Comment by sizzle
7 years ago
"A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously"
Can anyone help me understand the rationale behind the anonymous part, with respect to due process and how the framework for anonymous accusations can be abused by bad actors?
Edit- I have a question about the anonymous nature of reporting to HR, with respect to due process for the accuser and accused, maybe some of you can shed light on how you've seen it work in your experiences.
I've heard stories in the past, with details I'm not privy to, where coworkers were let go based on anonymous HR sexual misconduct allegations. I really hope that due process is involved for the accused and not just a "guilty until proven innocent" situation. What I mean is that evidence by the accuser is judged along the lines of probable cause that our police force uses to arrest or judges use to prosecute e.g. inappropriate advances caught on tape, unwanted email/text/chat messages in line with allegations, eye witness statements corroborated by fellow co-worker, etc.
There are a lot of introverted, socially awkward personality types in technical roles (on the spectrum?) with traits that can be perceived incorrectly, even negatively by neurotypical individuals and I fear the power of anonymous, "guilty until proven innocent" allegations standard that HR might start using to police the accused and trample on their right to due process since employment is at-will and you can be terminated for any reason, at any time, but in this situation you are ineligible for unemployment if it's recorded as misconduct.
Maybe they're referencing something like Callisto (YC Nonprofit W18):
"Founders will be able to use Callisto to securely store the identities of perpetrators of sexual coercion and assault. These identities will be encrypted in a way that not even the Callisto team can view. If multiple founders name the same perpetrator, they will be referred to an attorney who can then decrypt the founder’s contact info and reach out to provide them with free advice on their options for coming forward, including the option to share information with other victims of the same perpetrator." Source: https://blog.ycombinator.com/survey-of-yc-female-founders-on...
It's hard to imagine something more illegal than this when it comes to personal data protection.
Thank you for offering this. This is far more helpful than a truly anonymous system.
> Can anyone help me understand the rationale behind the anonymous part…
In general, 21% of workers who report misconduct suffer from retribution (source: National Business Ethics Survey).
An estimated 75% of workplace harassment victims experience retaliation when they speak up (source: US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission government agency).
That 75% number is not from the EEOC study. It is something the EEOC study cited. The original is from:
Lilia M. Cortina & Vicki J. Magley, Raising Voice, Risking Retaliation: Events Following Interpersonal Mistreatment in the Workplace, 8:4 J. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PSYCHOL. 247, 255 (2003).
I can't make sense of these numbers. Can you report misconduct without speaking up? Or is there a lot of retaliation that doesn't induce any suffering, or...?
"speaking up" means "not staying silent about harassment."
I have trouble imagining truly complete anonymity being helpful. This is an invitation to abuse the system. Abuse could result from personal conflicts and office politics, or even people who wish to undermine the system itself by entering bad data.
The point of an anonymous system is to encourage people to speak up without a first-mover problem, because in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior.
Someone receiving exactly 1 report is probably not a problem. Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is.
> Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is.
No. If the system is truly anonymous, then people outside the team can submit reports. Continuous accumulation would not indicate there is probably a problem with the accused, given the motive and opportunities for abuse of the reporting system.
Elsewhere in this thread the difference between anonymous and private is discussed, along with semi-anonymizing strategies for achieving privacy protection, which I believe would be helpful for the outcome you describe.
This is a good point. What about a person who has a pattern of accusing multiple people over time? If each of the accused individuals are all not accused by others, would this undermine the accusers credibility?
I wish this was hypothetical, but I once worked with a person that had 3 individuals over 2 years fired for this. Eventually they went too far and HR had to come to grips with an obvious mental illness being the root cause. This person was a great engineer and a good friend, which made it even harder for me and others to admit to ourselves the delusional nature of the claims.
> in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior.
citation please
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Total anonymity for accusers is indeed a concerning policy, but partial anonymity (i.e. from one's own team) isn't unreasonable. It ought to be possible to properly investigate misconduct allegations while minimizing the potential for gossip and recriminations.
I think that due process should include the right to face your accuser.
In the USA, that right applies to criminal prosecution but not civil cases.
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In the courts, yes, but in an office?
EDIT: I should add that I am 100% for eliminating sexual harassment from the workplace (and in life), but unfortunately there's nothing that forces a company to give employees due process. I would guess that in most cases, even the appearance of inpropriety is enough to warrant termination for at-will employees.
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What if the facts can be independently verified ?(existence of material proof or witnesses etc)
I imagine the right process would be to receive a claim and investigate it. The initial report doesn’t need to pinned to a specific employee, and it can even be a bystander that way. If enough evidence rise from the investigation, outing the reporter doesn’t bring much to the table.
You’re right that it’s more tricky when it’s a “he says she says” situation, those would warrant more direct confrontation I guess ?
It’s not a criminal trial.
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> I really hope that due process is involved
Outside of civil service jobs, in the US there are no “due process” rights in employment decisions; what process is due is a matter of employment contract (which for non-unionized rank-and-file, and even non-executive management, employees usually means no process is due, because of “at-will” employment.)
Given that, and given that employers are legally bound to prevent retribution against reporters, anonymity for reporters is strongly incentivized.
Due process would certainly be nice when it comes to letting people go, but introducing it makes it much more difficult for a company to move quickly and adjust to market conditions. If a company faces lawsuits every time it makes any decison, it’ll be far more difficult to make any decison and will make that company far less dynamic. Sometimes that’s worth it, but there are cons to introducing due process too.
It's probably meant to alleviate fear of retribution.
I guess you missed the part of the question referring to due process
Maybe they mean privately, not anonymously?
"What about the men?" is a bingo square not an argument.
Until you replace 'men' with any other sex, race, gender, etc. Calling valid, if perhaps overblown concerns is just 'bingo squares' maybe you need to consider your own bias.
Yes, I'm surprised the mods even allowed something so contrary to respectful dialogue. Calling a well considered position a 'bingo square' is not just trivializing in the extreme, it reads like flamebait.
This worry is unfounded.
Harassment is rarely the case of a single incident. Instead, people who harass other usually have a long history of harassing lots of people.
An anonymous complaint could be used not to determine guilt, but instead to trigger an investigation.
And if the person is guilty, then the investigation will almost certainly have a very easy time finding somebody, likely many, who will go on record with their incident of harassment.
And if they are innocent? That investigation will come with an impact to the accused. A serious one.
If they are innocent then nothing will happen to them as the investigation won't find anything.
That's how it should work. If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything.
It is ridiculous to complain about an investigation, which should be the entire goal. To investigate and figure out what happened.
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