus functions separately from the state party. We are unable to discuss personnel matters, but can confirm a mutually agreeable separation agreement on behalf of the Senate Caucus.”
The NCDP later added, “Chair Clayton had no involvement with the matters which are the subject of your inquiry.”
Battleground-state parties frequently scale up their operations during presidential election years. John Doe had a temporary contract but had been on NCDP’s payroll since October 2023.
Asked about the NCDP’s statement and the details of John Doe’s case, the Senate Caucus offered a different characterization of its relationship to the state party.
“As a matter of standard practice, we do not discuss specific personnel matters or decisions,” the Senate Caucus said in a statement. “We can confirm that the Senate Caucus operates within the broader structure of the North Carolina Democratic Party, with the NCDP managing human resources, legal affairs, compliance, and operations functions. Beyond this organizational clarification, we are not in a position to provide further comment on this matter.”
‘After She Got What She Wanted’
The predicament for the North Carolina Democratic Party began in earnest on Dec. 3. That day, John Doe emailed the director of the Senate Caucus, his employer at the time, to express his discomfort working under Jane Doe, his direct supervisor.
In an explicit allegation of illegal workplace discrimination, John Doe accused Jane Doe of “actions which have crossed the line into creating a hostile or unsafe work environment.”
According to John Doe’s email complaint, obtained by HuffPost, Jane Doe encouraged him for months to believe he had a long-term future with the party, including a permanent fundraising role in 2025 — past when his December contract was set to expire.
As a result, John Doe reported, he felt that staying in Jane Doe’s good graces was a professional necessity. Under at least some sense of duress, he said, he agreed to take care of personal chores for Jane Doe, to regularly socialize with her after work, and finally, one night in September, to have sex with her.
After that, John Doe said, he felt that Jane Doe was suddenly cold to him and gradually cut him out of responsibilities that had once been his.
“After she got what she wanted and wanted nothing else to do with me, she treated me so incredibly poorly that the hostility had an incredibly detrimental effect on my work productivity, mental health, and physical health,” he wrote in his Dec. 3 email complaint to the Senate Caucus director.
In the complaint, John Doe reported experiencing depression and having greater difficulty focusing on his job as his professional relationship with Jane Doe deteriorated in October and November. To cope, he wrote, he turned to heavier drinking and eating.
John Doe also wrote that he had raised concerns to the Senate Caucus director in person in November. He said that he had waited more than a month to come forward because he did not want to distract from his work on a tight state Senate race and the recount that followed it.
John Doe finally said he was no longer comfortable working under Jane Doe and requested to work from home the next two days, but otherwise seemed most interested in an acknowledgment of his grievances and some form of redress in the workplace.
“I do not know what the proper resolution to all of this is. I will say that all of these issues are exacerbated by the fact that I will soon lose all of my income, as well as my health insurance,” he wrote. “I believed I had a future at the caucus, and I also believe that [Jane Doe] threw it all away for her own personal gain, and with it, completely tanked my reputation with you, who I have a great deal of professional respect for.”
In conjunction with the NCDP’s attorneys, the NCDP presented John Doe with a deal in which he would agree to stop working at the close of that workweek (a week earlier than planned), waive the right to sue, and refrain from either speaking about the agreement or disparaging the party, according to the three sources. In return, the NCDP reportedly agreed to extend his regular pay and health care coverage through the end of January and provide a positive reference for future jobs.
In cases of alleged sexual harassment, the North Carolina Democratic Party’s employee handbook requires the party to “immediately undertake a thorough, objective, and confidential investigation of the harassment allegations.”
“Any employee determined by the Party to be responsible for unlawful harassment will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including termination,” the handbook states. “The Party will not retaliate against an employee for filing a complaint and will not tolerate or permit retaliation by management, employees, or co-workers.”
Neither the NCDP nor the Senate Caucus responded when asked whether there was an investigation of John Doe’s allegation.
If there was any investigation of John Doe’s claims while he was still employed, it was remarkably swift. Having sent the email on a Tuesday, John Doe, who agreed to the deal, was no longer working by the end of the day on Friday.
“The whole timeline was very tight,” said the Democratic operative familiar with the severance agreement. “Any meaningful investigation takes a couple of weeks.”
“It shows that we’re not living our values. We are the party of workers’ rights. We are the party of safe and inclusive environments where people feel comfortable.”
– Democratic operative who is familiar with the details of John Doe’s case
North Carolina Democrats’ Senate Caucus has autonomy in day-to-day affairs. But contrary to the NCDP’s suggestion in its statement to HuffPost, the caucus is fundamentally an arm of the party. The party funds all of the Senate Caucus’ operations, including the salaries of all of its workers, according to public financial disclosures.
As the Senate Caucus noted to HuffPost — and multiple sources confirmed — the Senate Caucus relies on the NCDP to handle general human resources matters, and relies on the NCDP’s lawyers for matters requiring legal counsel. Senate Caucus employees even receive the same NCDP employee handbook ensuring a “thorough” investigation of sexual harassment claims, according to the three sources with knowledge of the matter.
Although the North Carolina Democratic Party Plan of Organization 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.”
A Young Democratic Star Cruising To Reelection?
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 nationalmediaprofiles 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.
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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.