Professors Lesley Wexler and Suja Thomas, both experts in employment discrimination, were quoted at length in a story published by the News-Gazette last week, the day that the news about Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor broke. An excerpt from the story is below:
Wexler said people may be assuming, incorrectly, that the accused are being summarily fired with no consideration.
Companies can't be too quick to fire someone without substantial cause, as they have to worry about being sued for defamation, Thomas said.
"There's a balancing act employers are always going to see: What did this person do? What can we prove that person did?" Thomas said, noting that all of these cases involved multiple instances of alleged harassment.
Wexler also pointed out that most employees can be fired at will for many reasons, unless they belong to a union, work under a tenure system or have contracts that include due-process protections.
"Most people have very little employment protection. Should this be treated differently?" she said.
She said due-process protections in the workplace are appropriate, and not just for sexual harassment allegations. And she has sympathy for those who might be unfairly tainted as this story plays out, but said the old status quo imposed costs on women in a way that "people up until now didn't seem particularly concerned about."
"We want to come up with a system, both legally and socially, that reduces those costs and burdens but doesn't unduly burden other people in figuring out how to get the balance right. I think we're certainly getting much closer than we were," Wexler said.
Full article at news-gazette.com