On sexual harassment and the Law

 

-Andrew Atkin

Assertion: No one should know about an accusation of sexual harassment, until a conviction has been achieved.

Argument: Some years back, there was a story in New Zealand about a schoolteacher who was accused of sexual harassment by a couple of his students. He lost his job. Later, the girls who made the complaint came clean and admitted that they had made it all up, and that they just didn't like him and so wanted him gone.

Now here's the thing. If those girls didn't have their change of heart, that schoolteacher's life would have been over. All his family and friends, and any future friend, would hear him declaring "they made it all up!" but it wouldn't matter. There would be an ugly cloud of doubt hanging over him forever, and the humiliation would be permanent and relentless. 

No future employer would want to have much to do with him either, even if they believed the original accusation was a lie. This is because they wouldn't want to be associated with his 'cloud of doubt'.

So how do we solve the problem? How do we protect people from false accusations, considering an accusation alone can be so terribly damaging? 

First, I will point out that complaints can be false. The schoolteacher incident is probably not unusual. For example, a person can badly over-react to a comment or behaviour, especially if they've been triggered due to a history of personal abuse. Some may even lie for a selfish or vengeful ends, as was the case in my previous example. Also there can be mistakes. If a man accidentally brushes up against a woman the wrong way, yet the woman does not agree it was an accident, then he could be in serious trouble. These sort of things can and do happen.

The solution, I think, is simple. It should be illegal to go public with a complaint of a sexual nature, until some kind of conviction is achieved (the courts should decide). Until then, an open complaint should be considered a serious form of slander and come with proportionate legal consequences. If you believe in innocent until proven guilty, then this is how it needs to be - because, again, a complaint alone is damaging. Materially, is creates a conviction without a trial.

I can imagine some people disagreeing with me, because as Hilary Clinton once said [paraphrasing] "If a woman has been abused, she has the right to be believed". Hilary was doing politics of course, because there must always be evidence to support a conviction. Your word is not enough. This is the way it is, because if it isn't then we might as well abandon our evidence-based legal system, and go back to the stoneage where any corrupt or mistaken accuser can destroy a given target. 

Sadly, this does mean that many real abuse cases will not lead to firings or convictions, which will of course be happening today, but the fact remains you simply must retain the standard of innocent until proven guilty. 

If a women (or man) is worried about the risk of being sexually harassed, then they should organise their life around that risk so to make it as tolerable as possible - there's nothing else you can do. In an ideal world, all bad behaviour would be provable and dealt with. But alas, until we all wear 360-degree bodycams 24/7 (no thanks?) it simply won't happen. And again, proof must be the standard.