Just want to say that this stuff is not unusual. it is good for everyone to see what women have to deal with everyday . You’ve come a long way baby…
At what point does Fox stop paying for settlements and Roger goes into bankruptcy?
Is Roger choking his ‘retirement’ chickens in his palatial glass ‘beach house’ in Miami or just pissing them off?
What more needs to be said about Ailes that hasn’t been said? He’s a disgrace and a criminal.
I agree and get what you are saying. No one ought to be victimized like this in the workplace, but in a civil law context Ms. Curanaj’s complaint for sexual harassment must be supported by the facts of what Ailes did to her. I agree with @jacksonhts that her complaint ought to survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings, though she may ultimately lose as @old_curmudgeon maintains (though he does not agree necessarily with the law as written).
As a magistrate-judge of 32+ years now retired, I considered literally tens of thousands of requests for domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking restraining orders. In those contexts, I know that a plaintiff who proved he or she felt harassed often but not always meant he/she met the legal definition of harassment. The laws are written not only to provide justice to victims, but to prevent injustice to the innocent. Just as sometimes it is the perpetrators of domestic violence who seek restraining orders over his/her victims to gain child custody or power over the victim, so too someone who is rightfully fired or not hired for poor performance may make an untrue claim of sexual harassment to keep his/her job or to gain a money judgment from an innocent employer.
I am certainly not suggesting Ms. Curanaj falls in the latter category. I am suggesting that in the interest of fairness, the law is often not what a victim sees as fair.
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And that is why the legs are always crossed - to preclude the inevitable crotch shot.
I don’t know if you’re talking personally or institutionally, but making a workplace so poisoned as to include an employer or potential employer calling ex-boyfriends and asking about your sex history IS NOT LOCKER ROOM TALK. The most obvious clue is that it was not in a locker room. It was in a business office. Just stop right there calling something “locker room talk” when it happens in a workplace.
Moreover, this “one event” was part of getting denied a job. And we all know (as would a judge) that this is a pattern with other statements under oath confirming the pattern. I realize that you are saying you don’t think you could defend this claim, but someone else can and most of us will hope they succeed so that no person has to endure this type of lechery from an employer.
Ailes relies on the idea that people will just shrug off his behavior as “just locker room talk” and that is why it’s a pattern.
Fox does not have their anchors deliver the news while standing with their asses facing the cameras. But they do employ a large bunch of asses.
Agreed. Very much so. I also think it’s important going forward in the era of Pepe. There’s no question in my mind that he’s going to be screwing around in the Oval office. He’s cheated on every wife he’s had and he doesn’t strike me as someone even remotely capable of being faithful for a year, let alone four. So, I expect sex scandals and harassment suits that Republicans will angrily claim aren’t fair for the media to report because Bill Clinton.
Whatever the law should be, it is what it is, as the great philosopher said. I may be wrong (often am), but I work on cases like this for a living, and I’m not sure I’d bring this one, even for the publicity it would get me to sue Roger Ailes.
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You’re are wrong about that, and in addition, it’s sexual discrimination, as well. No male anchor was evaluated in that way.
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The Supreme Court stated in 1986 (I think–it was a long time ago) that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination. It shouldn’t be that way, but essentially, if it doesn’t rise to the level of harassment, its not sex discrimination (what we call gender discrimination these days) either. And this is a failure-to-hire case; they are notoriously difficult to win.
But sex discrimination isn’t necessarily harassment. You can’t ask women to do different things on the job than men. It violates federal labor law.
Look, folks, this is what I do for a living, so I know something about it. I’m not always right, but I do know something. In the real (legal) world, gender discrimination as in failing to promote a woman but promoting a man, paying a woman less for the same job, etc. is measured along pretty much the same lines as, say, race discrimination. Sexual harassment is different. While sexual harassment is a form of sexual harassment, according to the Supreme Court, when we are talking about harassment-like conduct, the standards of sexual harassment make up the whole field.
In this most recent case, the woman was not hired. That claim should be measured on the same basis as if a black male applied for a job and was not hired, but a white male was. Trouble is, those cases are almost impossible to win for reasons not directly related to race or gender.
The issue isn’t understanding the difference between harassment and discrimination, but it is true that asking a woman to turn around to see what she looks like from behind and commenting on her looks is sexual discrimination if it isn’t something required of men either to be hired or to keep the job, no? And given Ailes’s pattern of sexual discrimination and harassment, I would think the legal case against him would be strong. But, IANAL.