Finance boss gropes intern
Human Rights Commission chief financial officer threatens to sue if Sunday Star-Times identifies him. Kyle Stutter apologises and keeps his job despite naming woman in explanatory email to all staff. Commission tries to gag the woman, 26, from disclosing
A young American woman cut short her internship at the Human Rights Commission after she was groped by the organisation’s chief financial officer at a work party.
The commission investigated a sexual harassment complaint against Kyle Stutter, which resulted in disciplinary action. However, three months on, he remains employed there as chief financial officer.
The intern says she trusted the commission to look after her; instead, she felt the complaints process and the attempts to gag her became all about ‘‘protecting the organisation’’.
The commission is the country’s watchdog for unlawful discrimination and racial or sexual harassment. But the former intern says it seemed illequipped to deal with Stutter targeting her, and it didn’t acknowledge the seriousness of the incident.
In response to questions to the commission, the Sunday Star-Times received two emails from a lawyer representing Stutter. The emails warned of legal action if his privacy was breached. Stutter himself did not respond to requests for comment. The 26-year-old former intern told the
Sunday Star-Times she had just graduated from a top US university and was looking for a place to do field work for her master’s programme when she landed the internship in August 2017.
‘‘It’s a career I want to get into in the future, so I was wildly excited about it,’’ she said. ‘‘I’d always wanted to go to New Zealand. That was another aspect that was going to be really cool.’’
That all changed one Friday night at a farewell party for a colleague, after work hours at a private venue. As the night wore on, her colleagues left and she planned to head home herself. Only she and Stutter remained.
At this point, Stutter began dancing with her, before advancing on her without her consent and groping her breasts and private parts, she said, despite her trying to push his hands away.
She told Stutter she needed to leave and he walked her out of the venue. She got in an Uber and left. ‘‘I sent him an email later that night, just to let him know that it wasn’t OK and he should have asked permission to dance with me, to do anything with me,’’ she said.
She felt Stutter’s return email was ‘‘not an adequate response’’. She considered laying a complaint with police, but instead reported the incident to her immediate boss the following Monday. She was confident the commission would address it.
But a mediation process demonstrated there was no specific policy to deal with the incident.
‘‘I would have hoped to see there was some distinction drawn at some point, where something like this would be handled differently to someone just making an inappropriate comment.’’
She added there should have been increased transparency around the matter.
‘‘The fact there is so much emphasis on confidentiality in their policies can make it really isolating.
‘‘It wasn’t until the complaint got to the highest level that I felt it wasn’t so much about me any more, it was about protecting the organisation, and them hitting all the right points that they had to hit legally. Ultimately I felt it came down to making sure they could move on as an organisation.’’
The result of the mediation was that Stutter sent her a written apology and had to undertake anti-harassment counselling. He also received a formal warning and had the incident recorded on his personnel file, to be removed after three years if there were no further complaints against him.
Stutter sent out an email to commission employees, naming the intern and admitting what happened was not in keeping with the commission’s values. He also said he was deeply sorry. He advised staff to ask him directly for his account of events if they had any questions.
The intern’s mother in the US said she was devastated to hear of the incident.
‘‘No mother wants to get the call in the middle of the night from a sobbing daughter on the other side of the world who is trying to process what happened, blaming themselves, wondering what they should have done to prevent the attack.’’
Her daughter has since remained in New Zealand to finish field work for her master’s programme.
Commission chief executive Cynthia Brophy said the organisation was reviewing its internal processes for dealing with sexual harassment and ‘‘if there is anything we can improve on we are keen to make sure this happens’’.
‘‘I have a high degree of trust and confidence in the professionalism of all of our staff and can confirm that there is no current complaint outstanding against anyone in the Human Rights Commission.’’
Figures released to the Sunday Star-Times showed the organisation had investigated three sexual harassment complaints against three separate staff members dating back to 2013. Each of the complaints progressed to an investigation, with Stutter’s the only case that resulted in disciplinary action. Two employees resigned before their investigations were completed.
It’s understood the complaint against Stutter was dealt with exclusively by Brophy and human resources, and none of the four commissioners was aware of it until the intern had left.
It wasn’t until the complaint got to the highest level that I felt it wasn’t so much about me any more, it was about protecting the organisation.