In light of recent revelations about Ryan Adams, a powerful musician and music producer, Illinois law professors Robin B. Kar and Lesley Wexler discuss in their latest Justia.com blog post the collective harm the scourge of sexual harassment inflicts on society, depriving it of countless and invaluable contributions. Kar and Wexler point out that research demonstrates that experiences of sexual harassment cause not only individual harms to women (such as decreases in mental and physical well-being) but also organizational withdrawal, decreases in organizational commitment, and decreases in productivity and job performance. The exact losses due to this withdrawal have yet to be measured, but evidence suggests the magnitude is enormous.

An excerpt from the article follows:

"...To broaden its support base and deepen public understanding of the harms of sexual harassment, #MeToo may similarly need to form alliances that combine grassroots public storytelling with other modes of knowledge production.

"Academic research institutions—and especially those concerned with broader community needs—may prove pivotal at this juncture. This is because academic institutions are especially well positioned to measure the scope of the collective harms generated by sexual harassment and identify the most promising causal interventions to reduce those harms."

Read the full post at verdict.justia.com.