This is the worst kind of guilt by association. There’s a difference between association via friendship and socializing, and association via employment. It’s not good that it was that easy to get Castro to resign but that hard to get rid of the actual predator.
That is such an interesting point that I hadn’t even thought of. You’re so right. It took _years_ to get rid of the actual bad guy, and then a few angry people spouting content-free talking points with petitions, expressing righteous indignation over a situation they got all wrong to get rid of the guy with the imperfect solution.
Seems like more people need to watch The Good Place and reassess who and what we consider immoral and why. Castro’s situation sucked hard. But he was beholden to policies that are in place so mere accusations can’t cause someone their job…like it did for him.
I love that show, and I am proud to state that when I watched the first episode (not knowing the plot twist) I thought to myself, "Huh. That's weird. I think frozen yogurt is really disappointing compared with the real thing. I guess Hollywood people must really like it though."
That’s really smart, Mari!!! I think I felt a vague unease at frozen yogurt but it didn’t reach the level of consciousness. So later when all was revealed I was like “HA HA GOOD ONE!”
For your situation, I really think unions are the only hope. Obviously, I'd prefer a world where you could complain and get him fired. However, I don't think we can fire anyone with a complaint. I don't want to engage in some incel conspiracy to the effect of "women make all this shit up," but I absolutely think there are men and women who would make exaggerate or mislead to move up in their careers.
As for the immigration comment, I don't know man. This seems like an unintended consequence of the great awokening. Ten years ago, I could have said "bigotry? yeah, fire that asshole." But today? Math is white supremacy. I just think the grounds are so diluted that I just don't trust anyone to make good decisions based on accusations of bigotry.
In the case of Castro, I think organizations need to stop bowing to public opinion or a vocal minority within their ranks. Our liberal institutions need to start saying "fuck off."
...but then there's also another point that makes this tough. I remember listening to an interview with a Smash Bros player/Youtuber who was accused of dating a 14 year old girl. Months after leaving Youtube, he said he was offered a job, but they rescinded it after finding his history. I don't know if the accusations are true. Even if they are though... like, pedophiles need jobs too, you know?
I have mixed feelings too. Of course a subset of people make stuff up, and that's what makes it hard for everyone who isn't making up stuff to come forward. So, there's not much we can do to make those situations better or easier. And because these situations are so hard to navigate well, I thought it was horrible that the university, who was behind him every step of the way in finding a solution to the Lamas problem, is offering him as a sacrifice to keep the vocal minority (reciting the woke catechism of men as monsters) happy.
But ooooh "pedophiles need jobs too"?!?!?! It's not a coincidence that people react really negatively to those who exploit children. I was a grown woman and could "escape," but children are trapped.
And of course, a 18 year old high school senior dating a 14 year old freshman is different from a 30 year old dude dating a 14 year old. So the context matters too.
But yes, they need jobs, and preferably not around kids.
He said it was a remote job. And I don't mean to litigate his case in particular.
For the sake of discussion, imagine that he is probably guilty of it, but there's not enough evidence for a conviction. Should he just never have a job again? He's not guilty of anything. Maybe you don't have the right to every job you want. Maybe it's okay for future smash bros tournaments to ban him. It's certainly okay to keep him away from teenagers. I still think he need something to do, right?
Good article and reply. Accusers need cover. Those that manage a process until evidence/conviction path need cover. And ultimately those alleged against need cover until process/adjudication. On college campuses this is clearly a "loudest voices" landscape these days and, as Haidt and Taibbi point out, we've added too many administrators to the university system who see students as customers. Unfortunately they also take "the customer is always right" to heart.
Separately I'm sorry you had to go through that shit. It's unfair AF.
Thanks! It was really upsetting at the time, and I hated the unfairness of losing a job I liked, but I soon got a much better job and so it turned out OK. And I never did see him again which was good.
Your point about everyone needing protection and fairness in the process is right on--everyone including even those who are stuck trying to do their best with the process. Those are the last people who should be casualities of it.
And your point about students as "customers who are always right" is a good one too. Of the students (and faculty) I saw complaining about Castro, _all_ were spouting old tired woke talking-points with (seeming) no applicability to the situation.
If someone wanted to say "Ouch, I really didn't like that letter -- it was a bit too glowing!" Or if someone wanted to say, "It's good that the CSU system got rid of him, but won't he just become some other institution's problem?" Those are conversations that could be had, and points that could be made and hashed out.
But to vilify this guy as if he was some part of a masculine predatory cabal who are all looking out for each other, and allow one another to prey on women -- it was just so tired, and so far off base.
I am so sorry that happened to you. I think pretty much every woman on earth has at least one story like this. Here's mine (one of several), which I offer because I will use it to make a larger point after I tell it:
One summer, when I was 19, I worked in a temporary office that had been set up by an Illinois construction company to take bids for a proposed skyscraper in our city. I was the receptionist and file clerk, and the other five men in the office were managers in construction. Four of the five men were wonderful, and the fifth, who unfortunately was the most senior of all of them, well, he was not so great. He talked constantly about how young and attractive I was, and how his wife was old and ugly. He asked me not to wear my glasses (I have 20/500 vision) because I was "prettier without them." He used to loom over my desk and make little comments about my face and body all the time. The company didn't get the bid, and so the nice guys went back to Illinois while the creep and I stayed behind to close up the office--at which point I discovered how much the nice guys had protected me from the creep. The first day, the creep asked me to lunch, and I felt horribly uncomfortable. Even worse, he suggested that we go out to lunch every day for the rest of the week. That night, I told my parents how icky my day had been, and for the rest of the week they drove into the city from our outlying suburb to take me to lunch. They would arrive in the office a bit early and glare at the creep while I got ready. He got the message.
I am sharing this long story because I think the problem of sexual harassment can only be solved by a multi-pronged approach. Those lovely men in my office (and my parents) exemplify part of the solution: good people, men especially, need to speak up and make it clear that sexual harassment is wrong, wastes employees' time, and destroys the potential of workers who could contribute to the world and to the company's bottom line.
But additionally, institutions in general and universities in particular need to stop looking at harassment from the perspective of ossified senior faculty, who too often view female graduate students as though they were the lords of the manor and the graduate students were the succulent virgins whom the lords have license to plunder. That is not the point of graduate education, however much some senior faculty might wish it were so. If the policy at universities were less "This is a super-important person whom we'd like to indulge" and more "We are working here, and all this grabbiness is inappropriate," we would all be better off, and the talents of thousands of women like you, and like me, and like so many of my friends, would not go to waste.
Ugh! Thank you sharing your story and I’m so sorry that happened to you!!
Yes it’s really true that all the other decent people in the world help keep all of us safe.
Those were some dedicated parents by the way!
I think now (compared to when I was young) everyone more or less agrees the behavior is unacceptable— so that’s progress! The picture I chose as the display photo to this piece (which I’m pretty sure no one ever sees, so what’s the point) shows one guy with the office worker on his lap and the other guy wanting to “borrow” her. That’s kind of the “lord of the manor” attitude you’re referring to— these women are toys for my entertainment.
But the problem still remains if you’re alone with some man with bad intentions. Most guys are decent but there are always those few. You can never 100 percent avoid them. And they do cause damage when they drive women out of the workplace.
I've lived in the tension that Castro faced and it's dispiriting. I had no options that let me go home and feel good about the outcomes available. And 20 years later, I still have no idea how to do it better..
Hecklers assume perfect world answers in our imperfect world. I'd love to trust that I could punish every evil doer based on my certainty of the crime (or impropriety). But I've been wrong and seen authority be wrong and seen the innocent punished too often to believe that it works like the movies. And that sucks because there are too many people getting away with shit that hurts the most vulnerable among us. And there are too many people being punished for what they can't control.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments! You describe it so accurately -- "no options that let me go home and feel good about the outcomes available." That is really rough, to be in the position of needing to right a wrong, and not have a clear, easy, perfect path toward that (and to know as a fallible human being that eventually you'll make a mistake).
And yes, "Hecklers assume perfect world answers in our imperfect world." I wasn't too surprised to see the students making that mistake, but wouldn't you suppose the faculty, the board of trustees, and union leaders would all have too much life experience to see things in such simple terms?
Not to belittle a frightening experience but what about proof and due process?
Going with that you speak truth about this sleazebag, it's obvious that he abuses the need for proof in any dispute or criminal charge.
Put it in reverse though: yuo enter a shop. You get your stuff, pay and leave. Ten days later you are fined for theft based solely on the word of the shopowner.
Doesn't really seem like good idea to have such a system, does it?
Especially not if the two sexes, the different ethnicities and colours, religions, sexual preferences and so on are granted semi-official ranking in some kind of arbitrary victim/perpetrator-scale. Before you know it, it is you who is being put on the spot by someone with a better ranking than yourself.
Take it from someone living in a nation where feminism have turned burden of proof into accusation equals guilt - due process and burden of proof is a better way even if sleaze and scum exploits it. The opposite is woke inquisitorial courts.
I could (and did) do nothing when it happened to me, because there’s very little that can be done when a crime is committed without witnesses or videotape. My best option was to leave my job.
At no point did I rail against our system of justice or say that the guy didn’t deserve his due process.
Then I told the more recent story of the guy who — because of due process — couldn’t be removed from his job for 5-6 years until here was finally someone with enough evidence to put in a formal complaint.
Did I say he should have, or could have, been removed more quickly? No. That’s just how our system works.
If you even read what I wrote, you’d know that I think it’s wrong that Joe Castro, whose job it was to get rid of the wrong-doer, and who was obliged to take several years to do so because that’s what our system requires, was accused (wrongly) of “protecting” the guy and “covering it up” when in fact he acted at the earliest opportunity, followed all the rules, and got rid of him.
I have NO idea how your takeaway is that I’m in favor of woke inquisitorial courts in response to any complaints of harassment. My best guess is you just didn’t read it.
I am a 65 yr old woman, have been in the work world for 40+ years. As the Me Too movement showed, most of us have a similar story to tell. As the stories told here show, most of these victims are young women. The creeps don't pick 40 yr old women as their targets. They go for the vulnerable and inexperienced.
So we could hardly create a better recipe for this to happen than to have a situation in which men have access to a plethora of young women, but no fear of being fired for bad behavior. I refer of course to the university tenure system. By making it impossible to fire anyone, we have practically invited this kind of behavior. It seems to me a classic example of unintended consequences. The more we as a society push the idea that people are entitled to the job by virtue of having been hired, the more we will be searching for new rules to extricate ourselves from the consequences of this initial bad policy.
Tenure was supposed to protect teachers and professors from arbitrary firing. We believed that tenure would allow freedom of thought and ideas - and a flourishing of intellect. Instead, universities have become hives of repression, where no one dare speak an unapproved thought. Meanwhile, sexual predators have free reign of the campus under the protection of tenure.
Instead of looking for more laws and rules to fix the problem, it is time to re-examine the initial premises. Maybe people should not be entitled to their positions after all. Maybe they need to be held accountable for behavior.
I would like to add that managing HR is the most thankless and soul crushing task in any organization. I think most who enter that field do so because they truly want to help people. But they soon find out that is not anything like the reality of the job.
Young women also need to learn how to better deal with these situations. I know that some will say that is "blaming the victim". But this quote from the story: "Lamas reportedly touched the employee’s knee and moved his hand up her thigh in a car while talking to her about job prospects after at least two years of other unwelcome contact" makes me think of Maya Angelou. When people show you who they are, believe them. If the guy has been harassing you for two years, why would you get into a car with him?
I am reluctant to second-guess the motives or thought processes of someone who got in a car with the guy after two years of harassment.
Not everyone has the same judgment of situations, or has been taught the self-protection of good boundaries.
Regardless: If someone walks naked in the streets saying “hey baby” to every man she sees, it’s still a crime to assault her. Most men wouldn’t do that.
So not knowing her or the situation, I’m reluctant to blame her. She “shouldn’t have gotten in the car” in the same way I “shouldn’t have been alone in the office with a man”—but you know, it was my job and there I was. I had the expectation that he was a decent human being because most people _are_ decent.
So… I guess I’m saying if she thought he was creepy but harmless, and he had been doing weird, uncomfortable but “tolerable” (to her) things for two years and she wanted to ignore those things and keep her job, and he suddenly escalated and frightened her when she was alone in the car with him, I can totally see that happening. I can totally imagine someone being genuinely surprised that this was the outcome of getting in the car with him.
You or I personally might not have gotten in the car, but we might make other mistakes in life, or do other things that we decide were dumb in retrospect.
He should not have done that to her, regardless. Even if we can view her choice from our lofty perch and say “she made a bad call; I wouldn’t have done that,” she still didn’t deserve it.
I have been thinking about this response, and would like to clarify what I meant.
This reaction seems to indicate that the unspoken response to the question "why get in the car?" is that " she wanted what happened". In fact, I assume just the opposite, that she did NOT want what happened. But she made a choice that increased the odds of what she didn't want.
We don't leave purses sitting alone in the table when going to the restroom. We know that most people are not purse snatchers, but the odds are much higher that an unattended purse will get stolen. So we take our purses with us. Don't do things that invite a problem. It's a message we all need to learn. Doesn't mean we think it's OK to steal a purse.
But for some reason we want to insist that a woman should be able to walk naked down Broadway, and disregard the potential consequences of that choice. A message that all young women can learn from the Lomas case is that a car is not an appropriate place to discuss job opportunities with a man. Why is there outrage when this obvious (to older women) point is made?
Well, I'm sure we agree more than we disagree. I've had to get in cars with various bosses over the years, usually on day trips for work. I can imagine a scenario where Lamas had been creepy and weird for two years but not overtly sexual, so she gets in the car for a routine work trip, and suddenly he's got his hand up her leg and that freaked her out.
Would I personally get in the car in those circumstances? No. Would my teen daughter? Pretty sure not -- I don't think she would have tolerated keeping that job if there was a creep at work. But I don't think it's helpful, when a crime is committed, to tell the person she's been stupid.
It's too late for that, and it shifts the focus in assigning some blame to the victim, who didn't do anything wrong -- the guy did something wrong. What she did was stupid. It's not wrong to get into a car with your boss to go to a work event. If the boss is a handsy creep, it's stupid, but not wrong.
It's stupid to leave your house unlocked, too, and if someone comes in and steals a bunch of your stuff, that person was wrong. You were stupid to leave it unlocked. If someone tells you "You know, you played a role by leaving your house unlocked" -- what purpose does it serve? They know that, too.
I don't really hear the same moral judgments when it comes to house break-ins though: "Sure, the guy who stole all her stuff was wrong, but really, she shouldn't have left the door unlocked."
You don't hear that, not in the same way, not with the same implications.
I do think we agree more than disagree. I think we both have the goal of reducing the amount of sexual harassment against women in any situation. I think that encouraging women not to put themselves in problematic situations is a valid way to achieve that goal - proactive rather than reactive. I don't think that means I am making moral judgments against them.
I of course agree that the perpetrator is at fault, and I did not intend to excuse his actions. We are all responsible for our own behavior. What he did was wrong, and she did not deserve it.
My point was that women can and should learn to be more aware of situational dangers. We learn from our mistakes, as you rightly said. But we can also learn from the mistakes that others make, so as to avoid making them ourselves. The narrative that pointing out how a woman might have avoided the predator is somehow "blaming the victim" is not constructive.
As we get older, we learn better how to handle these situations without letting them escalate to the point of being groped. Isn't it better to share what we have learned - ie, don't get in the car?
Definitely agree with that. I’ve shared all sorts of safety advice with my own daughter. We also have a running joke (based on what we’ve learned from cheesy “crime shows”) about “never allowing yourself to be taken to a second location”— kind of a grim thing to joke about but….
She also had a self-defense class where she emerged fairly confident that she could and would remove someone’s eyeballs if the situation called for it. Let’s hope she’s never in that type of situation but more power to her.
No one can ever be perfectly safe, but I agree we have to teach younger people what we’ve learned.
Agree, but I am not speaking of only physical safety. I think it is really important that young women learn how to better interpret situations and behavior, so it doesn't get to the point of having to defend yourself physically.
This is the worst kind of guilt by association. There’s a difference between association via friendship and socializing, and association via employment. It’s not good that it was that easy to get Castro to resign but that hard to get rid of the actual predator.
That is such an interesting point that I hadn’t even thought of. You’re so right. It took _years_ to get rid of the actual bad guy, and then a few angry people spouting content-free talking points with petitions, expressing righteous indignation over a situation they got all wrong to get rid of the guy with the imperfect solution.
Seems like more people need to watch The Good Place and reassess who and what we consider immoral and why. Castro’s situation sucked hard. But he was beholden to policies that are in place so mere accusations can’t cause someone their job…like it did for him.
Exactly. I feel so bad for him.
Every time I hear about “The Good Place” I think to myself that the frozen yogurt was SUCH a tip-off!
A tip-off which went right over my head by the way. Which is what makes it so delightful.
Lol yes. And the explanation that it’s so human to take something great and make it a little worse so you can have more of it.
I love that show, and I am proud to state that when I watched the first episode (not knowing the plot twist) I thought to myself, "Huh. That's weird. I think frozen yogurt is really disappointing compared with the real thing. I guess Hollywood people must really like it though."
That’s really smart, Mari!!! I think I felt a vague unease at frozen yogurt but it didn’t reach the level of consciousness. So later when all was revealed I was like “HA HA GOOD ONE!”
For your situation, I really think unions are the only hope. Obviously, I'd prefer a world where you could complain and get him fired. However, I don't think we can fire anyone with a complaint. I don't want to engage in some incel conspiracy to the effect of "women make all this shit up," but I absolutely think there are men and women who would make exaggerate or mislead to move up in their careers.
As for the immigration comment, I don't know man. This seems like an unintended consequence of the great awokening. Ten years ago, I could have said "bigotry? yeah, fire that asshole." But today? Math is white supremacy. I just think the grounds are so diluted that I just don't trust anyone to make good decisions based on accusations of bigotry.
In the case of Castro, I think organizations need to stop bowing to public opinion or a vocal minority within their ranks. Our liberal institutions need to start saying "fuck off."
...but then there's also another point that makes this tough. I remember listening to an interview with a Smash Bros player/Youtuber who was accused of dating a 14 year old girl. Months after leaving Youtube, he said he was offered a job, but they rescinded it after finding his history. I don't know if the accusations are true. Even if they are though... like, pedophiles need jobs too, you know?
I have a lot of mixed feelings on this subject.
I have mixed feelings too. Of course a subset of people make stuff up, and that's what makes it hard for everyone who isn't making up stuff to come forward. So, there's not much we can do to make those situations better or easier. And because these situations are so hard to navigate well, I thought it was horrible that the university, who was behind him every step of the way in finding a solution to the Lamas problem, is offering him as a sacrifice to keep the vocal minority (reciting the woke catechism of men as monsters) happy.
But ooooh "pedophiles need jobs too"?!?!?! It's not a coincidence that people react really negatively to those who exploit children. I was a grown woman and could "escape," but children are trapped.
And of course, a 18 year old high school senior dating a 14 year old freshman is different from a 30 year old dude dating a 14 year old. So the context matters too.
But yes, they need jobs, and preferably not around kids.
He said it was a remote job. And I don't mean to litigate his case in particular.
For the sake of discussion, imagine that he is probably guilty of it, but there's not enough evidence for a conviction. Should he just never have a job again? He's not guilty of anything. Maybe you don't have the right to every job you want. Maybe it's okay for future smash bros tournaments to ban him. It's certainly okay to keep him away from teenagers. I still think he need something to do, right?
Nah I agree with you.
Good article and reply. Accusers need cover. Those that manage a process until evidence/conviction path need cover. And ultimately those alleged against need cover until process/adjudication. On college campuses this is clearly a "loudest voices" landscape these days and, as Haidt and Taibbi point out, we've added too many administrators to the university system who see students as customers. Unfortunately they also take "the customer is always right" to heart.
Separately I'm sorry you had to go through that shit. It's unfair AF.
Thanks! It was really upsetting at the time, and I hated the unfairness of losing a job I liked, but I soon got a much better job and so it turned out OK. And I never did see him again which was good.
Your point about everyone needing protection and fairness in the process is right on--everyone including even those who are stuck trying to do their best with the process. Those are the last people who should be casualities of it.
And your point about students as "customers who are always right" is a good one too. Of the students (and faculty) I saw complaining about Castro, _all_ were spouting old tired woke talking-points with (seeming) no applicability to the situation.
If someone wanted to say "Ouch, I really didn't like that letter -- it was a bit too glowing!" Or if someone wanted to say, "It's good that the CSU system got rid of him, but won't he just become some other institution's problem?" Those are conversations that could be had, and points that could be made and hashed out.
But to vilify this guy as if he was some part of a masculine predatory cabal who are all looking out for each other, and allow one another to prey on women -- it was just so tired, and so far off base.
I am so sorry that happened to you. I think pretty much every woman on earth has at least one story like this. Here's mine (one of several), which I offer because I will use it to make a larger point after I tell it:
One summer, when I was 19, I worked in a temporary office that had been set up by an Illinois construction company to take bids for a proposed skyscraper in our city. I was the receptionist and file clerk, and the other five men in the office were managers in construction. Four of the five men were wonderful, and the fifth, who unfortunately was the most senior of all of them, well, he was not so great. He talked constantly about how young and attractive I was, and how his wife was old and ugly. He asked me not to wear my glasses (I have 20/500 vision) because I was "prettier without them." He used to loom over my desk and make little comments about my face and body all the time. The company didn't get the bid, and so the nice guys went back to Illinois while the creep and I stayed behind to close up the office--at which point I discovered how much the nice guys had protected me from the creep. The first day, the creep asked me to lunch, and I felt horribly uncomfortable. Even worse, he suggested that we go out to lunch every day for the rest of the week. That night, I told my parents how icky my day had been, and for the rest of the week they drove into the city from our outlying suburb to take me to lunch. They would arrive in the office a bit early and glare at the creep while I got ready. He got the message.
I am sharing this long story because I think the problem of sexual harassment can only be solved by a multi-pronged approach. Those lovely men in my office (and my parents) exemplify part of the solution: good people, men especially, need to speak up and make it clear that sexual harassment is wrong, wastes employees' time, and destroys the potential of workers who could contribute to the world and to the company's bottom line.
But additionally, institutions in general and universities in particular need to stop looking at harassment from the perspective of ossified senior faculty, who too often view female graduate students as though they were the lords of the manor and the graduate students were the succulent virgins whom the lords have license to plunder. That is not the point of graduate education, however much some senior faculty might wish it were so. If the policy at universities were less "This is a super-important person whom we'd like to indulge" and more "We are working here, and all this grabbiness is inappropriate," we would all be better off, and the talents of thousands of women like you, and like me, and like so many of my friends, would not go to waste.
Ugh! Thank you sharing your story and I’m so sorry that happened to you!!
Yes it’s really true that all the other decent people in the world help keep all of us safe.
Those were some dedicated parents by the way!
I think now (compared to when I was young) everyone more or less agrees the behavior is unacceptable— so that’s progress! The picture I chose as the display photo to this piece (which I’m pretty sure no one ever sees, so what’s the point) shows one guy with the office worker on his lap and the other guy wanting to “borrow” her. That’s kind of the “lord of the manor” attitude you’re referring to— these women are toys for my entertainment.
But the problem still remains if you’re alone with some man with bad intentions. Most guys are decent but there are always those few. You can never 100 percent avoid them. And they do cause damage when they drive women out of the workplace.
I've lived in the tension that Castro faced and it's dispiriting. I had no options that let me go home and feel good about the outcomes available. And 20 years later, I still have no idea how to do it better..
Hecklers assume perfect world answers in our imperfect world. I'd love to trust that I could punish every evil doer based on my certainty of the crime (or impropriety). But I've been wrong and seen authority be wrong and seen the innocent punished too often to believe that it works like the movies. And that sucks because there are too many people getting away with shit that hurts the most vulnerable among us. And there are too many people being punished for what they can't control.
Thanks for articulating this so well.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments! You describe it so accurately -- "no options that let me go home and feel good about the outcomes available." That is really rough, to be in the position of needing to right a wrong, and not have a clear, easy, perfect path toward that (and to know as a fallible human being that eventually you'll make a mistake).
And yes, "Hecklers assume perfect world answers in our imperfect world." I wasn't too surprised to see the students making that mistake, but wouldn't you suppose the faculty, the board of trustees, and union leaders would all have too much life experience to see things in such simple terms?
Not to belittle a frightening experience but what about proof and due process?
Going with that you speak truth about this sleazebag, it's obvious that he abuses the need for proof in any dispute or criminal charge.
Put it in reverse though: yuo enter a shop. You get your stuff, pay and leave. Ten days later you are fined for theft based solely on the word of the shopowner.
Doesn't really seem like good idea to have such a system, does it?
Especially not if the two sexes, the different ethnicities and colours, religions, sexual preferences and so on are granted semi-official ranking in some kind of arbitrary victim/perpetrator-scale. Before you know it, it is you who is being put on the spot by someone with a better ranking than yourself.
Take it from someone living in a nation where feminism have turned burden of proof into accusation equals guilt - due process and burden of proof is a better way even if sleaze and scum exploits it. The opposite is woke inquisitorial courts.
You missed my point entirely.
I could (and did) do nothing when it happened to me, because there’s very little that can be done when a crime is committed without witnesses or videotape. My best option was to leave my job.
At no point did I rail against our system of justice or say that the guy didn’t deserve his due process.
Then I told the more recent story of the guy who — because of due process — couldn’t be removed from his job for 5-6 years until here was finally someone with enough evidence to put in a formal complaint.
Did I say he should have, or could have, been removed more quickly? No. That’s just how our system works.
If you even read what I wrote, you’d know that I think it’s wrong that Joe Castro, whose job it was to get rid of the wrong-doer, and who was obliged to take several years to do so because that’s what our system requires, was accused (wrongly) of “protecting” the guy and “covering it up” when in fact he acted at the earliest opportunity, followed all the rules, and got rid of him.
I have NO idea how your takeaway is that I’m in favor of woke inquisitorial courts in response to any complaints of harassment. My best guess is you just didn’t read it.
I am a 65 yr old woman, have been in the work world for 40+ years. As the Me Too movement showed, most of us have a similar story to tell. As the stories told here show, most of these victims are young women. The creeps don't pick 40 yr old women as their targets. They go for the vulnerable and inexperienced.
So we could hardly create a better recipe for this to happen than to have a situation in which men have access to a plethora of young women, but no fear of being fired for bad behavior. I refer of course to the university tenure system. By making it impossible to fire anyone, we have practically invited this kind of behavior. It seems to me a classic example of unintended consequences. The more we as a society push the idea that people are entitled to the job by virtue of having been hired, the more we will be searching for new rules to extricate ourselves from the consequences of this initial bad policy.
Tenure was supposed to protect teachers and professors from arbitrary firing. We believed that tenure would allow freedom of thought and ideas - and a flourishing of intellect. Instead, universities have become hives of repression, where no one dare speak an unapproved thought. Meanwhile, sexual predators have free reign of the campus under the protection of tenure.
Instead of looking for more laws and rules to fix the problem, it is time to re-examine the initial premises. Maybe people should not be entitled to their positions after all. Maybe they need to be held accountable for behavior.
I would like to add that managing HR is the most thankless and soul crushing task in any organization. I think most who enter that field do so because they truly want to help people. But they soon find out that is not anything like the reality of the job.
Young women also need to learn how to better deal with these situations. I know that some will say that is "blaming the victim". But this quote from the story: "Lamas reportedly touched the employee’s knee and moved his hand up her thigh in a car while talking to her about job prospects after at least two years of other unwelcome contact" makes me think of Maya Angelou. When people show you who they are, believe them. If the guy has been harassing you for two years, why would you get into a car with him?
I am reluctant to second-guess the motives or thought processes of someone who got in a car with the guy after two years of harassment.
Not everyone has the same judgment of situations, or has been taught the self-protection of good boundaries.
Regardless: If someone walks naked in the streets saying “hey baby” to every man she sees, it’s still a crime to assault her. Most men wouldn’t do that.
So not knowing her or the situation, I’m reluctant to blame her. She “shouldn’t have gotten in the car” in the same way I “shouldn’t have been alone in the office with a man”—but you know, it was my job and there I was. I had the expectation that he was a decent human being because most people _are_ decent.
So… I guess I’m saying if she thought he was creepy but harmless, and he had been doing weird, uncomfortable but “tolerable” (to her) things for two years and she wanted to ignore those things and keep her job, and he suddenly escalated and frightened her when she was alone in the car with him, I can totally see that happening. I can totally imagine someone being genuinely surprised that this was the outcome of getting in the car with him.
You or I personally might not have gotten in the car, but we might make other mistakes in life, or do other things that we decide were dumb in retrospect.
He should not have done that to her, regardless. Even if we can view her choice from our lofty perch and say “she made a bad call; I wouldn’t have done that,” she still didn’t deserve it.
I have been thinking about this response, and would like to clarify what I meant.
This reaction seems to indicate that the unspoken response to the question "why get in the car?" is that " she wanted what happened". In fact, I assume just the opposite, that she did NOT want what happened. But she made a choice that increased the odds of what she didn't want.
We don't leave purses sitting alone in the table when going to the restroom. We know that most people are not purse snatchers, but the odds are much higher that an unattended purse will get stolen. So we take our purses with us. Don't do things that invite a problem. It's a message we all need to learn. Doesn't mean we think it's OK to steal a purse.
But for some reason we want to insist that a woman should be able to walk naked down Broadway, and disregard the potential consequences of that choice. A message that all young women can learn from the Lomas case is that a car is not an appropriate place to discuss job opportunities with a man. Why is there outrage when this obvious (to older women) point is made?
Well, I'm sure we agree more than we disagree. I've had to get in cars with various bosses over the years, usually on day trips for work. I can imagine a scenario where Lamas had been creepy and weird for two years but not overtly sexual, so she gets in the car for a routine work trip, and suddenly he's got his hand up her leg and that freaked her out.
Would I personally get in the car in those circumstances? No. Would my teen daughter? Pretty sure not -- I don't think she would have tolerated keeping that job if there was a creep at work. But I don't think it's helpful, when a crime is committed, to tell the person she's been stupid.
It's too late for that, and it shifts the focus in assigning some blame to the victim, who didn't do anything wrong -- the guy did something wrong. What she did was stupid. It's not wrong to get into a car with your boss to go to a work event. If the boss is a handsy creep, it's stupid, but not wrong.
It's stupid to leave your house unlocked, too, and if someone comes in and steals a bunch of your stuff, that person was wrong. You were stupid to leave it unlocked. If someone tells you "You know, you played a role by leaving your house unlocked" -- what purpose does it serve? They know that, too.
I don't really hear the same moral judgments when it comes to house break-ins though: "Sure, the guy who stole all her stuff was wrong, but really, she shouldn't have left the door unlocked."
You don't hear that, not in the same way, not with the same implications.
I do think we agree more than disagree. I think we both have the goal of reducing the amount of sexual harassment against women in any situation. I think that encouraging women not to put themselves in problematic situations is a valid way to achieve that goal - proactive rather than reactive. I don't think that means I am making moral judgments against them.
I of course agree that the perpetrator is at fault, and I did not intend to excuse his actions. We are all responsible for our own behavior. What he did was wrong, and she did not deserve it.
My point was that women can and should learn to be more aware of situational dangers. We learn from our mistakes, as you rightly said. But we can also learn from the mistakes that others make, so as to avoid making them ourselves. The narrative that pointing out how a woman might have avoided the predator is somehow "blaming the victim" is not constructive.
As we get older, we learn better how to handle these situations without letting them escalate to the point of being groped. Isn't it better to share what we have learned - ie, don't get in the car?
Definitely agree with that. I’ve shared all sorts of safety advice with my own daughter. We also have a running joke (based on what we’ve learned from cheesy “crime shows”) about “never allowing yourself to be taken to a second location”— kind of a grim thing to joke about but….
She also had a self-defense class where she emerged fairly confident that she could and would remove someone’s eyeballs if the situation called for it. Let’s hope she’s never in that type of situation but more power to her.
No one can ever be perfectly safe, but I agree we have to teach younger people what we’ve learned.
Agree, but I am not speaking of only physical safety. I think it is really important that young women learn how to better interpret situations and behavior, so it doesn't get to the point of having to defend yourself physically.