Two years after Oregon Health Authority Director Sejal Hathi fired the agency’s equity director, Leann Johnson, sparking a backlash, the agency will reinstate Johnson, cover her back pay and instead accept her resignation as of April —resulting in a direct payout of $630,000.
The settlement, obtained under Oregon Public Records Law, had not yet been filed in court as of Tuesday afternoon. It comes as the agency is facing financial challenges and laying off employees.
Hathi and an agency spokesperson declined to comment on the settlement, which did not admit fault on the part of the agency.
Johnson, in an email to The Lund Report, said that "I am very pleased with this outcome, feel exonerated, and can now, finally, move forward. I hope this will help people who are also caught in these types of situations and that they too will receive justice."
The deal resolves a lawsuit filed by Johnson in March 2025. The agreement provides two years of work credit, boosting Johnson’s retirement benefits. It followed a number of preliminary court rulings that, for the most part, sided with positions taken by Johnson’s attorneys, Talia Guerriero and Beth Creighton.
Change of leadership led to firing
Hathi took office in early 2024 calling for a strong focus on health inequities.
But soon she encountered Johnson, who is Black, and who had long been the agency’s strongest voice on combating racism and tackling societal and structural factors that cause racial and other disparities to persist. With a budget of about $26 million a year, Johnson had overseen a mix of internal and external functions, including the state health care interpreter program.
The agency’s previous leadership had encouraged Johnson to be a vocal internal watchdog, but in a memo about the firing Hathi faulted the equity director’s style as hindering “effective collaboration.” Records showed her relations with Hathi soured, and Johnson filed complaints of discrimination against Hathi and other OHA managers.
Hathi fired Johnson during the week of Juneteenth, the national holiday commemorating the end of slavery, and one month after Johnson received a national leadership award for her work on minority health.
After the decision was relayed to Johnson, the agency sent out a press release announcing the change, quoting Hathi to the effect that Johnson’s removal was part of a new strategy for the agency: “A commitment to health equity lives in every corner of OHA, and the practice of equity is – and must be – everyone’s job.”
While supporters credited Johnson with helping the agency better engage with marginalized groups to improve health outcomes, records showed that, internally, HR officials faulted Johnson’s division for long delays in civil rights investigations, delays that were cited in Hathi’s internal memo explaining Johnson’s firing.
Johnson’s suit said she was “scapegoated” unjustly for the delays, which she attributed to lack of funding.
Her suit also challenged the lawfulness of her firing, noting that, without telling Johnson, three days before the meeting in which Hathi fired her, top personnel managers for the health authority put a memo in Johnson’s file converting her position to one that had fewer job protections under Oregon law.
As the suit proceeded, Johnson enrolled in a leadership program of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. She has been invited to speak at her graduation later this summer.
