How Legal Agreements Can Silence Victims of Workplace Sexual Assault
On October 5, The New York Times detailed the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s alleged decades-long campaign of buying sexual harassment victims’ silence through nondisclosure agreements and confidential, out-of-court settlements. These secret deals, according to the Times’ reporting, buried stories of abuse, extending from Weinstein’s alleged harassment of young assistants, temps, employees and executives at the Weinstein Company and Miramax to allegedly assaulting actresses who appeared in films he produced or distributed.
The revelations that led to Weinstein’s downfall—he was fired from his namesake company and has resigned from its board—provoke a key question: Did the law help expose the abuse or push it deeper into the shadows?
There is no question that labor and employment law (not to mention criminal law) forbid sexual harassment and assault at work. But the law also plays an important role in protecting workers’ right to speak out
