Last Friday Attorney Ken Bernhard of Cohen & Wolf introduced three of his partners who had come to talk to Sunrise Rotary about #MeToo — what it is, a bit of background, what it means to lawyers, and how we can make our workplaces more user friendly.
His partners were Courtney George, a labor litigator, Suzanne Sutton, whose practice is bankruptcy and legal ethics, and Susan Filon, a matrimonial lawyer, and a former guest expert on NBC and ABC TV.
Ms. Filon started, saying #MeToo is important, and lawyers can help the community understand what it is. She believes intellectual conversations will help us gain a better perception of women in the work force and in society.
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Ms. George said that the movement was started by Tarana Burke ten years ago to create solidarity among women and children in underprivileged communities who are survivors of sexual harassment and assault.
It exploded last November in the wake of an article in The New York Times about Harvey Weinstein’s decades long sexual assaults on women.
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Soon after, actress Alyssa Milano initiated #MeToo on Twitter when she asked every woman who has been a victim of sexual assault or harassment to post her #MeToo tweet so we can find out how significant the problem has been. Her post went viral. Almost overnight millions of women responded.
Within just a couple of months we saw multiple firings in the entertainment and news businesses and in government.
Since then it has become a subject of public discourse.
She offered a few important events in what is now a 170 year struggle for women’s rights. The first was the unsuccessful 1848 Seneca Falls Convention that advocated for “full citizenship,” yet women did not earn the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920.
In 1986 Meritor v. Vinson, a Supreme Court decision involving serial rape, was the first legal recognition of sexual harassment and a hostile workplace. In 1991 Anita Hill’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas became a cultural bombshell, but had no legal significance.
There were the Tailhook scandal, Bob Packwood’s resignation from the senate in the wake of charges of sexual harassment and the continuing saga of Bill Cosby.
Then in 2016, Carlson v. Ailes started to tip the scales.
What is the behavior #MeToo has become the meme for? Ms. George said it may be “a lot of unwelcome conduct, not all of it legally actionable,” particularly conduct that produces a career inhibiting environment.
She cited two workplace standards that are actionable. Quid Pro Quo — “Have sex with me or I’m going to fire you.” Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch.
The other is broader, a hostile work environment, one marked by pervasive sexually explicit or sex based incidents that permeate an environment and interfere with a person’s ability to work.
So what do we do? Men must treat women “like a person, not a woman, or a lady or a girl, so she can reach her fullest potential… we should work toward equality across our workforce so no one feels threatened or left out… Listen, appreciate and learn.”
As a society we’re getting there, though it takes time for the changes to evolve.
Photo by Jeff Cohen: left to right -- Courtney George, Suzanne Sutton, Susan Filon