State House leaders must move to clean up Golden Dome
Beacon Hill’s calcified sexual harassment policy undoubtedly needs updating, but if Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg want to show they’re serious about making the State House safe, they need to act publicly against any offenders already working under the Golden Dome.
Certainly someone needs to drag these legislative leaders into the 21st century, where private-sector bosses no longer look the other way if their star employees are accused of sexual harassment.
“Over the past decade, there has been a real trend toward not tolerating and not keeping people who engage in harassment behavior,” said Josh Davis, an employment litigator at Goulston & Storrs. “It’s increasingly a fireable offense. The emerging workforce are much less tolerant in terms of this behavior.”
The good news? DeLeo might have already hired the perfect woman for the job.
Former Attorney General Martha Coakley was tapped by the speaker to oversee new harassment guidelines. There’s been no sign DeLeo or Rosenberg intends to act on past offenses reported by women working on Beacon Hill. The anonymous victims who detailed harassment declined to name names out of fear for their careers.
Coakley worked with sexual assault victims as a prosecutor. She could develop a program to assuage fears and help ensure — with DeLeo and Rosenberg’s pledges — that accusers don’t face retaliation.
DeLeo’s top lawyer, James C. Kennedy, promised to protect whistleblowers last week when announcing Coakley and other top lawyers would help update harassment guidelines — but stopped short of promising either justice or job protection.
“I encourage anyone who has any information about any behavior that may violate the House’s sexual harassment or retaliation policy — or any behavior that otherwise poses a risk to the health, safety or welfare of any member or employee of the House of Representatives or visitor to the House — to report that information immediately,” wrote Kennedy. “The House will, to the fullest extent practicable, treat the report and the investigation of that report with confidentiality.”
What is needed is a strong statement that past and present violations will be acted on by State House leadership in the form of ethics hearings and censure or removal proceedings such as now are being discussed in Congress, and by prosecution when warranted.
By leaving knuckle-dragging pols without reproach, those in power on Beacon Hill send an unfortunate signal: The old-boy network is still in place — no matter how often the harassment policy is updated.