General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsClinton says she regrets not firing aide accused of sexual harassment during 2008 campaign
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday expressed regret for not having fired a senior adviser on her 2008 presidential campaign who was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a young subordinate.
In a lengthy Facebook post, the Democrat sought to explain her decision to deliver a less severe punishment to Burns Strider, who was her faith adviser, despite a recommendation from her campaign manager that Strider be fired.
"I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior," Clinton wrote. "The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't."
Her Facebook post came four days after the New York Times first published an account of the episode and shortly before President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Capitol Hill.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-says-she-regrets-not-firing-aid-accused-of-sexual-harassment-during-2008-campaign/2018/01/30/b1be2e44-0637-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html?utm_term=.b37b2278966d
snowybirdie
(5,219 posts)that this story is well past its use date? With all the news this week, this non story is taking up too much space in some folks' head
I think it is important for our party to clearly differentiate our stand on workplace harassment from the shithead party.
Clinton did the right thing here by squarely addressing the issue, by not pretending she did nothing wrong, and by not ignoring it.
snowybirdie
(5,219 posts)However, this has been going on for days and days. Discussed ad nausem and is about things that took place right years ago in a very different political time. Nothing new will change things and it borders on Hillary Bashing, once again. Move on
Voltaire2
(12,957 posts)Clearly Senator Clinton would like her position on this issue to be known.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,121 posts)so as to get out in front of the story. Better late than never I guess.
Demsrule86
(68,456 posts)shanny
(6,709 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,121 posts)as you say, she's certainly under no obligation to splain her actions or inactions
LenaBaby61
(6,972 posts)But I tell you what, if we don't somehow get a HANDLE on our democracy, or somehow stop the treasonous damage that's being done by the treasonous pig in the White House/CON-gress, there won't BE anything we can do about sexual harassment/rape/workplace harassment etc. It'll go away. thuglicans might even go as far as make laws which will put all of the power in the sexual harasser's/rapists hands, and make it more difficult to prosecute them of their crimes.
White males like tRumputin, Ryan etc. don't CARE if women are harassed, sexually assaulted or raped. They sure as hell don't care about workplace harassment. Hell, fatso-in-chief IS a sexual assaulter and worse. ALL he and thuglicans know how to DO is criticize and hate on Hillary. deflect, deflect and DEFLECT, at Hillary's expense.
triron
(21,984 posts)I'm sure Hillary wants to 'clear the air' about this so it does not tarnish either her or the dems in general.
She's very conscientious--I get that from reading her book "What Happened".
LenaBaby61
(6,972 posts)Why is Hillary commenting on this NOW? Hillary has to KNOW that SHE and her emails or ANYTHING that she does gets mostly NEGATIVE coverage surrounding it. She has to have SEEN that she was blamed for Harvey Weinstein and is blamed for every male whose a sexual assaulter/rapist etc. CNN wanted HER to apologize for Weinstein.
There are some treasonous, wicked, disgusting and vile things going on.
Our democracy is at stake and worse.
Much respect to Hillary, but why comment on this NOW Hillary
Democrats and their tone deafness in messaging. When to and when not to.
delisen
(6,042 posts)to choose how to mount their defense.
It is all about choice; it is all about freedom; it is all about liberty.
Maggie Hagerman and Amy Choziak chose to write a news story charging that Hilliary Clinton shielded a sexual harasser 10 years ago. The New York Times chose to publish this story on January 26, 2018 to a readership and audience of millions.
Many news outlet and gossip purveyors choose to reprint and re-broadcast the charges regarding the events of 10 years ago.
Hillary Clinton chose to defend herself by posting to her Facebook page on January 31, 2018 her explanation.
It seems to me the entity that should be questioned is The NYTimes.
One of the few people willing to tell that there were wicked things going on in 2016 was Hillary Clinton. Therefore I want to hear everything she has to say.
LenaBaby61
(6,972 posts)Me too, but not right NOW.
We're literally fighting for our democracy with the release of that fake, crafted Nunes look over here squirrel memo (Which the WH may have told him to put out there). Nunez is colluding with the ruskies no doubt on top of being crooked as the letter Z. We know tRumpitin IS currently colluding with them because he won't enforce those russia sanctions, plus his puppet master putin has him destroying our law enforcement, and we know now that fatso STILL wants to fire Mueller, and today we find out that Trump asked Rosenstein if he was 'on my team' late last year. I truly don't want the news cycle to get off all this extremely important breaking news situations concerning our democracy and onto Hillary. And as for the NY Times, they mostly lost me WAY back in 2002 when they were employing Iraq War cheerleader Judith Miller.
It 'appears' that all things fatso-in-chief, all of this treason taking place, Nunes releasing his fake memo--all out destruction of our democracy--IS staying on top of the head lines and away from Hillary.
delisen
(6,042 posts)word.
It is a ten year old story that the N Y Times chose to publish this week.
I think Haberman's access and connections to to Trump is news.
Trump is known to solicit negative news stories about this he considers opponents.
I wrote to Haberman asking whether the purpose of writing this story now was to curry favor with Trump and maintain access.
If so Haberman's reporting on Trump may not be impartial-much as Judith Miller's reporting on weapons of mass destruction was not impartial. She was used by the Bush administration and many people died.
As for Clinton she has the right to defend herself-anytime, anywhere, anyplace.
Cha
(296,841 posts)aikoaiko
(34,162 posts)I'm sure.
Kingofalldems
(38,422 posts)Already seen this one today.
demmiblue
(36,823 posts)Was he just passed along/hired without scrutiny (or was his past harassment kept secret)? It makes no sense.
delisen
(6,042 posts)Cha
(296,841 posts)Demsrule86
(68,456 posts)CentralMass
(15,265 posts)He faced zero consequences. That is why he was hired years later.
Cha
(296,841 posts)The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. Ive tried to do so here at home, around the world, and in the organizations Ive run. I started in my twenties, and four decades later Im nowhere near being done. Im proud that its the work Im most associated with, and it remains what Im most dedicated to.
So I very much understand the question Im being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior.
The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldnt.
Before giving some of the reasons why I made a different choice back then and why looking back I wish Id done it differently, heres what happened and what my thinking was at the time.
In 2007, a woman working on my campaign came forward with a complaint about her supervisor behaving inappropriately toward her. She and her complaint were taken seriously. Senior campaign staff and legal counsel spoke to both her and the offender.
They determined that he had in fact engaged in inappropriate behavior. My then-campaign manager presented me with her findings. She recommended that he be fired. I asked for steps that could be taken short of termination. In the end, I decided to demote him, docking his pay; separate him from the woman; assign her to work directly for my then-deputy-campaign manager; put in place technical barriers to his emailing her; and require that he seek counseling. He would also be warned that any subsequent harassment of any kind toward anyone would result in immediate termination.
I did this because I didnt think firing him was the best solution to the problem. He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe. I thought both could happen without him losing his job. I believed the punishment was severe and the message to him unambiguous.
I also believe in second chances. Ive been given second chances and I have given them to others. I want to continue to believe in them. But sometimes theyre squandered. In this case, while there were no further complaints against him for the duration of the campaign, several years after working for me he was terminated from another job for inappropriate behavior. That reoccurrence troubles me greatly, and it alone makes clear that the lesson I hoped he had learned while working for me went unheeded. Would he have done better been better if I had fired him? Would he have gotten that next job? There is no way I can go back 10 years and know the answers. But you can bet Im asking myself these questions right now.
Over the years, I have made, directly and indirectly, thousands of personnel decisions everything from hiring to promoting to disciplining to firing. Most of these decisions worked out well. But Ive gotten some wrong: Ive hired the wrong people for the wrong jobs; Ive come down on people too hard at times. Through it all, Ive always taken firing very seriously. Taking away someones livelihood is perhaps the most serious thing an employer can do. When faced with a situation like this, if I think its possible to avoid termination while still doing right by everyone involved, I am inclined in that direction. I do not put this forward as a virtue or a vice just as a fact about how I view these matters.
When The New York Times reported on this incident last week, my first thought was for the young woman involved. So I reached out to her most importantly, to see how she was doing, but also to help me reflect on my decision and its consequences. Its never easy when something painful or personal like this surfaces, much less when it appears all over the news. I called her not knowing what Id hear. Whatever she had to say, I wanted her to be able to say it, and say it to me.
She expressed appreciation that she worked on a campaign where she knew she could come forward without fear. She was glad that her accusations were taken seriously, that there was a clear process in place for dealing with harassment, and that it was followed. Most importantly, she told me that for the remainder of the campaign, she flourished in her new role. We talked about her career, policy issues related to the work shes doing now, and her commitment to public service. I told her how grateful I was to her for working on my campaign and believing in me as a candidate. Shes read every word of this and has given me permission to share it.
It was reassuring to hear that she felt supported back then and that all these years later, those feelings havent changed. That again left me glad that my campaign had in place a comprehensive process for dealing with complaints. The fact that the woman involved felt heard and supported reinforced my belief that the process worked at least to a degree. At the time, I believed the punishment I imposed was severe and fit the offense.
Indeed, while we are revisiting whether my decision from a decade ago was harsh enough, many employers would be well served to take actions at least as severe when confronted with problems now including the very media outlet that broke this story. They recently opted to suspend and reinstate one of their journalists who exhibited similarly inappropriate behavior, rather than terminate him. A decade from now, that decision may not look as tough as it feels today. The norms around sexual harassment will likely have continued to change as swiftly and significantly in the years to come as they have over the years until now.
Over the past year, a seismic shift has occurred in the way we approach and respond to sexual harassment, both as a society and as individuals. This shift was long overdue. It occurred thanks to women across industries who stood up and spoke out, from Hollywood to sports to farm workers to the very woman who worked for me.
For most of my life, harassment wasnt something talked about or even acknowledged. More women than not experience it to some degree in their life, and until recently, the response was often to laugh it off or tough it out. Thats changing, and thats a good thing. My own decision to write in my memoir about my experiences being sexually harassed and physically threatened early in my career the first time was in college was more agonizing than it should have been. I know that Im one of the lucky ones, and what happened to me seemed so commonplace that I wondered if it was even worth sharing. But in the end, thats exactly why I chose to write about it: because I dont want this behavior or these attitudes to be accepted as normal for any woman, especially those just starting out in their lives.
No woman should have to endure harassment or assault at work, at school, or anywhere. And men are now on notice that they will truly be held accountable for their actions. Especially now, we all need to be thinking about the complexities of sexual harassment, and be willing to challenge ourselves to reassess and question our own views.
In other words, everyones now on their second chance, both the offenders and the decision-makers. Lets do our best to make the most of it.
We cant go back, but we can certainly look back, informed by the present. We can acknowledge that even those of us who have spent much of our life thinking about gender issues and who have firsthand experiences of navigating a male-dominated industry or career may not always get it right.
I recognize that the situation on my 2008 campaign was unusual in that a woman complained to a woman who brought the issue to a woman who was the ultimate decision maker. There was no man in the chain of command. The boss was a woman. Does a woman have a responsibility to come down even harder on the perpetrator? I dont know. But I do believe that a woman boss has an extra responsibility to look out for the women who work for her, and to better understand how issues like these can affect them.
I was inspired by my conversation with this young woman to express my own thinking on the matter. You may question why its taken me time to speak on this at length. The answer is simple: Ive been grappling with this and thinking about how best to share my thoughts. I hope that my doing so will push others to keep having this conversation to ask and try to answer the hard questions, not just in the abstract but in the real-life contexts of our roles as men, women, bosses, employees, advocates, and public officials. I hope that women will continue to talk and write about their own experiences and that they will continue leading this critical debate, which, done right, will lead to a better, fairer, safer country for us all.
videohead https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10167707
I broke it up into paragraphs for easier reading. Hope I did it right.
still_one
(92,061 posts)Cha
(296,841 posts)mascarax
(1,528 posts)I appreciated the detailed explanation.
Cha
(296,841 posts)mascarax
LAS14
(13,769 posts)See response 14 for the whole thing.