Why companies takes days, not months, to act on sexual allegations
Allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment swirled for years around former American Apparel founder and CEO Dov Charney.
As early as 2004, a reporter from Jane magazine wrote that Charney masturbated in front of her. (In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2008, Charney said he thought the conversations were “two people having a private time.") A year later, former employees filed lawsuits that claimed he fondled himself in front of them or appeared in the office only in his underwear.
It wasn’t until summer 2014 that the Los Angeles company’s board suspended Charney as president and CEO, citing allegations of improper behavior and misuse of company funds. By the end of the year, Charney was fired.
That was then. Now, employers are taking days, rather than months, to deal with accusations of sexual misconduct.
The accelerated responses to harassment scandals reflect a calculation by organizations that any delay could cast them as uncaring or evasive — and land them on the wrong side of social media and news reports swirling around each new scandal.
“You want to report your bad news,” said Tracy Williams, chief executive and founder of Olmstead Williams Communications, a crisis and reputation management firm based in Los Angeles. “If somebody else reports it, then it looks like you’ve been hiding, which is the worst thing you can do.”
On Wednesday morning, NBC reported its own bad news first — abruptly announcing that “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer had been fired after the network received a detailed complaint Monday about “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” Entertainment trade publication Variety later reported that Lauer had been accused of sexual harassment by several women.
That same day, Garrison Keillor said he was fired by Minnesota Public Radio after the news organization said it was notified last month of allegations of inappropriate behavior while Keillor was producing “A Prairie Home Companion.”
The latest responses are not only swift but, in many cases, sweeping.
Minnesota Public Radio said it would stop rebroadcasting “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion,” hosted by Keillor, and end distribution and broadcast of his show, “The Writer’s Almanac.”
Netflix stopped production of its hit series “House of Cards” after allegations that actor Kevin Spacey had committed harassment and assault — in some cases toward minors — and Sony Pictures dropped the actor from his lead role as J. Paul Getty in the upcoming film “All the Money in the World.” Spacey’s scenes were reshot with actor Christopher Plummer. And not only did political journalist Mark Halperin lose his job at NBC after allegations of sexual harassment, but Penguin Press pulled the plug on his book about the 2016 presidential election.
“The process of analyzing allegations and making determinations about misconduct hasn’t changed,” said Stephen Hirschfeld, founding partner and co-managing partner at employment and higher education law firm Hirschfeld Kraemer. “What has changed is the pressure that employers feel under right now to move quicker, to be more decisive with the decisions and, in some cases, to publicize their actions.”