Unknown Speaker 00:05 From a member perspective a few things that recently is how it affects the person involved as cases proceeding and they also come after interested in these questions because our department chairman cosmic scale and I guess I'm especially just the interaction and procedure over things promotional issues sexual discrimination sexual interact with well apart from administrators There may also be this teaching situation with students I'm interested in all kinds of litigation practices Hello I'm kind of a doctoral student Unknown Speaker 02:32 at Columbia and religion with a focus in feminist ethics. And taking a business ethics class business school right now where I'll be giving a presentation on I'm particularly interested particularly interested in the area etiology that lies behind the cultural thing the patriarchal state, which, which is between courses and institutionalized as Unknown Speaker 03:01 well. Many cups over New York City employment, and they just came out with a policy against sexual harassment sent around, you know, definition of sexual harassment, that, you know, unwanted sexual advances that substantially interfere with your ability to do your job or effective motion or something like this and in trying to define it in some way, but I agree with Eleanor in the sense that I'm experiencing it is very subtle, and how do you tell someone that is substantially interfering with your job? I mean, my voice and yet, I can see that when I describe what he actually does, I mean, it's horrible to me, but other people just think it's fun. So it's very good. Unknown Speaker 04:20 Michelle Obama industrial Social Worker Center. We do a lot of work with trade unions, in particular the mental health and social services and trade unions. And so I come up with I do research. I come up with the symptoms of sexual harassment. I've been trying to negotiate with unions that way you get really paranoid about one supervisor in the same unit it might seem. Unknown Speaker 04:52 Also, because he doesn't have. Unknown Speaker 04:59 Time Hi my name is Alex to the Unknown Speaker 05:17 comment section My name is Suzanne New Jersey division of alcoholism both programs that I monitor three of whichever woman tackles one in prison one a halfway house and the have been in the alcoholism field for quite some time. I've recently worked in women's issues in the last two years very distinct connection segregation which is mostly a lot of sexism Unknown Speaker 06:16 My name appears to teach sociology representatives researching teaching sociology, gender, and sexuality. Another set of research has to do with constitutional communication issues. So, I'm interested in the issues both pragmatic, but also some of the relationships between sexual harassment and sex face discrimination. Are they the same thing and one of the problems collapsing gender issues of sexuality issues? Unknown Speaker 07:07 harrassment counseling sexual harassment cases and so forth 900? Society I don't know how well we're gonna go. Unknown Speaker 07:57 I will tell you the issue, but I plan to talk about. And I mean, so far, a number of people indicated that their interests really fit in with those issues. And to the extent that they don't, because that is a circumstance to discuss. First of all, I'm glad that you all made it here, despite the fact that I did not intend to call this defending sexual harassment cases I intended it to be called defining and condemning. In case you had some questions. But those really are the the two questions really, that I want to talk about has to do with defining and then problems in once the undertake Unknown Speaker 08:43 to combat and I think that with a variety of perspectives here. We can keep it from being too abstract, which I think is a great danger, but we can Unknown Speaker 08:57 probably make it coherent, to some extent, drawing on people's Moorhead stretch perspective. So with that hope, at least both of the problems that I'm going to talk about, I think are ones that that folks who were involved early in working on the issue we're concerned about. But I think that we merely put them off because there's some real obvious clear cases like the case that I was involved in this human agent conference, the guy said, if we're going to have a sense that if you're working relationship and your work evaluations are coming up, and I can't go around the office of the heart on normal time, but you know, it's a pretty crude situation and the issues we're doing pretty clearly what's been called by Kenny MacKinnon in her book, quid pro quo you come across, where there is an obvious job consequence so that I think is clear for folks are relatively clear. There's confusions about when the person makes the demand house was With the demand data set, at least the notion of hooking up a demand with job consequences. Seems initially. Like it's like it's easier. And I think beyond that the courts are getting clear, at least. And I think people's consciousness is getting clear that beyond that explicit quid pro quo situation, some behavior on the job is impermissible. And and so the first problem I wanted to raise was, how do we define, which I think is something that number of people have indicated that they're concerned about? As I said, I think that the harder problem is the is the environment type problem. When you have grabbing notes sent to somebody and you have cartoons, is there a difference between cartoons being dropped on somebody's desk, and posters put on the wall? And language being directed at some individual? Language been bantered about generally seems to me that we usually rely on an analogy to race that is to say, we are all pretty clear that there's something the matter with having clan posters up. Or there's something the matter with calling somebody negative, the difference between honey and vinegar has to do with the difference between the nature of racism or sexism. And one of the things that occurred to me, when I was trying to zero in for today, it's really whether they analogies on the on the environment problem might be closer to ethnic jokes and ethnic discrimination, that confusion between what's hostile and what's not hostile. And I don't know that that helps us anymore. You're thinking about it? And I'm not I don't think we should totally discard the racial analogy, because number one, that's where we've got law, and we've got people consciousness to build on. But as we're exploring, really, what's the nature of the experience, I think we should at least think about the ethnic connection. Okay. So the original definition that I think we proposed when we were doing briefs to the court, one of the things you have to reassure a court about when you're first doing cases, of course, is that this doesn't open the floodgates that there is some clear line that they can draw. And we're not saying that we're interested in enforcing of Victorian code of morality. But here's some line. And so when people first started reading more, if you're trying to talk about it, I think that people suggested online that said, unless it is absolutely egregious, like the kinds of examples that would fall against infection, Shakedown, without playing with themselves during interviews, and physically grabbing and stuff like that, that that the woman has to do something to convey that it's unwanted because of this confusion. As more it's changed. We knew before people said it in this room, it seems to me we all knew that to ask that of women is really crazy. Unknown Speaker 13:41 And or at least all too hard. And on the other hand, how do you deal with the problem that somebody else mentioned or that I already heard today? Which is, it's okay for a lot of women, it's not okay for me. That can represent two things, right? It can represent a difference in consciousness, or it can represent that one woman isn't absolutely crude. I mean, the working Women's Institute has gotten complaints, or increase in interest, requests for assistance from women who just cannot stand the profanity in the office. But say, I mean, in the context of one woman not being able to take so it seems to me that on the one hand, we're putting an impossible demand on women to assert themselves and say no. Particularly when we're talking about a clear power relationship when it's a supervisor, as opposed to a co worker, but it's also been pointed out that we have very few real co worker situations that is to say, even if People are working in the same plant on the same assembly line, probably their job segregated. They're probably their power relationships there that somebody can, you know, if you, if he doesn't send yourself over fast enough, you can't work hard, you're tempted to faster to speed up you can't deal with. So that it may be that they're not so many real pure co workers, collegial situations and power relationships are always there, which makes it even harder to assert yourself. On the other hand, I think that, that not only are they great problems, defining what harassment is, objectively. But I think we've got a real concern about playing into what people were talking about this morning, which is this attack on sexuality. And if we take some clear cut objective position, like know nothing on the job, that that totally feeds into the Moral Majority. And undercuts probably activity that we think is legitimate and that people should feel free or about, I think that that's that concern is reinforced by thinking about how lousy most people's jobs are, if you just look at the work part, and that the enjoyable part is conflict to large extent human interchange, on the job. And that can take place in all kinds of levels, you can think about you know, that the IBM image with the proper wife has got to be in her place, and you got to be super straight and any allegation that the guy is screwing around with anybody means the end of his career. If, if he's using the power of the position, it's one thing but if it's two folks who, in some more equal situation, are engaging in something they want to be engaging in, is that the company's business? So I think that there's a there's a tension on the one hand, it seems all too difficult to insist that women define it by saying no. And on the other hand, strict rules about a women a v net, seem to play into a moral majority. If you look at what the legal concepts like the reasonable person standard, the reasonable person standard, is some notion that people try and figure out what most people do. That's sort of what it comes down to. What most people do and what most people put up with these days, it's exactly the Unknown Speaker 18:08 problem. So that doesn't seem tremendously helpful. I think that, that something else that people are trying to do is to Unknown Speaker 18:26 at least list factors or, you know, continuum that you can look at and see in a particular case, how serious the problem is, in the sense of I've already indicated how targeted it is. I mean, is it is it a poster on the wall in some general space? Or is a cartoon plopped on the woman's desk? Is it joking around but somehow it's just general conversation? Or is it when she's the only woman on the assembly line and when she goes to the John she has to walk this game and people making remarks that her one of the problems that seems to me that arises there is to define what is the public space, think about nine to five, and this vast room with all their desks and people with this desperate need to make something human out there. despots now cater to them. And get there is no such thing really as privacy there. So what's public and what's private? When is it general and when is it more exposed to target? Okay, I think another category that people have tried to talk about is frequency. Just how much is that happening one month versus the power of the person. I've already tried to I mentioned some of the difficulties with that. I think people have tried to talk about how degrading the printer, that particular thing is to try and switch off the race notion of how hostile to have degrading, which may be it's more related to women's situation, I think you get into very difficult areas there. And it's like, I think when people try and talk about pornography, and they're not, they're not opposed to Rod a system, they're opposed to pornography and stuff that reinforces women, women's situation sexual relations, so they're talking about something that forces power differentials and sex. So if the woman's on her knees, and the man is above her degrade, you know, I mean, it's, it's a very hard standard to apply. It's also incredibly difficult to articulate. I don't know, how many of you heard about this case against with Western Electric, in curiosity, the lawsuit that the working with Institute in New Jersey people speaking it's a it's a case in New Jersey against Western Electric and there was a woman who was an engineer. So I mean, I'm sure that you're aware that the likelihood that when the woman is the token in the non traditional situation, she's going to get more, and I guess it's part of what Rosabeth Cantor this sociologist suggests it's a more general phenomenon when you plop a token into a situation. The dominant group does things that makes it reminds itself but it's the dominant group and remind the token that the token is not part of the dominant group. So that was a curiosity situation. So among other things, I mean, there was a lot of hassling her and speculation this year virgin isn't your virgin, they? Somebody anonymously puts this cartoon on her desk. And you look at this cartoon, and it is incredible. I mean, I just thought it was amazing that the cartoon is this woman with an enormous but her backside naked, with a little scrawny guy squeezed between the cheeks. And I find it very hard to articulate why that is so offensive, and what, what it is, but it's so degrading. But I guess it's like saying she's absolutely everything a woman isn't supposed to be in this very personal exposing Wait a minute, that everybody's working your ass off. But you can have a visceral reaction. But when it comes to applying the standard, it may well be a lot harder. Unknown Speaker 22:53 Other kinds of objection may cite to some kind of supervisors. Unknown Speaker 23:03 Yeah, that's one of the things that makes the judge come down so hard on the company, that she various times tried to get them to do something about it. And they just treated her like a crazy lady, which speaks to whoever it was that was concerned about the process of litigation. I think that that in the Tomkins case in which I worked. That was exactly what drove her so crazy. And it's one of the things that leads to the stress. That and then you get crazier and crazier Adrienne pumpkins and without being absent, she was ultimately fired for absenteeism. What happened to her is that she was squeezed out of the company. She filed a lawsuit on your own first went to EEOC, with support EEOC ever heard of that problem and said that it's not an issue that comes with insects discrimination, which speaks to I guess, couple other people's concerns. And she then took her finding of no cause went down to court, like the book says you can filed her complaint and asked to have a lawyer pointed, at which point the judge appointed us so as to because we're really a school project, and so we wouldn't have to bother and they realized and we got involved in the lawsuit and in the process of being involved in a lawsuit, it became very clear that the judge did not see that this was sex discrimination. I'm not saying I condone it, I think it's terrible. It can be a con. This is what happened. What happened to her was that the boss said to her, you work evaluations. Right, right. And then when she complained about it, they said they would transfer her to a comfortable job and then transferred her to a comparable job. They never did anything to him. When she said they should do something with him. They said it's a personal for that whole question of whether it's public or personal. My sense is that that is broken down somewhat, that at least on the corporate levels, people realize they have to give some lip service to, we don't condone it, it does have to do with the Unknown Speaker 25:20 trade unions. And that's not the case. Particularly the garment industry, we have a lot of undocumented workers who are winning the first level being of consciousness issue with them recognizing not only as a compliment, but it's not your job shouldn't be. But then covering up with a much more comfortable if your husband I just Unknown Speaker 25:53 assumed open it up now to talk about this definitional problem. The second problem I want to talk about relates more to the way law, the way issues are being used a little bit Allah, the Clark University case, but what I see is a broader issue, which is that I see that I'm just labeling the problem massacre. See, it's different. Now I want to talk about the definitional stuff. I see that that the cases that are being brought are being brought disproportionately against minority men. And I would like to discuss what's the proper response to that? How do we not concede that it's not an important problem yet? How do we keep opposition to a white male power structure from being divided and fighting against each other? So that's the second problem, but I want to talk about, and I just assume that we open up now and talk about the definitional stuff. People agreeable Unknown Speaker 27:00 in terms of the definition, sounds like you're talking about it as far as education is concerned. It seems that at least, I work in other places where they have come out with a policy, and they've even appointed somebody to be the central clearinghouse for these claims, that they're thinking in terms of resolving things in steps prior to litigation. And so my question is, you know, even within that framework, I mean, I wouldn't feel that my problem was indication for innocence, but even to say, You know what to do about it, or how to handle it on a personal level, how to convey to someone that what you're doing is totally unacceptable when I have the situation, just as you said, where other women in the office, don't acknowledge it, or else they act actively encourage sexual interplay with this guy thinking that it's going to get them something, I mean, that's the part that just hurts me the most. And when I say something to somebody that, you know, that's not making it any easier for the rest of us. It's just don't Unknown Speaker 28:18 know, I mean, I see a lot of that kind of going along, you know, the reasonable person. But it feels to me as though that is coming from most women not so much from the wind to get something that's wanting to avoid that. It's my feeling very clearly that if the message a threatening message, basically, when there is a sexual innuendo like that, that it feels to me like a test, you know, are you going to behave like a proper woman? Or are we going to have to apply sanctions against you and penalize you? And if you don't do what you're expected to do, which is a play along with it, then I think it's not a question of it being a neutral unit that you lose privileges, but you will be actively punished. measures will be taken against you will be stigmatized. Do you think that service, or somebody's supposed to Unknown Speaker 29:09 assent to their Unknown Speaker 29:12 kinds of ways. I mean, I've been in jobs, for instance, where if I'm feeling I'm thinking about somebody as I walk down the hall, people say smile Wiener, which I think is specifically because I'm female, women are supposed to smile. And that's a sexual thing. You can't define that executive, but I experience it as specific. If I don't smile, then I'm dangerous and threatening and God knows what I will do next. Unknown Speaker 29:36 We're also supposed to respond to their directives. Unknown Speaker 29:39 Right? Right. Unknown Speaker 29:42 Example part of the problem because can you say it is sexual harassment? Defining what are subtle, which some people could take as something just trying to do? Or so it's difficult though. Unknown Speaker 30:03 Well, I guess that vulnerable to the charge of I think in terms of litigation, I think it's very useful for us to try and be clear in our mind how we would draw the line because I think it helps just the individual on the job to decide, am I being justified? Or am I crazy? Unknown Speaker 30:24 Yeah, well, the thing you were saying about the climate poster on the wall, as opposed to something being put on your desk, I mean, to me, a poster on the wall is just as offensive when my boss tells dirty jokes and makes obscene gestures on staff meeting. I mean, I feel that's harmful to all of us and craving to all of us men and women. I don't have to be taking it. You know, it doesn't have to be just to me. Unknown Speaker 30:51 I really like to put it in the second one, because I'll tell you why this isn't. Alright. It's just that once we start talking about that, we're not gonna talk about anything else we'll have to know. I just know. All right. All right, just with that commitment. Unknown Speaker 31:05 Okay, nothing that I'm not going to talk about some of the specific some of them has never been discussed. The case is interesting, because there are absolutely no positions whatsoever, any template anywhere in the university, to litigate between the woman who ought not to litigate, to adjudicate come to some agreement before agreement Unknown Speaker 31:31 between one woman and the man about whom she could still do. And what I found fascinating is that one woman said this is a bad environment, Unknown Speaker 31:49 gave one example. That is one person's word against another. So there are no witnesses whatsoever. And other examples of sexual harassment to which there are witnesses, that men say, or many minutes are displays of bad judgment. And some women agree, or displays a bad judgment. While many women and some men say these are not displays of bad judgment on the part of the man, but rather constitute sexual violence. And what's fascinating, if you go around talking to people about the case, is the definitional problem of at what point? Is it possible to talk about sexual harassment? specific example if a faculty if a male faculty member walks into the office and not tenured? soft, soft money? Meaning no possibility? necessarily getting faculty and kisses her on the lips in front of the mouse? Is that or is that not sexual? Or is it bad judgment? And large parts of the case? revolve around what is willing to call such activity? Unknown Speaker 33:19 Is against her wishes? Yes, against? What you just said before is creating standard. My question is, can there be a standard? What's harassing one woman may encourage that behavior in another person? Is there such a thing as a standard? Unknown Speaker 33:41 Or does it become a defining situation? Unknown Speaker 33:46 Is it ever useful to to make legally with any rater, or just in terms of trying to defy the public opinion of connecting it with homosexual behavior? In other words, if this male faculty member were to compete according to a man similar position, with the community, we actually given that we assume a certain amount of sanction against homosexual behavior, whereas we apply the same or an excessive but even greater degree of positive sanction towards heterosexual Unknown Speaker 34:16 Okay, here's here's, I mean, I think that's fascinating. I mean, what a creative use of homophobia. I guess what, what? What might my immediate thought about it is I don't know how I would work it out is does that does that ultimately, again play into into the right anti, I mean, the consequences that we will apply the same homophobic standard across the board, and nobody can express anything? Unknown Speaker 34:44 Well, the problem I guess what I'm trying to get at is that a lot of heterosexual behavior when one is a homosexual, or at least conscious of homosexual perspective, a lot of heterosexual behavior is defined by the majority as so natural as to be human Whereas from a homosexual Perspective Perspective, it seems incredibly individually specific. I mean, the kinds of things where if, if, if somebody calls me, sweetie, you know, they see that as a generic form of reference, whereas I see that is very specific dependent on certain personal situations that are needed. I mean, when, and that comes out of my own life, when I came out as a lesbian, I found that my view of all of these things just shifted enormously, I mean stuff, ads that I had seen, which showed a man and a woman, which are different than the other two people, I began to see now very specifically in terms of heterosexism, and enforcing those prescriptions. So and when I talk to people about it, they seem to think that a lot of behavior is not sexual behavior. So we're not specifically sexually transmitted to people, but as generic. Whereas the same behavior, which in my community, I might see as just as generic, they would see as being highly specific. I mean, I can go up, you know, the lesbian community, and here's someone who was only a casual acquaintance of mine, were and they could see that as being, you know, implying a high degree of personal relationship with the heterosexual community. Similarly, there can be that kind of standard of friction. So I don't know, I just thought maybe that might clarify some of the implicit assumptions that people are making. Other people Unknown Speaker 36:36 that I've worked, I've had some situations Unknown Speaker 36:40 where there are women who want to behave in this manner. Unknown Speaker 36:51 Proposition just puts me in a very, there's an argument, I have nothing. Unknown Speaker 37:08 As my mind, I'm really a better Unknown Speaker 37:11 mother. But on the other hand, I know that I don't have Unknown Speaker 37:14 any support from the women around me who see that this, whatever they do, the more they do. Unknown Speaker 37:22 One piece of information that is a quid pro quo situation, the new EEOC guidelines, protect the third party who claims that he or she was not advanced. Because he or she did not have the opportunity or participate in that they will there's nothing about the consciousness situation or the kind of thing. If if somebody say, say, Susan, call somebody not just caring for jokes, but had an affair and felt that the person was committed because she had the affair, she can't, she has a right to complain that she was discriminated against, for not having some. There may be problems with that, because that may really just encourage everybody to think that that is I wouldn't get ahead. It just there's a little more some relation to what you said. Unknown Speaker 38:36 And the legal state, and that the problem is that you're doing that example. For wrestlers, I remember saying that, you know, like 70 years ago, racists in America say, you know, you're really messing it up for the rest of us. You know, and it seems like kind of a weak example, essentially, the same time, same type of thing. And I guess, in my mind, given the way was, was the individual, generally given individual solutions or individual has to decide what she can tolerate, and what isn't harmful. And still keep in mind, Unknown Speaker 39:29 what seems to be actionable, whatever regulations Unknown Speaker 39:32 exist. And to sort out the solutions from that face, that there may be things that are absolutely totally personal situations that were just so weak, as far as the law is concerned that you couldn't you couldn't get to this world in terms of inaction, either informally consequence or And that's such a, to me, it seems like a big problem in the standard. Because I, I try and make this distinction for myself. It's certainly my break in between physical sexual harassment in verbal. And that, for me, is the only way I can organize the same that, that I've been in situations where a lot of verbal harassment, everything. But, you know, the whole range of, you know, incredible what I can say verbal harassment. And somehow, for me personally, that was some more time jumping around from election that that, that that became a time. So I think it's a mess in terms of what the law can do for us. And Unknown Speaker 41:07 I think that we should consider not just what we can do, but not not just conciliation. But what a bunch of women, if you could get through to them could do informally. And I think we should consider that also, Unknown Speaker 41:23 I think. The other the other thing that really hits me was the idea that in making the definition, we have to be careful not to step over the guards to eliminate sexual freedom. Don't know i Something about that idea bothers me. I know, when the moon's first came out from EEOC, or the very end of the article, The Times was a quote from one of the assistant commissioners or whatever saying, Well, we have to be careful because we don't want to stamp out more man from the office. And I just felt that that just totally undercut the whole thing that said, in the body of the article, and if this is what the assistant commissioners say, then I feel like that just gives people license to say that it was poor judgment. And oh, I thought she was attracted to me. Unknown Speaker 42:27 But because one of the arguments for are trying to define it is that if we can say, here's the line, that we keep them from totally cutting out sexual freedom, or totally undercutting what their cause Unknown Speaker 42:43 strikes me that one issue we've been talking about is when sexual vocabulary is just powerful. So that sometimes, and I guess most of us can observe it, especially if it's something that happens repeatedly. But it sounds to me without knowing about the case, like these men with the Tobin woman were making remarks as she walked by them was clearly a put down. It didn't have to be sexual, it all of us encountered him and we're counting on you're no good, you're done. You're revolting, et cetera, in some other way. And sometimes a sexual remark is clearly meant as an install. And that's one situation. The other situation now that the first question is, is this Man really interested in sex? Or he's interested in putting me down? Does he have to know? Yeah, I think yeah, no, that's right. Well, but the second situation is the difference between our knowing Unknown Speaker 43:41 and his known Unknown Speaker 43:46 difference for most people they know damn well, that they put me down. For that they are really our morning. Like, just to get to the other point. The second point is assuming let's give him all the benefit of the doubt that he really is feeling sexually attracted, as opposed to feeling power hungry. Then it seems to me the critical dimension is whether it is welcome and I don't know the answer to your question, or how do we say what do we tell the judge about dating sex and romance? is whether you clearly said I don't like this then again, it seems to me it's a clear imposition that that that anything somebody deliberately designed in a way that you just told them you don't want it done? Because I don't know. The next the Unknown Speaker 44:50 may believe that he didn't engage in any sexual harassment whatsoever. Many of the people who are doing organizing for him, but he's an extremely affection Ma'am, he will help him out as well. And therefore, he didn't want to engage in sexual harassment. He went Unknown Speaker 45:10 around hugging and kissing women who had made it clear that he wanted to be husband. He made it clear, Unknown Speaker 45:18 it's not clear that you made it sufficiently clear. And that's one of the things that people will also start having problems with. Let me let me give you a version of that is very complicated. Because if you define exactly that, if you say that the man has to know that what he's doing is somehow degrading, a lot of men will simply say this is no, you will never even she walks down the hall, the guy comes, He gives her a really good, she feels his body testing completely against her. She doesn't know what she doesn't feel like she was saying. She knows difference. At what point but it's a serious question. At what point if you feel yourself really vulnerable? Who can? And what kind of complaints is available in the situation? Unknown Speaker 46:28 I think that there's a lot of gray area to this problem definition. But when it comes to actually taking something to court that would qualify under Title Seven Civil Rights Act. It seems to go back to what you said in the beginning, the notion of hooking up sexual when Unknown Speaker 46:45 No, put the legal tender goes beyond that. It just there's a case coming out of the DC circuit called the funding somebody or they're against funding and somebody's been und why that makes clear that environment can be a basis for claim. And the guidelines issued by the Employment Opportunities Commission plays potentially what you said before about substantially interfering with the ability to perform on the job. The early case, did exactly what you've said, and the Bundy case coming from last January. Unknown Speaker 47:19 How successful are the DC Circuit? Are these cases being raised? Unknown Speaker 47:38 I mean, even there, Unknown Speaker 47:39 there are some cases where you lose your job or a promotion or you get demoted. Because your Unknown Speaker 47:46 cases that have gone to trial, some have won, some have lost, the ones that are most likely to be lost are minority women complaining against. Not surprisingly, what you say about race, I think it's exactly true. I think that what's happening is that a lot of the cases are settling before they go to trial, because companies see that even if they can win the case, they lose because of the exposure. So a lot of the victories are coming with good settlements before trial. There's a great risk of of losing if you go to trial, and you can take incredible things out from woman to go to trial. I don't think we should talk about it here. But for the people who were interested in talking about the litigation conference, I would be glad to talk about people particularly about that afterwards. And what one of the interesting questions for me is that the woman's expectations and demands and thoughts about what's going to happen on trial. I just Unknown Speaker 48:48 make a note about the radical feminist analysis, which has any relevance at all for litigation. But I mean, I think if you go down far enough, the underlying problem is that sexuality has power over time as it's defined in our society, so the man who makes a sexual advance and is experienced by the woman has a power that may not be any real difference in either his mind or the public mind without those two, so that the subjective perceptions are not there is it is impossible to make a distinction theoretically, on that level, and only make the same way that when she feels in a certain sense delicate or helpless, that that coalesces at some level of our socialization with sexual response. It makes us it makes us very vulnerable. And it makes it very hard under patriarchy to to accept that we divide the personal from the public, which is of course the whole point. So, subjective responses are I think, in other words, whether we see it as being complimentary or not, is not a reliable gauge. And it may have allowed to do with our level of analysis to Unknown Speaker 50:04 give the individual for the moment assume it was meant as a compliment or a thoughtless compliment if the other individual was made reasonably Unknown Speaker 50:14 unwelcome about what a man because you're Unknown Speaker 50:18 saying, well, the if it's an unwelcome, then Unknown Speaker 50:24 maybe it's been made unwelcome. I think it should be exactly the opposite. It's unwelcome until it's been made welcome. And I think that is the crowd. Unknown Speaker 50:33 But I think there's another problem, which is that it made me welcome on the personal sphere but unwelcome on a public sphere. And in a situation where that those two were being laid off. Unknown Speaker 50:43 I don't think we can get general rules. We can't say the act in itself as well, from our own welcome. We can only say I, this unique person welcome this degree of intimacy from you that specific person, but where to find clarify the fact that I don't welcome that degree of intimacy. Now, what are the Yes? Unknown Speaker 51:04 Okay. I think that none of us have problems with if there is a woman who can express herself and do it, there is no question that that should be it. Unknown Speaker 51:13 The question is what she's done. Okay. Unknown Speaker 51:17 But I think we're all clear in our minds that then she's totally right into you. Right. And Catherine, whatever. Our problem is that some of us Unknown Speaker 51:28 I think it's your real existence to be that clear, right, personal and public, right? There are trade offs, Unknown Speaker 51:35 I think that we want to talk about situations in addition to that situation, that we think the guy is, because what happens Unknown Speaker 51:44 when a woman is in a position of great vulnerability and can afford to test her freedom to say no, and how many witches are very mad like transition have to and told him wonderful things was she shouldn't she should ideally, have other she could turn to the network, email support group. They do Unknown Speaker 52:05 it what happens if you don't have a what happens to the only other women there is someone who is almost as vulnerable as you and is having their own problems. And you complain to some male colleagues, and they tell you to call it or there's no possibility of staying on the institution. There's also the problem that Unknown Speaker 52:23 the problem by saying and effect your perceptions correct, you must permit these intimacies or you will get fired, or you're incorrect, and there's nothing to be done. Well, it couldn't have been incorrect, if there would be no possibility of staying on at the institution, if Unknown Speaker 52:39 the perception of this there's a dispute about the perception about what he's doing and how she's been trying. Unknown Speaker 52:58 Yeah, I'm really concerned about this perceptual issue. What seems to be such quick and dirty terms, I think most of us have experienced that you don't know or have gone through experience, and then we'll be in the middle of night, even if we're lucky, we'll be in the middle of something in the say, this is not right, or whatever. And then for some women certainly experienced that it may be years and go back and find experience or define the experiences and say, That was right, or that was sexual harassment, or something I absolutely cannot tolerate. So that's a whole you know, what to say? It's, it's, I think, it's almost inhumane to expect someone to come out with a whole range of ethics and guidelines in advance that experience. You know, being you know, I've been in situations where I did work with men and women who are very physical infection, I can imagine somebody coming into my office and putting his or her arms around me and given me a kiss on the head, I had been stolen. And I, one person might interpret that as isn't that, you know, that's just lovely. And I like working with that person. And the, you know, it depends on you know, I think it's quite common not to know that until it happens. So, you know, what are the next? And that's I think it does go back to them in psychology, the psychology of supporting a group, that we are often as you said, our sexuality is such that we're often turned on by superior and whereas men who men are very seldom turned on by superior women, so that that just reinforces you know, the higher you put that in the office place, and there you are, and once you do, even if it's by or, you know, agreement? If you have a romance in the office place? How often will you find them? Equal truly equal? Or more rarely the woman above the man? Unknown Speaker 55:12 Yeah, I've also had the experience in terms of communicating how we feel that there's there's a continuum, you know, you start with a subtle hinge, which is overridden, then you get a little clearer. That's overrated, right? This is all just, you know, feminine Oh, well, you know, she wants to be persuaded. So then as you go up by increments, all of a sudden, they shift to the other side, at the point at which they really get the message, then you become hostile. There's no, there's no transition in between. So that in many situations, there is not a way to make clear in a non judgmental way that this is offensive to you. Because they have set up certain prescriptions that control how those things are heard. So that so that there's no way they don't have a way that you can tell them that you can either tell them that you hate them, or tell them that you love them. But you cannot say Unknown Speaker 56:03 our female upbringing, which denies us the initiative, to them, so that we don't make these advances, which we should be doing Unknown Speaker 56:13 more of, and our I think, compared to years ago, Unknown Speaker 56:19 and also this double standard, which says that for a man who is receiving a welcome advance, can honestly say, Oh, great, wonderful, I'm delighted that a woman isn't Unknown Speaker 56:31 supposed to do that she's supposed to play hard to get, Unknown Speaker 56:35 which makes it all very ambiguous, and that we should stop with these definitions. Unknown Speaker 56:43 How can we want to coach as a coach, practical problem making men with power is structural power situation, conscious that it is a potential problem, what, how they do? And how can one make women in the same situation, conscious of ways of coping with or keeping away from potentially dangerous situations? Unknown Speaker 57:19 I suppose another rule that I'd like, for folks who've had experience working with him and who suffered from me is another route, just a lot more information and exposure, about specific cases where, like the original permita, would, this woman who tried to deal with it and ultimately developed all these physical disabilities? I'm kind of curious whether she lost her case. I know she lost your case, I'm talking about really cases in court. I think that I think it's a great danger of being too obsessed with. I mean, I think litigation in this area, has served a very useful purpose of allowing a lot of publicity for a couple of cases and predefined some outside limits. But I think that a lot of what we need to be talking about is not just litigation. And I would be curious whether you folks who saw a connection in terms of physical disability, wanted to talk about either what you saw whether you thought that that would be a route for reaching women who, who don't have a consciousness yet, if you can't explicitly articulate in my standard that we're going to tack up on the wall. I think that I Unknown Speaker 58:31 think one of the issues not only extact in terms of power, but it's also an individual voice against the system, and individuals woman's voice against sister workers against brother workers against the power system and against structures and policies that reinforce the harassment so that women who are in the electrical workers are explicitly not in batch placements. In other words, they're explicitly in single placements, even though it was a bit Panther stuff about tokenism. And it suggests that women to keep them on the job should be in batches, and they're put simply and when asking their supervisors why that is, because they're told that so that we can change even more employers attitudes toward electricians. As a consequence of that they are obviously highly vulnerable to sexual harassment. And when they go to their shops to supervisors and told them, they're told women are like that, when asked if they can use the union grievance procedure. They're told you're an apprentice procedure manual either. And I think that I think, looking at structurally, women socialization, feminine psychology notwithstanding, I think that we have to look at it structurally. And that we have to think about remedies in structural ways. And some of it has to do with policy some has to do with how much women as a class are willing to tolerate some has to do with education that gives events a label, and that doesn't like smiling, tolerance acceptable. Some has to do with making what has traditionally been given socially acceptable behavior in acceptable behavior. Unknown Speaker 1:00:09 And women's alcoholism projects Unknown Speaker 1:00:11 or male activism projects attempt to do that they make what has been conformance, not really maybe behavior, but conformance behavior and some worksites tricky is conforming, they make it not so terrific to do. I think sexual harassment has to be treated in the same way, education that women, for women, it's unfair for us to give it a label so that we don't internalize it, make it personal, so that we see political and for men to understand. Unknown Speaker 1:00:42 I think the thing that strikes me, I don't know, any real specific cases. But I think what I have a sense of as we look for this, we find that a lot more, and it ties in with what you said. And I think the primary thing is that you take a woman who has no consciousness, if that's I mean, in the sense of feminine strength, we probably are average, Unknown Speaker 1:01:02 so she's not willing to label it. Unknown Speaker 1:01:04 All right, I'm having difficulty with verbiage. But part of what you said really struck me in the sense that I think there's often situations that if you did go back five years later, and you sit in a workshop like this, that's what that was. So I think, a primary thing for us, you know, some people have said it with the uneducated women, standing group of people. Okay, thank you, you know, there's been an educational, a sharing of this kind of information that you begin to bring the consciousness up to be able to, to do, which I think in some ways is far more important. I think the litigation is necessary. Obviously, we need something to help define so that we can work within that. Unknown Speaker 1:01:48 But at the same time, we said, what rule of business? Unknown Speaker 1:01:52 Well, it's still sounds like there's certainly a need for some sort of policy. That's where we seem to get lost, because it's so difficult and overwhelming. But it's certainly what seems to me that the education process of bringing this kind of thing to a level of spreading is essential, so that there is the information so that there's no, we're talking about how we're raised education. Unknown Speaker 1:02:18 Both of you have mentioned education. Can you give more specific examples of things that you Unknown Speaker 1:02:26 a fair amount of outreach, talking about the issues there. GW has had conferences for women in three languages in Spanish and English and Chinese and what sexual harassment means and what it looks like what feels like workshops for the women to talk about their experiences. There were leaflets, there are hotlines, in some cases, there are classes, in some cases, in some cases. And secondly, they have classes on what it means to be a female worker, incidentally, we did in in a less common way. Some people do it in terms of what happens to other women, so that women don't feel like they have to put themselves on the line, you don't have to be a self proclaim sexual harassment and to come to this workshop. And then ultimately, when we start to talk about structure, we have to take some of the policies like what it means to have one woman at one worksite wishes to choke the woman and we're kind of orienting the Unknown Speaker 1:03:36 supervisor that this was something that was involved in the New York City public schools and ethnic insults were absolutely procedure, and nobody on the supervisory level and we said, hey, you're you're not around here. Unknown Speaker 1:04:02 I think part of what's neat is to reclaim the power to define those situations. From our point of view, a lot of times we're at a point where we tend to define them from the mainstream, the means that we have defined so that I mean, like what you're saying about the woman working there, apparently they don't have the power to choose how they would prefer to work. And they can use up to do that. Right. So the more we can get that power, to name things and to define them into to say how it is that we would like it to be and get that at least listened to, if not acted on at this point. It doesn't even get listened to. It's just brushed aside. You know, your misperceiving Well, if it's our lives, if it can't be a misperception, our minds are how we see them. Unknown Speaker 1:04:51 Well, I know in the private sector, they are giving more lip service to training supervised for me and coming out of class. We'll see. There have been a lot of films that have come out lately. But they're mostly from the perspective of how to prevent a loss to our company and the embarrassing lawsuit and this type of thing. There's a man who's a training company, and they had just had a whole issue of sexual harassment. They announced it by saying, another volume, the age old battle of the sexes or something like the latest. Unknown Speaker 1:05:33 One, Newsweek had an issue on this was a couple of years ago on what they did to one was on women's rights in general, and they have this sort of battleaxe kind of jokey cover. And then they had a big pitch on sexual harassment. Just incredibly offensive. Unknown Speaker 1:05:57 That's always step one is it's free as a degrading joke. Unknown Speaker 1:06:00 But I'm not I'm not sure. I mean, it's terrible things are true. The whole issue of sexual harassment is treated in that manner. Unknown Speaker 1:06:10 That gets people to know that there's some kind of phenomenon is potentially Unknown Speaker 1:06:16 something that one could complain about, or become conscious about even the fact Unknown Speaker 1:06:21 that, folks, I'm a little concerned that having resolved this problem, we won't have much time for the other column, not to mention the Clark case. So go ahead, if you want. Well, I would like to move in general to the problem of and I think in a way we are part there, have the powers that be are picking up on this issue. And it seems to me that they are picking up on it in a way that keeping the opposition to them divided to some extent, which is a good entree to the Clark case. Let me just say that I really would like to emphasize that I think it's happening tremendously numerically with white men, not allowing themselves to be the ones who are attacked, or as in the Clark case, that the white man who has been going after is a prominent left wing activist. Unknown Speaker 1:07:28 That's what is very bad about this case, because this case, is a fight on the left. And everybody involved in both sides. And a lot of the people involved on both sides are feminists. That is to say, there are women who are feminists to split. The man is someone who's prominent named her work in the 1960s. People's descriptions, and he's lost jobs because of his political. It he's and he said the department allegedly engaged in sexual harassment. Children, exile send things to co workers, women. We can discuss this, so that she tried to talk to the men about it, and it was clear that we just got in trouble. Other men in the department what's going to happen if she should just shut up? She went to the university and the university didn't do anything for 18 months. At the end of 18 months, she filed an affidavit. Complaint. affidavit is not the best thing that I've ever read in my life. It's not at that point, the university instead of trying to conciliate just as you men in the department have never tried to consider put offensive tip in June this was filed any kind of action until September, called the radical man off sabbatical and then started instituting proceedings that were or could be interpreted as having been intended to get him fired. He filed suit, with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that his rights were being interfered with the women in many respects, supported the suit because they didn't like the procedures that the university was instituting anymore than abandoned. We can swing to an all faculty all elected committee. Neither the man nor the women, rural Unknown Speaker 1:10:09 women complaints were complaints Unknown Speaker 1:10:12 were now more, Unknown Speaker 1:10:13 more well, there are now more women testifying before the old faculty committee, which has any more than two, please come forward. But any woman who came forward was not permitted to have a lawyer with her. And the man who was accused was not permitted to be in the room and anyone was talking were to have his lawyer. Needless to say, this escalated with the community of the left and was in the community of the feminists. So that there are also a lot of very nasty people saying very nasty things about one another. I know when I had a talk with remembering a male member of his department as early as August armacell, that the woman was doing this because she was crazy description of how over a period of two years she had gotten crazier and crazier. One of my Marxist feminist colleagues had a conversation with the same man in which she was told because she was middle aged, didn't have children and didn't have a lover at the moment. Therefore, she was frustrated. We tried all of us very angry, very angry. So then they go before this all faculty committee, more women come forward. Some women give evidence that can be interpreted as constituting sexual harassment depending upon the definition that you use. Some women give evidence that they witnessed some of these occurrences and they believe can be interpreted in sexual harassment. The faculty committee issued a report the reports that their central charge of pre poll clubs, it's one person's word against the other, but that there are Unknown Speaker 1:11:57 one person's word against another being insufficient to proven to prevent Unknown Speaker 1:12:05 this unit because University, Unknown Speaker 1:12:06 what is closed University saying is now in some way in all faculty committee, that the university claims is comparable to sort of a grand jury. Unknown Speaker 1:12:16 But but they made up the process as they went along. Right? They don't. Unknown Speaker 1:12:21 Because there was no process that existed. Now no internet, you know, it's a private or public university, private university. But you also have to before you can go to the ER and say, you have to say that you've been able to No, no. Well, the lawyers that are dealing with this interpreted that you haven't tried doing something with the employer before they went solidly to the EEOC charge. That was that they're interpreting, Unknown Speaker 1:12:46 because or at the time that this started, it was unclear whether the lawsuits were unclear, but whether you had a complaint. Unknown Speaker 1:12:54 So at the time of this started, the lawyers felt that you had to try to do something within the University. Before you can do an actual complaint with the EEOC. So I tried to do something in reverse. The Women's lawyers complain about this so called grand juries name because you can't have legal representation with Superman was being treated fairly with American plates, the NLRB, the committee comes out say I'm a quid pro quo is one person's word against the other. On some of the other alleged incidents, there are witnesses, and that there are also also alleged sexual harassment against other people who have appeared before the Committee. The Committee recommends that the University joins up charges at this point, there are fogging involved. Unknown Speaker 1:13:41 The quid pro quo means that if you sleep, do you sleep with me and I will reward you the other harassments are alleged harassment all had to do with kissing and hugging and Unknown Speaker 1:13:51 hugging things and some comments, and so forth. Unknown Speaker 1:13:58 On the road close. Unknown Speaker 1:14:02 There are no other witnesses around but the two people in the faculty committee recommends that the administration drop charges. The faculty committee keeps completely confidential whatever it was against, leading to business, leading to hearings that would be held under AAUP rules for the adjudication of academic freedom cases, but not adjudication cases involving sexual harassment. And Unknown Speaker 1:14:33 the question is, what would be the sanction would he be fired? Unknown Speaker 1:14:37 That becomes within the realm of possibility? or dark pay or reprimand all of those things become within the realm of possibility? But the committee doesn't say what it's tasked with the testimony was that it heard to anybody to the administration when Joe's charges were nobody with the five committee met. recently testified but anyway, what the relationship is between the 15 charges and the actual testimony that might have occurred. The man starts complaining quite properly that the university is using a situation to try to get rid of him, because he's a well known radical, because we had the lower rates. Because he was on the board, he helped get the faculty. The women are complaining that they don't want this treat in terms of going after a radical they want a discussion of sexual harassment and sex discrimination. And that's the curtain issue and it's asleep. Other sets of politics out of this, other sets of politics have nothing to do with sexual harassment, sexual harassment, any political milieu. And that gets heated. It's due to go into all electric faculty Review Committee, which will begin hearings that would be sort of comparable to try the university jerk the charges. The women are not permitted to have a lawyer present. Because the women have now been reduced to the status of witnesses. The women claim that they have the right to have a lawyer and the university. Additionally, through much of this period, probably sometime in November, but no one knows for sure. The University started settlement talks with the man and the women's lawyers were never permitted to be present when the settlement talks came down to find that on March 23, the women's lawyer sent a letter to the president of Clark saying that two of her clients who had in mid November filed a grievance with EEOC, going into previous interpretations. Were refused to participate in the hearings of the faculty Review Committee, because they do not believe in properly constituted because they do have to address the question of sexual harassment. And because they believe that the NLRB case that the man had brought should have been heard prior to going into any faculty review committee on March 24. The next day, the university signed a settlement with a man that is pre dated to march for the settlement specifies that he drops his LLB case with prejudice, meaning that the university admits it was wrong. Unknown Speaker 1:17:46 No, no, but prejudice just means that he can never bring it up again. Unknown Speaker 1:17:52 Okay, so he dropped that one. The university drops any proceedings against him. He has a leave of absence that starts on March 31. And he must be off campus by March 31. Because attention is on campus. He has five six pay for the rest of this academic year. He has full pay for semester, he can never chair the sociology anthropology department again. He can never make a vote on any kind of policy committee, thing involving two women who are faculty members. He cannot see the university defined as the president, the provost Dean's the Committee on personnel or any member of the Committee on personnel. On March 25. The next day, he fired fire Assad received $23,000,711 against two faculty women, the ex Secretary of the Department. Unknown Speaker 1:18:58 Let me just put in one fact not about this case, but about academic procedures in general, title six and Title Nine which relate to what universities as well as other recipients of federal money to do you understand that the life of provisions is not necessarily wrong, requires recipients to have grievance procedures to deal with discrimination. The lawsuit against Yale University on behalf of the students had to do with Yale not having those procedures. It's not just the public schools, anybody that gets federal money. It's not had Clark being in compliance with that requirement. There would presumably have been an had people understood that sexual harassment was sexual discrimination. Um, There would have been a procedure to I just wanted to say this informational manner Unknown Speaker 1:20:07 you have, how many Unknown Speaker 1:20:11 are in compliance? Well, all I can tell you is when I was involved in litigating the Yale suit, I wrote to as many as I could and got a variety of responses. A lot are technically in compliance because they have something as good as this was Columbia two years ago, but something that basically says, For grievance procedure go to x. So there's, there's compliance, and then there's compliance. My impression was that, as of three years ago, nobody was in compliance. As of two years ago, they were coming along how far they were coming along, had to do with how much pressure ECW was putting on them. Forget it. Unknown Speaker 1:20:56 Yale, Yale's in Unknown Speaker 1:20:58 the process of negotiating with a GW is telling them what the what they have is inadequate, even though I mean, that's a good use of litigation for not winning, but putting pressure on. Unknown Speaker 1:21:20 The train was due to get in February Clark Unknown Speaker 1:21:29 University received a letter of intent Unknown Speaker 1:21:31 designed so that she could leave the country with his design still refuses to sign all it asks her or ask her to do so that she is presently employed with that particular letter. She has possibility Unknown Speaker 1:21:51 getting is this explicit that you want from folks here? Did you want to inform people about it? Did you want Unknown Speaker 1:22:02 people to know about it? And if anybody wants to save money, because this is now extremely expensive? Since there are three sets of lawyers and sex harassment lawyers, immigration lawyers and defamation? Unknown Speaker 1:22:19 Why do you think why do you think this clearly is a personal thing? Well, why are these people so unable to communicate? Unknown Speaker 1:22:32 I think it's going well beyond. I mean, right now, we have sufficient time into this. It's always important, possibly, to discuss education. I think your suspicion that Unknown Speaker 1:22:52 it's not just a personal dispute. That was what the problem was. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's a mistake. I think that that it's a, it's a dispute that properly should have been kept within the left and not gone public, possibly, or it's a public dispute, and the university deliberately screwed it up. It's, I think it's wrong to conceive of it as a private dispute, because he was not just doing it at some barbecue. He was her boss. It's not private. Unknown Speaker 1:23:23 Well, but it's gotten far beyond him having a very, pretty significant saying accepting bad sanction from the university and this woman, the damage, the damage, isn't doing a huge amount of damage. Certainly, Unknown Speaker 1:23:49 no, he only is stigmatized when he walks on the campus. That's the biggest sanction. And that's not a trivial sanction. Unknown Speaker 1:23:57 I just wondering, is there anything behind this except just this, this inability to read people? Unknown Speaker 1:24:05 No, I think that what's behind it, my view, is that there are five conceptual witness sexual harassment, and are extremely convinced that they are right. And there's Unknown Speaker 1:24:21 people who support Unknown Speaker 1:24:22 him who claim innocence and absolutely believe it. And that the question that is involved is, what constitutes inappropriate behavior? And what are the way that you can or cannot behave? I've been very distressed and as I've talked to people, and we discussed the position of the limit to one minute and you discuss this with people, and then the minute that you say and other witnesses and other people being sued, or Secretary into students, many Eastern students when they say, oh, that's serious. But I don't see why it's not serious. Unknown Speaker 1:25:08 I think there's another thing that's going on. And I think it's that there is a question of not just what's right conduct and what's wrong. But how serious a problem harassment is, has serious problems sex discrimination is versus going after somebody who's on the left, or going after somebody who's black and going after somebody's Puerto Rican. I mean, the problem is that people really, to some extent, are not taking seriously women's problems, had they really taken it more seriously. Instead, I think that the, at the point that people were approaching me and sending me out about, you know, what, what did I think how could this be worked out? It was like, this is such a serious problem. It is so terrible that someone is going after x, because he has been there over the years. And this is the 1980s and the new writers there. And where is he ever going to get a job again, that that, from the women's perspective, there was not a sufficient recognition of how important the woman's issue was, from what Unknown Speaker 1:26:15 I'm hearing more and more as we go around it, the underlying issue here is the the right of women, the power of women, to name their experiences, that that that issue is not so much whether you've been sexually assaulted, but whether your experience of that as a sexual harassment is a legitimate definition of the experience. And if you can be sued Unknown Speaker 1:26:35 for slander, and how much power do we have? I think this is a critical point is the endpoint you just mentioned. Something very similar happened in that I know of again, at an academic institution, and then I personally believe was clearly paranoid, was, there was a hearing around firing him and a number of students testified, and a number of others refuse to testify, because they had already been threatened in advance. I'm sure. The scripts were absolutely genuine, that if they testify, they'd be sued. And I'm sure they would have been and you know, if she was with me, now, as long as the law permits, that I don't see that you who's going to testify legally, to know, Unknown Speaker 1:27:28 why don't we go around the room and I will get back Unknown Speaker 1:27:32 to stress that this case, is an experience that a lot of people probably share, but I I teach at a college and represent adversity and has a reputation for being a Marxist radical. And, and the just invidious sexism of my left is, is no idea. Because their response is my god, we're crucifying great leftists. And I think that's the thing that has really, you know, as a political situation has, has made it so messy, that suddenly women, especially more Suspendisse, who thought we were good friends here, and the struggle has realized that we're not good buddies Unknown Speaker 1:28:15 in the store. And Unknown Speaker 1:28:16 then you go online, the voice prompt you want. And Unknown Speaker 1:28:21 that is what's distressing. And, and, and I see it reproduced in in other types of things that go on within departments having to do you know, who's a proper left, who's and who's a conflict of interest, and where they collide or don't collide. And in this case, it gets brought up in shame, shame on you, women, you know, don't forget to set the timing because if not the person who don't after go after somebody who's mainstream sociology don't. And I think if the issue is that, if it's sexual harassment and naming and systematic training, Unknown Speaker 1:28:58 I have to send a question to clarification of where we stand now Unknown Speaker 1:29:01 is that He is suing based Unknown Speaker 1:29:06 on its some 70 counts, and they Unknown Speaker 1:29:09 are doing nothing existing defense? No, no, they're waiting, they're waiting have a separate case, they're waiting until Unknown Speaker 1:29:17 May 19, when the six month waiting period, at which point, they have the right to sue. Because when University is an Unknown Speaker 1:29:27 outside person, the university knows very little about this case or the system. One question that comes as what we'll be looking at. I mean, it sounds like it's so mired. And is that I mean, is that part of what your concern is, is that we understand the real basis of this and that if you were to look at this, somebody who knows nothing about it, and we're to read your whatever, and you see, it sounds what I'm hearing if I if you were a Joe Public, you're going to hear something very different than what was the original process that occurred, Unknown Speaker 1:29:59 but let me say that My concern for the issue that I was trying to get in the way a prospective one, what should in a way, what should our line be? Or what should our outlook be, as these cases are coming up? I mean, it seems to me that, in general, we want to find a way of saying that this is a serious problem that it should be dealt with across the board. Because if we just say, x didn't, x should be sanctioned. But meanwhile, the university is picking and picking x. We're just playing into their hands, trying to get clarification, but that's my interest. But I think that that there are a lot of specific concerns about this case. And I think what Matt has brought up Unknown Speaker 1:30:56 Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to throw in another thing. Powers are responding to it and other people are trying to catch me streaming films and articles and such they're coming out. It's always said, Yes, this is a legitimate issue. But watch out, because a lot of women who aren't getting promoted or right away say that it's because they're sexually harassing them, and they might not happen, which isn't the case and it was one film, talking about specifically a case of an older woman who isn't