Talk:Ray Jefferson

edit war
Can we please stop the edit war? Labor Watch (talk) 04:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I have semi-protected the page to try and bang this on the head!  Brookie :) - he's in the building somewhere!  (Whisper...) 12:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Removing 'unreferenced' information
Hey, I removed some information which wasn't sourced. It said it was sourced but there wasn't anything within the sources which said that this gentleman was led out of his office by the FBI. If someone finds a source which does say that, I've got no objection to it, but at the moment I can't see one. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 22:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid editing
Please see this discussion for details of at least one UPE event in this page. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:22, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Some Proposed Changes
I am proposing changes to the last paragraph in the Career section, and, the addition of a brand new paragraph to the end of the Career as outlined below:

Jefferson resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary at the Department of Labor on July 25, 2011, following accusations that he violated federal procurement rules. An Inspector General's report date July 18, 2011, alleged there were complaints by employees and government contractors that Jefferson violated procurement policies associated with Stewart Liff. According to the Washington Post, Jefferson denied giving any special treatment for Liff, telling investigators that he believed Liff could help transform the culture at VETS. In a separate response, Liff asserted he received no special treatment and conformed to all government contracting requirements and work performance. DOL asked for Mr. Jefferson’s resignation on July 26, 2011. Mr. Jefferson tendered his resignation, but maintained his innocence regarding any and all wrongdoing, including the four allegations of wrongdoing set forth in the DOL-OIG Report. Mr. Jefferson then commenced an eight-year battle to clear his name and vindicate his reputation, including filing a federal lawsuit in which he brought four constitutional claims. Peter Choharis was the lawyer representing Jefferson.

After eight years and on September 26, 2019, Jefferson was fully exonerated of all allegations of wrongdoing. As part of the lawsuit, both DOL and DOL-OIG participated in additional investigations and fact-finding. In September 2019, DOL issued a letter to Mr. Jefferson that stated in part: “At the time when you were asked to resign and when DOL responded to DOL-OIG's Report, DOL did not have DOL-OIG's September 26, 2019 letter, which, after consideration of existing record evidence as well as information that had not previously been considered, has now concluded that none of the allegations against you were substantiated.” The DOL letter went on to say, “DOL agrees that, if it had had DOL-OIG's July 18, 2011 report as now modified by DOL-OIG's September 26, 2019 letter, DOL would not have made its July 26, 2011, request for your resignation and would not have responded with the August 31, 2011 Memorandum as it did. I further note that DOL never took disciplinary action against you. We therefore consider this matter closed.”Tsmith47 (talk) 17:56, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi, thank you for proposing edits and declaring your conflict of interest. Unfortunately, I have declined your edit request because the proposed additions would put WP:UNDUE weight on the IG report and their subsequent findings. I also noticed the banners at the top of the page about the article requiring a cleanup so I went through all the sources and reformatted the article. I removed unreliable sources and claims I could not reliably cite, per WP:BLP, and summarized the available information. If you would like to propose more changes, please follow the instructions at Template:Request edit and if there are any questions or comments please post below or leave a message on my talk page. Z1720 (talk) 02:16, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Some Proposed Changes December 2020
I am proposing the following updates and changes to the article.

Replacement of the existing content under the Post-Government Career section with the following content:

Jefferson is the President of Jefferson Group, a global leadership consultancy based in Singapore.

The creation of a Personal Life section in the article with the following content:

Jefferson is a member of the Asia Society, Fulbright Association, NAACP, and Special Forces Association, and Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).

Jefferson divides his time between Singapore and the US, and considers home to be Honolulu, Hawaii .Tsmith47 (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Reformatted request. ✅ for post-gov career section. for personal life, because half of the sources listed cite allgov.com, which is considered generally unreliable. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Some Proposed Changes January 2021
I am proposing the following updates and changes to the article:

Update the third sentence in the opening paragraph to the following:

During a training session while serving as an Army officer with Special Forces, he lost all of his fingers on his left hand while attempting to protect his teammates from a defective hand grenade that was detonating prematurely.

Update the second sentence in the Military career section to the following:

He served as an Army Officer with the infantry and Special Forces, with leadership positions in the U.S. Presidential Honor Guard, 3rd Ranger Battalion and 1st Special Forces Group.

Replace the content in the US Department of Labor section with the following:

In 2009, Jefferson was appointed as US Assistant Secretary for the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) of the US Department of Labor by President Barack Obama.

The work Jefferson carried out was acknowledged in Fortune & Forbes Magazines, along with Bloomberg Businessweek.

Jefferson’s work and achievements at the agency were studied by business in government experts Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson and published in their book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government.

Jefferson resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary at the Department of Labor on July 25, 2011, following accusations that he violated federal procurement rules. An Inspector General's report alleged that two whistleblowers reported that Jefferson directed VETS employees to award contracts to management consultant Stewart Liff at a higher cost than what could have been procured in an open selection process. . On September 26, 2019 Scott Dahl, the Inspector General for the Department of Labor, reversed a predecessor's previous finding stating in a letter to Jefferson that, “this allegation is not substantiated" .  That same day, a letter from Milton A. Stewart, a Labor deputy assistant secretary for operations, said “if former department officials had the information now available, they would not have pushed Jefferson from office in July 2011.”  The government also agreed to pay some of Jefferson's legal fees which have amounted to nearly his life savings, at least $400,000, to fight in federal court beginning wiha complaint filed in July 2014.Tsmith47 (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ edited the intro to match the source as suggested, and added a sentence about the subject's focus while at DOL based on the Forbes cite, which I added. (1) A Bloomberg source is mentioned in the suggested edit but one not cited and I could not find anything that fit. (2) Did not include the personal cost of legal fees since that is not in any source. (3) Additional description of the exoneration not added because I could find neither the details of the original IG report nor the actual IG letter referenced in the Washington Post article (both links in that Post article go to the brief letter from the assistance secretary). If those two IG resources are available an edit might be justified.

Mastimido (talk) 21:23, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Some Proposed Changes
I am proposing the following addition under Post-Government Career heading, or as a new heading of Appointment by President Biden to President’s Commission on White House Fellows.

In 2022, Jefferson was appointed by President Joe Biden as a Member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, America’s premier and most prestigious program for leadership and public service, with the duty of recommending candidates to the President for selection as White House Fellows.

Tsmith47 (talk) 19:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC) Tsmith47 (talk) 19:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Reply 19-SEP-2023
Spintendo 17:16, 19 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much.
 * Tsmith47 (talk) 12:01, 26 September 2023 (UTC)