Thoughts on Sexual Harrasment...

[Industrial Toys]

I don't think it's THAT at all. It's all just more BS that the average Joe (and Jane) believe. They are not just poorly paid, abused, with no prosperous future employees. Oh no, they are team members, team leaders and associates! Give me a break. Some people, no, MOST people will believe anything. Your individual worth is much diminished when you are considered worth something ONLY as a team.

 

[ultrarunner]

Fascinating reading the handbook and policy and procedure manual...

I was told to look up something so I did... and I kept reading and found many errors or conflicts.

Brought it up to the CEO since she mentioned I should read it... her response was yes... it is out of date or needs updating... but the position that would oversee this has been a revolving door... it almost sounded like and assignment was coming my way... a lot of it is more technical on the medical side of things...

This month the leaning module is customer service with the goal of "Delighted" patients and family members... being that Delighted are the most loyal patrons...

Some of it is interesting and most common sense... it does beg the question about someone on the payroll to come with these things... at least to me.

 

[3930dave]

I won't post the details here, but effectively our (Canadian) electoral system was recently turned into a joke.

Pence got it right. When unidentified adult claimants can immediately wreck a male politician's career, there is no other way for men to play the game.

As stated before, I fully support actual assaults being tried in court.

This Breaking News, just a couple of months before an election ? What happened here is likely nothing more than a desperate smear campaign.

Rgds, D.

 

[airbiscuit]

This is why I think it is important that we listen to the voices of the victims ...

 

[3930dave]

This is why I think it is important that we listen to the voices of the victims ...

With the scale of that case, I find it very difficult to believe that nobody in a position of authority was contacted at the time of the assault. Hopefully, charges against other parties are also proceeding.

Rgds, D.

 

[jerrybob]

Judge Aquilina said and did the right things.......she should be commended.

 

[Thomas]

Judge :thumbsup: Michigan president and others resign hopefully not just walking away.

 

[goeduck]

Hard to believe that that went on for so long to so many girls without something being done earlier. They need to do complete investigation into who knew what.

 

[dmccarty]

With the scale of that case, I find it very difficult to believe that nobody in a position of authority was contacted at the time of the assault. Hopefully, charges against other parties are also proceeding.

Rgds, D.

Absolutely. There were too many kids, for too many years, for others to not know what was happening. Another Sandusky.

There are laws on the books today, at least in some states, that would hold some adults criminally liable if they knew and did nothing. Unfortunately, those laws might not have been on the books years ago.

Later,
Dan

 

[airbiscuit]

Hard to believe that that went on for so long to so many girls without something being done earlier. They need to do complete investigation into who knew what.

This is why I think it is important that we listen to the victims of sexual harassment/assault.

Excerpts of statement by Rachael Denhollander



It sounds eerily familiar to what every single woman was told all the way back to 1997. We were all wrong. We were all just confused. Board of trustees, is this the right way to handle disclosures of sexual assault on MSU's campus? And if that were not bad enough, when I finally joined the civil suit five months later, after waiting for almost half a year for MSU to do the right thing, the vice president of the board of trustees, Joel Ferguson, went on television and gave a press interview in which he claimed those of us who have filed lawsuits were ambulance chasers who were looking for a payday.

In fact, I know that at least one other high ranking MSU official has specifically called me out by name and said I'm in it for the money. This has never been contradicted, retracted or refuted. MSU, you need to realize that you are greatly compounding the damage done to these abuse victims by the way you are responding. This, what it took to get here, what we had to go through for our voices to be heard because of the responses of the adults in authority, has greatly compounded the damage we suffer. And it matters.

\We have waited 18 months to be told no, this is not how we handle this on MSU's campus. But instead everyone has doubled down on the claim that nothing was done wrong and the only conclusion that can be reached is that no one truly sees anything wrong with any of this. And that is terrifying. And it leaves me terrified for the little girls of the future, who we are here to protect. And because of this willful ignorance, victim silencing and mishandling of sexual assault reports against Larry in '97, '98 and '99, I walked through Larry's door in 2000 and never walked out the same.
………

But because of what Larry did, the cost of making it end has been incredibly high. And the effects of Larry's abuse has been redoubled in the effort that I took to stop him.

Choosing to live those moments over and over, daily, releasing every shred of privacy that I had, living with the reality that not only didn't I get to choose what you did, but now I didn't get to choose who knew about it.

Even my status as a sexual assault victim has impacted or did impact my ability to advocate for sexual assault victims because once it became known that I too had experienced sexual assault, people close to me used it as an excuse to brush off my concerns when I advocated for others who had been abused, saying I was just obsessed because of what I had gone through, that I was imposing my own experience upon other institutions who had massive failures and much worse.

My advocacy for sexual assault victims, something I cherished, cost me my church and our closest friends three weeks before I filed my police report. I was left alone and isolated. And far worse, it was impacted because when I came out, my sexual assault was wielded like a weapon against me.

...................................................

And this is also why in many ways, your honor, the worst part of this process was each name, each number who came forward to the police with each Jane Doe, I saw my little girls and the little girls that were. The little girls who walked into Larry's office that I could not save because no one wanted to listen. And while that is not my guilt, it is pain I still carry and pain I share with them.

I cried for them, and with every tear that fell I wondered who is going to find these little girls, who is going to tell them how much they are worth, how valuable they are, how deserving of justice and protection?

Who is going to tell these little girls that what was done to them matters? That they are seen and valued, that they are not alone and they are not unprotected? And I could not do that, but we are here now and today that message can be sent with the sentence you hand down you can communicate to all these little girls and to every predator to every little girl or young woman who is watching how much a little girl is worth.

……………………………………….

And to everyone who is watching, I ask that same question, how much is a little girl worth? Larry said in court that he hoped education and learning would happen from this tragedy, and I share that hope, and this is what we need to learn.

Look around the courtroom, remember what you have witnessed these past seven days.

This is what it looks like when someone chooses to put their selfish desires above the safety and love for those around them and let it be a warning to us all and moving forward as a society,

This is what it looks like when the adults in authority do not respond properly to disclosures of sexual assault.

This is what it looks like when institutions create a culture where a predator can flourish unafraid and unabated and this is what it looks like when people in authority refuse to listen, put friendships in front of the truth, fail to create or enforce proper policy and fail to hold enablers accountable.

This is what it looks like. It looks like a courtroom full of survivors who carry deep wounds. Women and girls who have banded together to fight for themselves because no one else would do it. Women and girls who carry scars that will never fully heal but who have made the choice to place the guilt and shame on the only person to whom it belongs, the abuser. But may the horror expressed in this courtroom over the last seven days be motivation for anyone and everyone no matter the context to take responsibility if they have failed in protecting a child, to understand the incredible failures that led to this week and to do it better the next time.

Judge Aquilina, I plead with you as you deliberate the sentence to give Larry, send a message that these victims are worth everything. In order to meet both the goals of this court. I plead with you to impose the maximum sentence under the plea agreement because everything is what these survivors are worth. Thank you.