I'd fire someone if they'd been a harasser in the past, even if my image was already impeccable. As much as this move seems to be about improving image, it doesn't need to be (I mean: that's not the only good reason to fire someone who concealed past sexual harassment allegations).
> I'd fire someone if they'd been a harasser in the past
This news of harassment comes not from Google, but from several anonymous sources. Google declined to comment, and the man himself said that the story wasn't true.
If there was no definitive proof, and the openly stated reason is that he wanted to retire, why would you fire somebody who was merely accused of being a harasser? That makes you a larger coward than somebody who keeps somebody who's under fire.
Even if the claims were substantiated, people do change, and I don't think that one sexual harassment claim should be sufficient to torpedo your entire career. What's next, putting them on a registry and making them wear a scarlet letter on their chest?
As far as I can tell, he says that the harassment wasn't harassment, and that there are two sides to every story. He does not dispute that this is the reason he left Google. At least as far as I've read, please (I'm being serious) correct me if my understanding is wrong.
Yeah, if someone left a company because of a harassment complaint, I think there's a much better than even chance that they actually did harass someone. I believe that fabricated complaints comprise a very small minority of all such complaints. I would not want my employees being harassed. So there is no way I would hire someone who I knew had departed their previous company due to a harassment complaint, since that's equivalent to accepting a high likelihood that one is hiring a harasser. I might give someone a chance if they had one way back in their past and had otherwise apparently cleaned up their act/showed contrition.
> That makes you a larger coward
Sorry, not clear on how it makes me cowardly to put the safety and security of my employees before the interests of likely harassers seeking a job at my company.
> make them wear a scarlet letter on their chest . . .
You seem a lot more concerned for the harassers' well-being than the people being harassed. I don't share this ordering of priorities with you.
> You seem a lot more concerned for the harassers' well-being than the people being harassed.
The main, and most important point. Nothing has been proven. An unsubstantiated, unrelated leak has gone out and you're already assuming that something bad has occurred. If you replace "harasser" with "communist", you get the McCarthy trials. If you replace "harasser" with "witch" you go all the way back to Salem.
You should share the ordering of priorities that you're innocent until proven guilty.
> As far as I can tell, he says that the harassment wasn't harassment
You're already making a value judgement here. He completely denies that anything untoward happened.
> Yeah, if someone left a company because of a harassment complaint
He also said that he left on his own free will, and Google threw him a retirement/departure party.
> Sorry, not clear on how it makes me cowardly
By dropping somebody who hasn't been proven to do anything wrong at another job because it looks bad for PR means you're a coward. Being swayed by public opinion on unsubstantiated charges makes you a coward, instead of standing up for your own employees.
The key difference here is in the probabilities. For every witch or communist accused, approximately none were actually witches or communists. That is simply not true for harrassers, for instance the estimated false accusation rate among rapists is around 5%[1]. Generally people have no motivation to report what is not true, reporting sexual assault of any form can be a long and tiring process, and often carries a lot of stigma with it if anything gets out... It shouldn't be so damaging to victims, but it often is. As such in these cases it is probably best to place burden of proof on the accused not the victim.
I mean, everyone does this all the time anyway. When was the last time you thought someone was guilty of something (speaking about you behind your back for instance) and you waited until they were proved guilty until you changed you behavior towards them? Innocent until proven guilty is for the courts only, people should and do act on reasonable evidence.
It seems like some of these people are repeat offenders, who are trying to destroy several innocent women's careers. That's kind of the actual witch hunt.
I don't think calling it a "witch hunt" (a rather loaded term) is an accurate depiction at all of what is going on. Remember, in the true sense of the word, the targets of said witch hunts weren't actually witches, which is VERY disputable and an unpopular opinion to hold in this scenario where the harassers are clearly damningly guilty.
> It seems like some of these people are repeat offenders
The people mentioned in the allegations have not been named and have not had their identities revealed, and also have not had any evidence presented, except for two unsubstantiated accounts. It's probably not even the same people in Fowler's article and this most recent anonymous one.
Instead, somebody got information leaked (information that Google refuses to confirm) about something that happened in the past, at another company, gets fired because any appearance of impropriety must be squashed, and his name and career gets dragged through the mud for real evidence at all. Isn't that a witch hunt?
