Silence in not just assent, it is complicit consent - Capitol Hill edition
My undergraduate degree is in Business Administration with a major in Human Resource Management. I took and passed the exam to receive the Professional in Human Resource (PHR) certification offered by the Society for Human Resource Management. I mention these two items to illustrate that I have a strong understanding of the laws, policies and procedures for investigating allegations of sexual harassment.
My employer has an excellent written policy on harassment of all types in the workplace. Typically, it encourages employees to report incidents as soon as possible, but it does not say that after a certain number of days have passed, a complaint can no longer be made. Such things are typical of the policies and processes in place in private employment; although an argument can be made that some entertainment industry employers fail to enforce such policies, if they exist at all.
Congress has traditionally insulated or outright exempted itself from the rules it sets for employers. What they've done for employees of Congress in terms of filing complaints of harassment goes beyond Byzantine. Let's review. Imagine that any employee of the Congress, at any level, believes they are a victim of sexual harassment.
He or she has only 180 days to file their complaint with the Office of Compliance. After their complaint has been reviewed, they move to the next step.
Now he or she must undergo 30 days of mandatory counseling before anything else transpires.
Then they get 15 days to decide if they want to proceed to mediation or drop the complaint.
If they go to mediation, they must sign a confidentiality agreement and continue working with the person they are accusing.
If mediation fails, there is a mandatory 30 day cooling off period before they can file a lawsuit.
Should a settlement be reached, it is confidential. The victim's lawyer and any settlement is paid with taxpayer funds.
* * *
Not only is this wrong, it is a system designed to protect the predator. I suspect that this process, layered to make it all but impossible to receive a fair and impartial hearing for the complaint is the reason that members of the House and Senate feel free to do just about anything and believe they can get away with it.
Why else in the post-Anthony Weiner era would a member of the House, Joe Barton (R-TX), send a picture of his privates and a sext message to a woman? He had to be operating under the assumption this couldn't possibly come back to haunt him. But it has.
The Washington Post reports that Barton threatened to report the woman to the Capitol Police. According to a tape the Post claims to have reviewed, Barton said:
“I want your word that this ends,” he said, according to the recording, adding: “I will be completely straight with you. I am ready if I have to, I don’t want to, but I should take all this crap to the Capitol Hill Police and have them launch an investigation. And if I do that, that hurts me potentially big time.”
Cheating while you are married is not equivalent to sexual harassment/assault/rape. But threatening someone is out of bounds.
* * *
We have an election coming in less than a year where all 435 of the House and 1/3rd of the Senate will be up for grabs. To ensure we do not return a bunch of p***y-grabbers to Capitol Hill, we need to make this an issue. Candidates need to declare where they stand on the issue of making the process of reporting harassment allegations transparent and simple. Not a rush to judgment mind you, but a fair, impartial investigatory process.
My employer has an excellent written policy on harassment of all types in the workplace. Typically, it encourages employees to report incidents as soon as possible, but it does not say that after a certain number of days have passed, a complaint can no longer be made. Such things are typical of the policies and processes in place in private employment; although an argument can be made that some entertainment industry employers fail to enforce such policies, if they exist at all.
Congress has traditionally insulated or outright exempted itself from the rules it sets for employers. What they've done for employees of Congress in terms of filing complaints of harassment goes beyond Byzantine. Let's review. Imagine that any employee of the Congress, at any level, believes they are a victim of sexual harassment.
He or she has only 180 days to file their complaint with the Office of Compliance. After their complaint has been reviewed, they move to the next step.
Now he or she must undergo 30 days of mandatory counseling before anything else transpires.
Then they get 15 days to decide if they want to proceed to mediation or drop the complaint.
If they go to mediation, they must sign a confidentiality agreement and continue working with the person they are accusing.
If mediation fails, there is a mandatory 30 day cooling off period before they can file a lawsuit.
Should a settlement be reached, it is confidential. The victim's lawyer and any settlement is paid with taxpayer funds.
* * *
Not only is this wrong, it is a system designed to protect the predator. I suspect that this process, layered to make it all but impossible to receive a fair and impartial hearing for the complaint is the reason that members of the House and Senate feel free to do just about anything and believe they can get away with it.
Why else in the post-Anthony Weiner era would a member of the House, Joe Barton (R-TX), send a picture of his privates and a sext message to a woman? He had to be operating under the assumption this couldn't possibly come back to haunt him. But it has.
The Washington Post reports that Barton threatened to report the woman to the Capitol Police. According to a tape the Post claims to have reviewed, Barton said:
“I want your word that this ends,” he said, according to the recording, adding: “I will be completely straight with you. I am ready if I have to, I don’t want to, but I should take all this crap to the Capitol Hill Police and have them launch an investigation. And if I do that, that hurts me potentially big time.”
Cheating while you are married is not equivalent to sexual harassment/assault/rape. But threatening someone is out of bounds.
* * *
We have an election coming in less than a year where all 435 of the House and 1/3rd of the Senate will be up for grabs. To ensure we do not return a bunch of p***y-grabbers to Capitol Hill, we need to make this an issue. Candidates need to declare where they stand on the issue of making the process of reporting harassment allegations transparent and simple. Not a rush to judgment mind you, but a fair, impartial investigatory process.
posted by me at 7:25 AM
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