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Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#311

Post by rsynnott »

aisofteng wrote: post #60

> If they will discipline and fire people and put processes in place to keep the problem fixed You're assuming that that allegations are true. They have been neither proven nor corroborated, and the author advertises her book in her post. Edit: This comment has gone strongly negative in the matter of minutes. I offered no opinion and only stated fact; either there is vote manipulation on HN, or at least some portion…

> and the author advertises her book in her post.

Hint; while it may be surprising to you, books about microservices are not where the big bucks are. Nobody is going to make dramatic libellous false claims merely to advertise a book on microservices; the idea is kind of absurd.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#312

Post by facepalm »

xor1 wrote: post #85
blazespin wrote: post #8

The problem is that men misconstrue the natural social and friendly tendency of most women as sexual advances. There needs to be more education in this respect with men. Just because a woman is chatty and willing to collaborate doesn't mean she wants to sleep with you. I know that sounds sexist, but honestly, I think women just are naturally or at least culturally (does the difference matter in this case, really?) mo…

>I think women just are naturally or at least culturally (does the difference matter in this case, really?) more social This is really sexist.

It's technically sexist, but not really that bad sexist. Likewise the statement "I believe women tend to be more often attracted to men than to women" is sexist, but not very shocking.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#313

Post by rsynnott »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #29

>Ms. Fowler’s account is another sign of Silicon Valley’s struggle with women’s issues and diversity in a male-dominated engineering environment. That's a hell of a claim since this is a "typical corporate America" type of problem.

The HR and management system described sounds unusually dysfunctional.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#314

Post by jordigh »

metaphorm wrote: post #297
jordigh wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where a jury decided she was wrong. A jury didn't decide she was wrong. That's not what juries do. A jury decided that they couldn't all unanimously agree beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was right. Just because a jury doesn't convict doesn't mean the problem didn't happen. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/ellen-pao-and-t...

it was a civil suit, not a criminal trial. Ellen Pao was the plaintiff. The jury determined she didn't make a convincing case.

Oh. Am I wrong in believing that even for a civil trial, the jury must be heavily biased towards the defendant? Does California require jury unanimity to reach a decision in a civil case?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#315

Post by Eridrus »

JshWright wrote: post #275
chimeracoder wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why representing members at grievance hearings is a union bread and butter issue In theory. And disciplining or terminating employees who expose the company to well-documented, open-and-shut lawsuits is an HR bread and butter issue. Yet here we are. If you really want someone who will be legally bound to represent you without conflict of interest, and with legal protection against retaliation, you want a lawyer, no…

One of the major roles of unions nowadays is providing access to legal counsel (specifically lawyers with experience in workplace issues).

But are they your lawyer, or the union's lawyer here? Companies have lawyers too, but they're not your lawyer.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#316

Post by jimrandomh »

jordigh wrote: post #273
hueving wrote: post #233

>Ms. Fowler’s account is another sign of Silicon Valley’s struggle with women’s issues and diversity in a male-dominated engineering environment. In 2015, the venture capital world was put under the microscope when Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, claimed in a lawsuit that she was discriminated against at the blue-chip venture firm because of her gender — a case she lost. This paragrap…

> where a jury decided she was wrong. A jury didn't decide she was wrong. That's not what juries do. A jury decided that they couldn't all unanimously agree beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was right. Just because a jury doesn't convict doesn't mean the problem didn't happen. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/ellen-pao-and-t...

That case would have been decided under the "preponderance of evidence" standard, since it's a civil trial, not the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard (used for criminal trials) or the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" standard (which is exclusively for death penalty cases).

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#317

Post by baloneyman »

mcculley wrote: post #304

It's very common that startups have such issues. You've got a bunch of younger inexperienced managers and an inexperienced HR department. What I don't understand is, why don't investors compel such valuable startups to get experienced HR? Do they calculate that the lawsuits will cost less than outsourcing HR or otherwise getting adult supervision? Or are they just blind to it?

I think startup is a pretty generous term for the growth stage that Uber was in at the time

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#318

Post by jordigh »

jimrandomh wrote: post #316
jordigh wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where a jury decided she was wrong. A jury didn't decide she was wrong. That's not what juries do. A jury decided that they couldn't all unanimously agree beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was right. Just because a jury doesn't convict doesn't mean the problem didn't happen. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/ellen-pao-and-t...

That case would have been decided under the "preponderance of evidence" standard, since it's a civil trial, not the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard (used for criminal trials) or the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" standard (which is exclusively for death penalty cases).

I see! So is it reasonable to say that the jury "proved" that there was no problem?

edit: Hah, judging by the downvotes, it's not! Hehe, this is the first time I'm super-happy to be downvoted. :-)

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#319

Post by metaphorm »

jordigh wrote: post #314
metaphorm wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was a civil suit, not a criminal trial. Ellen Pao was the plaintiff. The jury determined she didn't make a convincing case.

Oh. Am I wrong in believing that even for a civil trial, the jury must be heavily biased towards the defendant? Does California require jury unanimity to reach a decision in a civil case?

according to this

https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/200/200.h...

the burden of proof is

> A party must persuade you, by the evidence presented in court, that what he or she is required to prove is more likely to be true than not true. This is referred to as “the burden of proof.” After weighing all of the evidence, if you cannot decide that something is more likely to be true than not true, you must conclude that the party did not prove it. You should consider all the evidence, no matter which party produced the evidence.

so in Ellen Pao's case, she (and her lawyers) could not convince the jury that her claim was more likely true than not true. In other words, she argued her case and was not persuasive enough. I'm not a lawyer though, and I don't know if there is a requirement for Jury unanimity or just simple majority.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#320

Post by muglug »

discodave wrote: post #177
muglug wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's staked her reputation (and, at this point, probably her career as well) on not lying about the harassment. She says she has both documentary evidence and other female Uber employees to back up her claims. "Guilty until proven innocent" is how our courts work, and rightly so. But, as a layperson, there's nothing wrong in assessing the evidence and saying: "the chance these claims are false is vanishingly small,…

I think you accidentally a word (or you don't understand how courts work in the US). :)

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