Cuomo: Actions weren’t harassment
Eight women have made allegations against him
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday defended himself against multiple allegations that he made inappropriate sexual advances toward women who worked for him, asserting that if he had made those women “uncomfortable” it was not harassment.
“Harassment is not making someone feel uncomfortable. That is not harassment,” Cuomo said during a news conference in the Bronx in response to questions from reporters. “If I just made you feel uncomfortable, that is not harassment. That is you feeling uncomfortable.”
At least eight women have come forward to allege that Cuomo touched them or made comments that made them uncomfortable. One of the women, who still works for the governor’s office, accused him of groping her breast under her blouse in November after he had directed her to come to the Executive
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Gov. Cuomo’s remarks are jaw dropping. For someone who signed the law defining sexual harassment in New York state, and who claims to have taken the state’s mandated sexual harassment training every year despite Ms. Bennett seeing someone else take it on his behalf, Gov. Cuomo continues to show an alarming degree of ignorance about what constitutes sexual harassment.”
— Attorney Debra Katz
Mansion to assist him with his mobile phone.
Cuomo has said repeatedly he never touched anyone “inappropriately,” while acknowledging that he hugs and kisses people frequently as a way of connecting with them, including as an elected politician. He admitted that at work he will be “playful” and “make jokes” that are “teasing people” about their personal lives, which he has apologized for, but he insists that is not harassment.
His characterization stands in stark contrast to the conduct described by his accusers. Charlotte Bennett, 25, said Cuomo had groomed her, including gauging her interest in sleeping with an older man — while noting he would be interested in sleeping with a younger woman — and quizzing her about her enjoyment of sexual intercourse as a survivor of a sexual assault. A third woman said Cuomo commented that he would “mount her” like a dog.
“I never said anything I believed was inappropriate,” Cuomo said Thursday. “You could leave this press conference and say, ‘Oh, the governor harassed me. You can say that.’ I would say, I never said anything that I believed was inappropriate. I never meant to make you feel that way. You may hear it that way, you may interpret it that way, and I respect that and I apologize to you if I said something you think was offensive.”
Cuomo’s remarks were a misleading description of workplace sexual harassment laws, according to attorneys familiar with the statutes and policies.
“Certainly the statement the governor made, if that’s the law, I mean there’s no sexual harassment. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said John Bailey, an Albany attorney whose areas of practice includes employment law. If that were the law, he said, the person accused of harassment — no matter how severe — could brush it aside by saying that no offense was intended.
The laws governing workplace conduct and that define sexual harassment are a complex swirl of federal and state laws, often honed by court decisions.
Bailey and his law colleague Crystal Peck said that federal law identifies two kinds of workplace sexual harassment: quid pro quo, which means someone offering a positive work outcome in return for a sexual favor or threatening a negative one if sexual favors are withheld, and hostile workplace environment. Making someone uncomfortable on the basis of their sex is an important piece of workplace harassment, but it’s not enough on its own. Under federal law, which New York’s statute used to mirror, alleged harassment needs to be pervasive or severe enough that a reasonable person would agree that the subject was right to feel uncomfortable, they said.
But in New York, Cuomo signed into law new language that erased the “severe” and “pervasive” standards to define sexual harassment as an employee being treated less well.
“Gov. Cuomo’s remarks are jaw dropping,” Debra Katz, Bennett’s attorney, said in response to Cuomo’s remarks on Thursday. “For someone who signed the law defining sexual harassment in New York state, and who claims to have taken the state’s mandated sexual harassment training every year despite Ms. Bennett seeing someone else take it on his behalf, Gov. Cuomo continues to show an alarming degree of ignorance about what constitutes sexual harassment.”
Katz said there is “no gray area here.” “If an employer makes unwelcome jokes, comments, asks probing questions of a sexual nature or makes unwanted sexual propositions — which is exactly what Gov. Cuomo has already admitted to having directed toward my client, Charlotte Bennett — that employer has violated New York state law.”
Sexual harassment isn’t about feelings, said Erica Vladimer, a founder and member of the Sexual Harassment Working Group, a legislative advocacy group that pushed for an overhaul of state harassment laws in 2019. Sexual harassment is about impeding someone from doing their job, she said.
“The governor has already admitted to his actions in past statements, and because he’s being held accountable, now he’s trying to backtrack and make it about feelings,” Vladimer said. The current state law — which Cuomo signed, she noted — says that anytime someone is treated less well at work on the basis of their sex than other members of their sex are, that’s harassment.
“The governor clearly treated everyone who came forward and god knows how many others less well,” Vladimer said.
Experts also said it’s important to also consider the governor’s stature. As the chief executive of the state, they said, even one-off, less aggressive sexual comments would be more distressing to junior staffers.
“If it was an employee of equal stature, many women, most women, probably could deal with it,” Bailey said. “A supervisor, a boss, a governor, they kind of feel helpless.”
Bennett, the former aide, responded on Twitter to Cuomo’s Thursday statement about harassment: “When (Cuomo) propositioned me for sex, he broke the law. It is very simple: the issue is about his actions, it is not about my feelings. He broke the law (you know, the one he signed). Apologies don’t fix that, and neither do denials.”