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Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

nytimes.com

531–534 of 534 posts

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that the allegations are true. From what I've heard, it seems plausible that the alleged culture may exist at this company. But I don't take allegations to be true simply because they have been made - as is, in my opinion and in the opinion of the legal system of the United States, the correct perspective.

That is a very unwise way to look at evidence. You can't apply the legal standard of evidence to the rest of the world, because courtrooms have facilities that make evidence highly available. You have discovery, expert analysis, compelled testimony, and the possibility of sealing records to protect the parties involved. When evidence should be available, absence of evidence is strong evidence of absence. Outside of c…

I entirely see your point and think you're correct in your analysis.

Personally, I would like to give the other involved party a reasonable chance to try to respond with ether a refutation or with intended next steps before grabbing a pitchfork.

To be clear, I have no sympathy for Uber and have something like an 85% expectation that the current accusations as accurate. I do find value in erring on the side of giving all parties a full say and a full chance to institute some sort of remediation, if possible, before final judgment.

For example, many media outlets have picked up this story, and one such outlet came across today (wish I had saved the link) also mentioned alleged threats of physical violence from managers to employees. In my workplace, I've heard a manager joke "now that you've seen this, I'll have to kill you", which was clearly a joke but which could be portrayed as a death threat by a (perhaps rightfully) disgruntled employee.

When there are personal situations and emotional hurt involved, things can get skewed further than they need to be, even if the objective reality is already one to warrant raising an alarm.

Point taken, however, in its entirety. I could have communicated my perspective much better.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#532
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations not needed. There are allegations, nothing more. If this happened to me, I would find the moral import of the matter significant to the point that it would not occur to me to use it to plug my book. This may well be an endemic issue at this company, and it does seem that these sorts of situations do in fact exist in some places, but so far there is only one person's story's and without proof.

My interpretation was that the "citation needed" was in reference to "we have seen similar claims before that have turned out to be false or exaggerated greatly".

Ah, I misunderstood. Then, to provide a citation which is related without being analogous: the Duke lacrosse case. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#533
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes merely repeating an unsubstantiated fact can expose a news org to liability. Take, for instance, a slander or libel case.

That's not true. If you attribute what you say "X said", then X is guilty of slander/libel. (YMMV in England)

In my journalism law classes in the US, precedent was dictated on the terms I described.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have this attitude until I heard harassment stories from two close personal friends in the last year. It's really hard to come forward, especially if you're early in your career and struggled to get any job in the first place. Apart from potentially being difficult emotionally there are tons of negative outcomes that could come from taking the legal route Here's a list of potential negative outcomes of lawy…

> Here's a list of potential negative outcomes of lawyering up Aren't most of these potential negative outcomes of suing , not lawyering up? Having a conversation with a lawyer who specializes in employment law to get a temperature-check on your specific situation (does it qualify as harassment, what are your options, what are likely outcomes of exercising these options given precedent case law, etc) will not result…

> Aren't most of these potential negative outcomes of suing, not lawyering up?

You're kind-of right, but suing only has teeth if you're prepared to go to court and not bluffing. Engaging a lawyer without suing is just going to cost you money. All of the things I said still suck if you're going through depositions, even if everything isn't being made public. Imagine having to sit in a room full of lawyers and explain why you replied 'haha' to an inappropriate text instead of "I'm forwarding this to HR right now."

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