Lawsuit alleges sexual harassment at Minnesota-based chapter of The Nature Conservancy
Five women have filed a lawsuit against The Nature Conservancy and former associate director Douglas Shaw, alleging sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, retaliation and defamation among a list of complaints.
The women — only identified as Jane Doe one through five — are current and former employees of the environmental nonprofit’s Tri-State Chapter, which includes Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
According to the lawsuit, Shaw started as associate chapter director at The Nature Conservancy in 2011 and was based at the chapter’s headquarters in Minneapolis. The Nature Conservancy terminated Shaw in September 2022.
The lawsuit alleges that Shaw used his “position of power and authority over the plaintiffs” to regularly take photos of them during work-related trips and events, often fieldwork.
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The lawsuit states that the nonprofit encouraged Shaw, who acted as the chapter’s photographer, “to photograph and go on overnight trips to the field with women subordinates,” even after “at least one manager recognized the danger defendant Shaw posed to women in the organization and cautioned multiple women against traveling with defendant Shaw.”
Shaw then posted these photos on his public Flickr account. He also lifted photos of the plaintiffs from their own social media accounts.
“He altered the photos to make them sexual in nature and/or create “deepfake” explicit sexual images,” the lawsuit states.
Shaw used the plaintiffs’ real names in his Flickr posts and made sexual comments. Some photos include the plaintiff’s children or spouses.
The deepfakes depict the plaintiffs naked or engaging in sexual acts according to the lawsuit, which defines deepfakes as “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”
Therese Lawless, a San Francisco lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment and gender discrimination cases, is representing all five plaintiffs.
“Unbeknownst to my clients, he was taking those photos and then either altering them, making them sexually graphic, creating deepfake images or sometimes just posting parts of their bodies — cleavage, the butt, things like that — and then trying to elicit comments from his followers on social media,” Lawless told MPR News. “Many of these are graphic, really disgusting.”
Lawless said her clients all discovered the posts during a two-week period in 2022. The Nature Conservancy terminated Shaw within 24 hours of discovering the social media posts. The lawsuit states that the Tri-State Chapter director Ann Mulholland sent an email out to all her staff, more than 70 employees, notifying them that Shaw had “posted inappropriate pictures and comments” on Flickr.
Mulholland told the staff about the images on social media before making sure that those images had been taken down.
“So as you can imagine, that caused a great deal of embarrassment and humiliation to my clients,” Lawless said.
Nature Conservancy marketing director Christopher Anderson shared a statement with MPR News on behalf of the nonprofit and Mulholland.
“As soon as we became aware of his actions, we terminated him within 24 hours,” it states. “At TNC we are committed to a strong set of Core Values and a robust Code of Conduct. These include having a workplace that is safe, where we are accountable to each other and where everyone is respected and valued. We will not tolerate unprofessional behavior, harassment, bullying or mistreatment in our workplace. In reference to this specific issue, Mr. Shaw violated our Code of Conduct.”
MPR News also reached out to Shaw, who now runs the Wild Birds Unlimited shop in Woodbury. Shaw confirmed that he worked for The Nature Conservancy but said he was unaware of a lawsuit and declined to comment.
Lawless said that while The Nature Conservancy did terminate Shaw within 24 hours of discovering the social media posts, the Tri-State Chapter’s leadership had ignored years of complaints about Shaw and his gender discrimination toward female employees.
“The problem is that The Nature Conservancy knew about this individual before that. Several of my clients had complained about his behavior towards them,” Lawless said. “There was at least one manager in the Tri-State area that had cautioned women about going out into the field with him, because the Nature Conservancy does a lot of field work.”
Lawless said that The Nature Conservancy also lacked proper photography policies for the workplace.
“In other words, if you take images at the workplace, you have to get consent,” Lawless said. “Or if you take images at the workplace, and you’ve been sort of deputized as the photographer, that those are not images that are supposed to be taken out and then used for your own sexual gratification, which is what happened in this case.”
Lawless said her clients had to incur therapy and overcome emotional distress.
“The Nature Conservancy is liable for that because of the fact that he was a managing agent,” Lawless said.
Lawless is known internationally for filing gender discrimination cases against some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, including Facebook. One case that made international headlines was the lawsuit on behalf of Ellen Pao, a junior partner at a venture capital firm who filed a sexual discrimination suit.
“It’s a very important case right now because of the interplay between social media and the workplace,” Lawless said of The Nature Conservancy lawsuit. “Companies — and I don’t care if they’re nonprofits or for profit – they have to be aware that they have to train their employees, and they need to have explicit policies to prevent this type of thing from happening.”
As for the photos, they may still be circling. Some have been found since Shaw was asked to remove them, Lawless said.
“That’s the big question,” Lawless said. “When it gets out on the internet, you can never take it back.”