California DFEH Assistant Chief Counsel Accuses Governor of Interference and Resigns

wowhead.com:

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) has lost two of its top lawyers. As reported by Bloomberg, Chief Counsel Janette Wipper has been fired and Assistant Chief Counsel Melanie Proctor has resigned in protest, accusing California Governor Gavin Newsom of interfering in the case against Activision Blizzard.

Axios' Stephen Totilo reported that Wipper had abruptly withdrawn from the cases against Activision and Tesla last week, though at the time there was no report of the apparent conflict between the Governor's office and the DFEH until Proctor resigned. In her departing email to staff, the former assistant chief counsel highlighted increasing interference by Governor Newsom which appeared to mimic the interests of Activision's counsel, along with repeated demands for advanced notice of litigation strategy, and said that Wipper had been fired for attempting to protect the agency's independence from the Governors office.

Prior to her years with the DFEH, Wipper was Regional Director at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) in the federal Department of Labor, where she successfully pursued a pay and hiring discrimination case against Google, ending in a $3.8 million settlement last year. According to Bloomberg, advocates considered her a strong litigator unafraid to flex the departments muscles, while detractors accused her of attempting to publicly embarrass companies into capitulation throughout long and expensive taxpayer funded legal cases.