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Articles

December 28, 2018

A Year in Review: How Have Workplaces Responded to #MeToo?

As individuals committed to advancing the safety, well-being, and economic security for survivors of gender-based violence, 2018 was a roller coaster ride filled with highs and lows. From accountability for perpetrators of workplace sexual harassment, to survivors finally being heard and believed, there was much to celebrate. But at the same time, we also witnessed failures by employers to meaningfully respond to the momentum of the #MeToo movement.

December 11, 2018

Solutions Spotlight: One Year Later: TIMES UP

In January, the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) will turn one-year-old. During the past year, LDF created the first-ever network of attorneys combating workplace sexual harassment and related retaliation.

October 27, 2017

FROM #METOO TO #HOWIWILLCHANGE, MEN CAN PREVENT ABUSE

If someone asked me #HowIWillChange when I first joined FUTURES and the movement to end gender-based violence, I would have responded “I don’t need to change. I’m a black and gay civil rights attorney. I know something about oppression and violence.”

October 12, 2017

What Does A Typical Sexual Harasser Look Like? We Don’t Know.

Like clockwork, as one workplace sexual harassment scandal fades from the news, another story emerges to take its place. The contours are generally the same: a powerful man, whether it’s at Uber, at Fox News or in Hollywood, sexually harasses his colleagues for decades and faces no real repercussions until his behavior makes the headlines.

Sexual harassment and the protection gap for Chicago’s low-wage workers

Regardless of where we end up, most of us enter the workforce through low-wage service jobs. They are a critical acculturation experience that shape employees' expectations of acceptable behavior throughout their working lives. The Chicago-based Coalition Against Workplace Sexual Violence, which I co-founded, just released a report detailing low-wage workers' experiences of sexual violence and the inadequacies of existing responses to address it.

Fox Ousts Bill O’Reilly, But Will Its Workplace Culture Change?

But over time, court rulings prompted businesses to affirmatively respond to sexual harassment in the workplace. Many companies established anti-harassment policies with complaint procedures, and some trained employees, supervisors and management on what constituted inappropriate behavior. I was an employment attorney, specializing in harassment, discrimination and workplace safety. Even with my expertise, and with an anti-harassment policy in place, I was subjected to sexual harassment by a client and then encouraged to participate in the “harmless flirting” in order to keep the client happy.

What I experienced was not the exception – it was the norm.