Josh Polland, a former Maine game warden, sat for an interview with the Christian Civic League of Maine that was released on Monday, detailing the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s (DIFW) support for radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices and his personal battle against false harassment allegations and biased brass.
[RELATED: Maine Pushes State Sponsored LGBTQ “Outdoor Extravaganza”…]
“When Governor [Janet] Mill’s [D-Maine] came in, she made it very clear, you can do the research, that she was going to make putting females in roles one of her goals, and you’ll see that with a lot of her commissioners and department heads, and our [DIFW] Commissioner Judy Camuso, has been very vocal about the fact that her goal is to get the department to 50 percent females,” said Polland.
“I love strong, independent women, but this department has now put pushing this agenda over the quality of the people, and it’s really made it a big part of its mission. When I came on, I believe that there were only two females out of 125. There’s definitely a political agenda,” he added.
Polland, a combat veteran who joined the military in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, applied for a job as a Maine game warden after leaving the military and eventually achieved the rank of Sergeant in the Warden Service.
He detailed the significant changes he has seen in the warden service since Gov. Mills took office and appointed Camuso to the commissioner position. Camuso has implemented DEI hiring practices for women that prioritize an applicant’s sex over merit in hiring decisions.
Since 2020, the department has been required to meet a 50 percent quota for females involved in every hiring board, regardless of experience.
As a result of the DEI policies, the department has female employees on promotion or hiring boards who have worked for the department for only a year.
According to Polland, the policy even makes some of the female employees uncomfortable because many of them are aware that they have been appointed to boards specifically because of their sex rather than their qualifications.
The department’s policy under Camuso has been to support female employees, regardless of their attitude or performance, in service of her goal of 50 percent female employees, he said.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re performing well, or if they’re performing poorly, it doesn’t matter even if they have a good attitude,” Polland observed.
In addition to DEI hiring practices, the DIFW, under Camuso’s leadership, has allocated its limited funds and resources to promoting a pro-LGBTQ agenda at the expense of funding needs for employees.
“Just in the past few years we have had multiple events that focused on the LGBTQ community, and the department has spent a significant amount of money on merchandise for that, and I can’t answer to why someone would do that, but it’s, it’s [sic] definitely effecting the morale,” he said “The morale is the lowest it’s ever been.”
According to Polland, the department’s pro-LGBTQ propaganda was in full force by 2024, when the DIFW hosted an LGBTQ “Outdoor Extravaganza” featuring merchandise combining the department’s logo with a pride flag.
The “extravaganza,” which was hosted again this year, featured a drag queen using the obscene stage name “Letta Dicken” performing at the allegedly family-friendly event. Dicken also previously performed at a Windham and Raymond event aimed at children, which saw the cross-dresser changing the words of children’s songs to feature more suggestive lyrics.
According to Polland, DIFW employees are actively pushing the LGBTQ agenda on children.
“An employee that’s extremely, is very well-connected with the outreach coordinator that put on these events put a bunch of the stickers, LGBTQ flag stickers with the department logo, next to the coloring books that the department leaves for kids out on the front entranceway,” said Polland.
“They made it very clear what their agenda is. As a parent, a Christian, a conservative, and simply as a human being, the department should not be pushing this political agenda on anyone, let alone our children,” he added.
Polland also opened up to the Christian Civic League about his particular struggles under the Mills Administration and Camuso’s leadership.
Polland’s struggle began shortly after he was promoted to Sergeant when he found that one female subbordinate was inexplicably unwilling to meet with him. He also faced false allegations of misconduct surrounding one of the arrests he had made as a warden.
The same female warden then brought allegations of harassment against Polland, claiming that he was treating her differently from other employees because of her sex, allegations that, if proven true, would have likely led to Polland being fired from his job.
Those allegations set off a lengthy investigation that led to what Polland described as the most difficult year of his and his wife’s life. As part of the investigation, the DIFW began interviewing all of his subordinates, making it extremely difficult for Polland to do his job as a supervisor.
In order to protect himself from the false allegations, Polland began taking detailed notes and recording all of his interactions with his accuser.
“I even had to start recording things to protect myself, and interactions, and five months into my job as a sergeant, it was every day, every interaction was like this.
Throughout the year-long investigation, Polland’s co-workers and subordinates, including other female subordinates, defended him against the allegations of harassment. The investigation, including those friendly testimonies and Polland’s detailed notes and recordings, led to the allegations being deemed unsubstantiated and, ultimately, dismissed.
Polland’s struggles with the department continued even after the allegations were dismissed. Camuso finally decided to meet with him on October 1, 2024, only after the investigation concluded, despite having met with his accuser multiple times during the investigation.
Though Camuso acknowledged that the allegations were unsubstantiated, she was nevertheless hostile towards him during that meeting, and focused on how she believed he should have acted differently. Polland found during the meeting that the commissioner was repeating particular terms such as “flash anger” that had been used by the warden who accused him of harassment.
Polland says that he was repeatedly prevented from speaking during the post-investigation meeting. The highest ranking member of the Warden Service who supported Polland, the Colonel, was not allowed at the meeting with the commissioner. He believes that the Colonel was barred by the commissioner because he had supported Polland throughout the investigation.
In response to the meeting, and what he believes to be bias against him from Camuso, Polland filed a hostile work environment complaint in October, but received no response until December 31.
Despite the complaint, the female warden who made false allegations against Polland did not face any disciplinary action.
Polland told the Christian Civic League that he is not the only warden who has faced false allegations from that employee, but the DIFW has done nothing to prevent the proliferation of false misconduct claims.
Just three days before Polland’s interview was released, Camuso officially rescinded the DIFW policy requiring that 50 percent of each hiring board be made up of female employees.
[RELATED: Maine Agency Quickly Scrubs Discriminatory Hiring Quotas After Trump Admin Threat…]
The policy shift did not signal an ideological change in the department’s leadership. Instead, it came after the Trump administration threatened to cut all federal funding for the DIFW unless it changed its sex-based board appointments, which the administration said violated federal Title IX laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.
Rather than attempting to challenge the Trump Administration, as Gov. Mills has done to prevent a funding loss for allowing males to compete in girls’ sports, Camuso quickly capitulated.
“Rather than jeopardize our federal funding, we chose to officially rescinded (sic) policy B1.9, and I am emailing you to notify you that the policy is rescinded, and to let you know that I will notify the US Fish and Wildlife Service that the policy is rescinded today,” Camuso wrote in a May 9 email to all DIFW employees.
