University of Minnesota -- how would you handle?

Marshall? Uh, no!
Prolly F'N Appy State.
Or Penn State.
PSU President (looking at resume and Goolge search results): So he like girls?
Vice Chair: (sigh) Well, yes ... He's a little over-enthusiastic about it though. ... ... aggressive.
PP: But girls, right? Legal-age girls? No, uh, men ... or ... ... (fidgets) ... boys.
VC: No. just (sigh) girls... (longer sigh) women, you could say .. women who work for him, or with whom he has some sway.
PP: Good-looking women?
VC: The newspaper beat reporter is a solid 6.
PP: And you're sure its females. And not boys. Not ... young ... boys?
VC: Yes sir. We're sure.
PP: Exxxxxcellllllent ... (deep thought) ... .... Wonder if he could land Bobby Petrino ...

 

I think there's some blame that goes on the paper's HR department. If she reported she was being harassed while doing her job, HR had an obligation to bring it to the university's attention and take steps to make it stop - whether she wanted them to do so or not.

 

Funny, except the App State part.

 

I wondered about this too. But they didn't have authority over the A.D. -- and though I'm sure the university would have taken the complaint seriously, I don't think it would have resulted in his dismissal, and now you have the leading person of authority on the beat you cover who won't talk to you for anything.

All choices were horrible, but I think the reporter and the paper handled it the best they could.

 

By moving her off the beat because of his actions would be another reason for other women who might ever find themselves in this situation to not come forward.

HR should have notified her bosses as to the seriousness of the issue if they weren't truly aware and the newspaper should have gone to the university about the problem.

 

I'm not sure HR has a choice in it, once it's reported to them. Kind of like a mandated reporter type thing. They have the responsibility to make sure their employees are in proper work conditions, and whether it's being harassed by a fellow employee or someone you work with outside of the building is irrelevant.

Look at it this way: If you work in an office and the UPS guy who makes deliveries every day harasses the front-desk woman. The front-desk woman reports it to her HR department, and they have to go to the UPS people and make a complaint.

 

The UPS people, yes.

The president of UPS, different matter.

This asshole had a lot of power and knew it.

 

Yeah, you have to go to the driver's superior at UPS to file a complaint. The same way you have to go to the AD's superior at Minnesota.

 

But are you really not seeing what the problem would be in that situation? The university wouldn't have fired him, so the scenario I wrote -- where he has all the power on her beat and he won't talk to her -- is where it ends up.

 

I'm going to go against the grain here (big surprise), but I don't think it is right that she should have swallowed this shit for so long while he goes around playing grab ass across 10,000 lakes.

She has a job to do and his neanderthal behavior kept her from doing it.

If I am her boss or her publisher I start contacting every person I can, discretely, until the problem is solved, and the only solving of the problem would be he's gone or given a bone-breaking hand slap by the university.

As a boss, I have always felt you need to protect your employee when they are in the right. In this case I would have gone to him, his superior, their superior, everyone that sits on the governing board of the university to the fucking governor of the state. This asshat was not only making this reporter's life hell, but a lot of other women. We wring our hands and moan when the Sandusky shit hit and cried why didn't JoePa do more. Well, here, some people could have done more.

I'm not blaming her at all, but if I was her boss or her publisher, I would have been more aggressive. Maybe they were? I don't know.

 

I see it, but there's not a gray area. If their employee has reported being the victim of harassment, they don't have a choice. They are obligated to pursue action against the harasser. I'm not saying she was wrong in any way that she handled it - only that the HR department seems to have dropped the ball when they let her stay in that situation without standing up for her.

This isn't coming from me - it's from a licensed HR professional with almost 20 years of experience.

 

Would her asking them not to have stopped them from moving forward? Please don't think I am blaming her, because I am not. This is a very complicated situation, obviously.