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Leaning into accountability: Lessons from McDonald’s and Alphabet

Blog, Culture, Policy, Workplace

This past week, multiple headlines revealed that major organizations are actively investigating the inappropriate behavior and relationships of their top executives and leaders. There are several lessons we can take away from these stories, which demonstrate why corporations and industries must change how they do business to create safer and more respectful workplaces.

Employees learn organizational culture and company tolerance for inappropriate behavior by how reports, investigations, and implications are handled.

McDonald’s fired its CEO, Steve Easterbrook, due to a relationship with an employee. Many news outlets reported that the relationship was consensual, but it’s important to note that while an inappropriate relationship may not be necessarily abusive, it can still be an abuse of power. As the National Sexual Violence Resource Center notes in their Sexual Assault Awareness Month Resources, power exists in formal and informal ways, especially in workplaces, making consent more nuanced.

Easterbrook admits he violated company policy on personal conduct, but McDonald’s is holding Easterbrook accountable with a $42 million exit package – a golden parachute tantamount to a slap on the wrist.

Boards of Directors and companies can hold top executives who violate policy accountable in many important ways.

For instance, Alphabet’s Board announced this week they were investigating how Google executives handled misconduct and inappropriate relationship claims. They formed an independent subcommittee and hired a law firm as an added layer of transparency and accountability.

Further, in September 2018, after twelve individuals came forward about misconduct against CBS executive Les Moonves, the organization and Moonves agreed to donate his $20 million severance agreement to organizations supporting the MeToo Movement.

In our April 2018 Open Letter to CEOs and Board of Directors, RALIANCE and partners provided best practices and organizational survey questions designed to consider ways to foster a harassment-free workplace and to guard a company’s reputation from becoming the next headline. Read the whole Medium series for insights at all levels of an organization – from frontline staff, to HR, and beyond.

Teaming Up: Power of Sport and Public Health

Blog, Culture, Sport

By David S. Lee, Director of Prevention at RALIANCE

This week, RALIANCE attended the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia to share how sport is an important part of the solution to end sexual violence. In a session on Monday entitled “Sport as a platform to advance a culture of prevention,” RALIANCE’s Director of Prevention David Lee discussed the power of sport and athletics to promote well-being and advance a culture of prevention. He also highlighted the roadmap to create change from RALIANCE’s Sport + Prevention Center.

Other session panelists included Dr. Kathleen Basile of the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, who spoke about how middle school sports involvement contributes to better understanding sexual violence in high school; Jessica Wagner of the NCAA’s Sport Science Institute, who spoke about the role of the NCAA in creating health promotion for college campuses; and Inside Outside Initiative’s Jody Redman, who shared her experience of reclaiming the educational purpose of high school sport for prevention.

The next day ushered in a standing-room only session entitled, “Sport as a platform to advance a culture of health.” The discussion focused on how to build a network that advances prevention and brings together public health best practices to sport. This session was facilitated by RALIANCE’s David Lee, NCAA’s Jessica Wagner, and Jeff Milroy of Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness at the University of North Carolina Greenville. From researchers, athletic trainers, athletes, sports management, coaches, officials, and parents, it was clear from the discussion that there is tremendous interest in building a network dedicated to using the power of sport to foster healthy athletes and communities.

Despite the headlines these days exposing high-profiles cases of unchecked sexual abuse in different in sports, our productive sessions at the APHA annual meeting shine a light on how sport is a powerful and positive force in our society. It has the potential to instill important values in athletes, shape positive attitudes, and build strong communities.

Companies should support employees with adverse childhood experiences

Blog, Culture, Policy, Workplace

Experiencing childhood traumas puts you at risk for lifelong health consequences, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The study showed 61% of adults experienced one ACE (or, Adverse Childhood Experience), and 16% had four or more types of ACEs, which can be caused by physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; neglect; caregiver mental illness; and household violence. This is troubling because having a high number of ACEs greatly increases your risk for five of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States.

ACEs influence many areas of health and well-being. From physical symptoms like depression, anxiety, chronic pain and substance abuse, ACEs can lead to poor worker performance as well as impact business profitability.

It’s critical that organizations, schools, and corporations implement community-wide strategies to prevent trauma.

How?

Prevention is possible, and it’s happening. A corporate response to ACEs means looking at internal policies, practices, and culture to see how sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse are addressed or tolerated.

Corporate leaders and innovators must move past old models of maintaining a healthy, productive workforce. It’s not enough to offer job training and medical care for injuries — companies should also help employees with unresolved ACEs and support community initiatives that prevent these experiences from happening to the next generation. Corporations can work within their organizations but also within their community to have a lasting impact. They can ensure young people thrive through work with community service providers and youth-serving organizations to expand programs to remove barriers, like the stigma attached to mental illness, by supporting a culture that reduces employee stress and promotes health and well-being for employees as well as family members.

Preventing these experiences in childhood has the potential to reduce heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and positively influence mental health as well as education and employment opportunities.  RALIANCE is your partner in ending sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse. Learn more at https://www.raliance.org/consulting/

Industry spotlight: Runners Alliance and the race to end harassment

Blog, Culture, Sport

Last month, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Garmin, and Hoka One One launched Runners Alliance, a page dedicated to women’s safety and addressing harassment while running. This diverse partnership follows a recent Runners World audience survey that found 84 percent of women have been harassed while running at least once, including being groped, followed, flashed, and cat-called. Many admitted to changing their habits to increase personal safety. Some ran only in daylight, switched to a treadmill or stopped running altogether after their experience with harassment.

RALIANCE understands these results all too well. In our 2019 Measuring #MeToo: A National Study on Sexual Harassment and Assault report, we found that street harassment negatively impacts individuals and forces them to change their behavior.

Far too often society asks women to keep themselves from being victimized. Suggestions like carry mace or a taser, only run in groups, or only run with a dog require women to change their behavior in order to avoid harassment. We commend the Runners Alliance partners for saying harassment is unacceptable and that it’s on the entire runner community to do better and look out for each other.

Runners Alliance’s platform illustrates how organizations can work together to educate all users to be helpful bystanders. We agree with Runners Alliance that “to really make the sport safer, everyone has to do their part.” This movement is just one concrete example of how companies from different industries can come together towards a common goal to make sport and communities safer.

Learn more about how sport is part of the solution and other examples of ways prevention is happening in and through sport at RALIANCE’S Sport + Prevention Center.

Building new definitions of accountability and justice in the #MeToo era

Blog, Culture, Policy

Accountability, justice, and healing look different for every survivor. In many ways, we’re stuck with old paradigms of justice. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, courts, and prisons doesn’t always deliver the justice, power and control that survivors need to move on. 

A recent Wellesley Center for Women study, for instance, looked at 2,887 sexual assault reports by females over the age of 12. Researchers found that when women did report sexual assault to law enforcement, only 19% of cases ever led to arrest. Of those, only 6% returned a guilty finding – and mainly due to a plea bargain agreement. Fewer than 2% of reports ever went to trial.

It’s important to note that about 30% of the study’s cases were “cleared by exceptional means,” meaning in the reports of sexual assaults by females over the age of 12, law enforcement deemed the victim uncooperative or knew the prosecutor would decline to prosecute. It’s important to note the study looked at reports for victims as young as 12 years old, or seventh graders — children in our society.

We can and must do better.

“So many ways that people experience sexual violence don’t rise to the level of crime. And so then what? You’re just out of options? This is part of the re-education and resocialization that has to happen. If you harm somebody, there has to be recourse. You have to be accountable for the harm you cause. That accountability does not have to look like jail all the time, but there has to be a system of accountability. We don’t have great examples of what that accountability can look like, and that’s where the visioning and dreaming has to come in.”

Tarana Burke in Teen Vogue’s On #MeToo Anniversary, Tarana Burke Talks About the Modern Movement’s Impact, Restorative Justice, and Aziz Ansari

We as a society can increase the number of options for survivors to pursue a new concept of justice, one they have a hand in defining for themselves. We cannot, as a society, rely on systems that perpetually fail us. It’s on all of us to fix them, and we can start with passing a bipartisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which calls for stronger protections for survivors and resources to support preventing harm before it happens.

Learn more about RALIANCE’s full policy platform to end sexual violence in one generation.  

Lessons for academic institutions: how to prevent campus sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse

Blog, Culture, Policy

Even with sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse on the national radar, we were disappointed to learn last week that many students still don’t feel confident that their higher education institutions will take a report of sexual misconduct or assault seriously. This was a key finding in the Association of American Universities’ confidential online survey of 180,000 students at 33 major universities, which demonstrated that higher education students today significantly experience sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse.

So how can campuses and workplaces overcome barriers to reporting and make campuses healthier?

First, change the perception that campuses won’t act on the problem. So much has to go right for a survivor to come forward and report, and many considerations include whether the system will take the report seriously, act on the information, and hold the person who caused harm accountable. With Title IX changes hanging in the balance, it’s vital campuses do more, not less, than what the requirements dictate.

Second, address a campus culture that enables harm and blames the victim for their rape. Programming that teaches students to not be victimized with messages like never leave a drink unattended or don’t walk home alone, may reduce risk factors, but more can be done on campuses to teach healthy behaviors and relationships, ways to look out for each other, and how the community can hold the university accountable to its role in the process. In our society, girls are taught to avoid risky situations, but rarely do parents, schools, or programs talk about what consent means — which could help ensure no one pressures someone sexually, or crosses the line into even more serious sexual harm.

Third, deepen understanding of perceptions and attitudes about sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse on campus. For example, conducting climate surveys and establishing processes for sharing procedures and protocols can help school administrators develop tailored prevention solutions and measure its progress.

Fourth, engage students and the campus community through programming that encourages them to learn about this sexual violence and how to be part of the solution. These prevention conversations could take place during classroom electives or campus activities with organizations like campus police, student health centers, and LGBTQ groups.

Thankfully, there are several good organizations that are already leading changes and conversations about sexual assault and respect on campus. It’s On Us is preparing campus leaders to take this issue on with skills and support. RALIANCE impact grantees Strength United or the Power Up! program at Prairie View A&M University are both working with athletic departments and student-athletes to improve how their schools prevent and respond to sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse.   For more ideas, check out RALIANCE’s Sport + Prevention Center and Impact Grant database.

Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg at a campaign event

Buttigieg’s platform addresses gender inequity

Blog, Culture, Policy, Workplace

Photo by Gary Riggs. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Democratic Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg announced a sweeping $10 Billion Proposal tackling sexual harassment and other issues of inequality for women and girls. After Senator Gillibrand left the primary race, Buttigieg is the only candidate still in the race to release a plan displaying a path toward a world without sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse.

The South Bend mayor’s platform – “Building Power: A Women’s Agenda for the 21st Century” –  addresses gender equality with a specific focus on closing the pay gap, supporting women’s health and reproductive right to choice, securing women’s power and influence through key Cabinet appointments, and building safe and inclusive communities, including for low-income workers. Additionally, Buttigieg’s investment would entail tackling workplace misconduct and discrimination by holding employers accountable for protecting women workers and banning forced arbitration.

It’s encouraging to see that accountability, transparency, and respect are cornerstones of the platform.

In Buttigieg’s plan, public companies would be required to track and share annually the total number of reports and investigations. Industries with the highest risk of harassment would need to assess their workplace climate to inform and drive prevention plans. While it would be wonderful to live in a world where companies operated transparently and implemented prevention methods proactively, few would do this without a mandate.

For many #MeTooVoters, their voices are just starting to be heard. We applaud Buttigieg for stepping up for survivors and offering a concrete plan to address #MeToo comprehensively as an issue of safety and gender inequality. It’s encouraging, and we hope his example will spur other candidates to more proactively be part of the solution.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Miss Opportunity to Discuss #MeTooVoter

Blog, Culture, Policy, Workplace

Two years ago, 12 million people responded to the hashtag #MeToo in just 24 hours. During last night’s Democratic presidential primary debate, survivors of sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse took to social media with a powerful message to presidential candidates and policymakers: Survivors deserve change now. #MeTooVoter champions survivor voices to inform that change. It’s time candidates listened to this important voting body.

On Tuesday evening, powerhouses like Me Too Movement founder Tarana Burke, National Women’s Law Center President Fatima Goss Graves, President of Justice for Migrant Women and Gender Justice Campaigns Director for National Domestic Workers Alliance Monica Ramírez, and Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance Aijen Poo posted on social media.

But during Tuesday night’s debate, there wasn’t a single question about how Democratic presidential hopefuls would address sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse nationally.

Despite the debates being held in Ohio, where a case of high school football players in Steubenville raping a young student gained national attention. The case pitted members of the town against each other and was recently featured in the documentary Roll, Red, Roll on Netflix.

Despite the fact that every social issue that impacts the health and wellbeing of communities; the safety of women, girls, and families; and the equity, respect, and resilience of workers is also an issue of sexual violence. The fact is, when you talk about gun violence, for instance, you have to acknowledge that when a domestic abuser has a gun, the chance of homicide increases exponentially.

Despite the Washington Post including a question about Title IX among the most important education topics in a recent survey that asked 2020 Democrats where they stand on key issues. The question — in Title IX investigations, should college students accused of sexual assault have the right to cross examine their accusers – speaks to Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposed new rules for how schools handle allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

It’s time to use our voices to demand #AskaboutMeToo at the November 20th debates in Atlanta. And candidates: survivors are counting on you and we encourage you to check out our policy platform to end sexual violence in one generation.  

Cover of book You Throw LIke a Girl: The Blind Side of Masculnity with pciture of authro Don MsPherson, African AMerican man with beared wearing blue shirt and darker blue sweater

You Throw Like a Girl

Blog, Sport

“How do we raise boys to be whole men without degrading our daughters in the process?” asks Don McPherson in his newly released book You Throw Like a Girl: The Blind Spot of Masculinity.  This former National Football League and Canadian Football League quarterback proceeds to explore how to do speaking not only as a man, as an African American and as an athletic, but as a person dedicated to preventing gender based violence. McPherson tells his story of becoming and being a prevention practitioner.

The book’s title is a common insult from men to other men.  In these pages, McPherson calls to men to explore what they can become. He insists that “we should be asking more what boys and men can become and asking less what they should or shouldn’t do.”

Drawing on his experiences as a boy, as a son, as an athlete and as person working to prevent men’s violence, he provides many examples of how to challenge men to move away from sexist, homophobic and misogyny.  Similar to what another Syracuse University football star Joe Ehrmann wrote in his book InsideOut Coaching, McPherson demonstrated how sport can go beyond reinforcing negative and destructive male norms, and help shape positive behaviors.

He credits those whom have help teach him, from Mentors in Violence Prevention founder Jackson Katz, to Oakland Men’s Project development of the “Act Like a Man Box” to his father’s examples of loving his family. I was moved by his stories of how he learned to be a man from our culture, and how he had to relearn how to become the man working to be a healthy man actively engaged to prevent men’s violence.

We need more examples like Don McPherson of how to work to create a world without violence.

Check out RALIANCE’s Sport + Prevention Center on strategies to engage sport to be part of the solution to preventing sexual and domestic violence.

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