5 ms·

You seem to have missed this part of the article: but after breaking things off with him, multiple Kleiner Perkins partners and an outside human resources cons

You seem to have missed this part of the article: but after breaking things off with him, multiple Kleiner Perkins partners and an outside human resources consultant allegedly ignored Pao’s complaints about repeated harassment and retaliation, and rejected her requests to transfer away from Nazre. Having once been in a relationship with a person does not open the door to continued harassment after the relationship is over.

badclient 14y ago
Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no? I'd go as far to say significantly more complexity, especially if their break up was anything like the average break up today and the ensuing drama--where depending on the time of the day, each partner could be found guilty of harassment if they chose to pursue. On the larger topic of sexual harassment, I often wonder if there should be a word for sexual harassment just as we have one for rape(where stop means stop). With sexual harassment, seemingly normal conversation could be construed as criminal. Alas, don't shit where you eat.
- aplusbi 14y ago
  It does make the situation more complex, but sexual harassment isn't black and white. There is a huge difference between investigating a harassment claim and determining that no harassment took place and completely ignoring it.
  - badclient 14y ago
    I am curious if she pursued this criminally. And if she did, I think it is important to take into account the view of the DA/cops. If she is not bringing up the criminal angle, chances are she never pursued it or the DA passed on the case. That is not great news for her case. Typically you do the civil case after the conclusion of the criminal one, especially if you are confident he will be found guilty.
    - NoPiece 14y ago
      Sexual harassment is against the law, but it isn't a crime (at least in California). A DA wouldn't be involved unless it went well past sexual harassment into assault or stalking.
    - starwed 14y ago
      To be blunt, you have no idea what you're talking about here.
- larrys 14y ago
  "Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no?" Was thinking the same thing. Also a psychological component, intermittent reinforcement. She had rebuffed him and then agreed to have sex 2 or 3 times. Who knows over what period that happened and whether there was any rebuff in between the sexual events. After all, he persisted and to away with it at least one time after being rejected. (Not agreeing his behavior was proper obviously just pointing this out.)
- brudgers 14y ago
  "Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no?" No. Which means, no.
  - _debug_ 14y ago
    Except it meant yes, for a while. When she first said no, and he persisted, and then she acceded, she trained him into believing that persistence pays off. So when she says no again, it seems to me that it is almost mathematically predictable that he will re-double his persistent efforts to win her back. 'no means no' does not apply when it sometimes means yes. With added flakiness, 'no means no' means : 'no means yes once in a while, and no means no when I feel like it, and you're a rapist and I'm still an angel if you cannot figure it out'.
kevinpet 14y ago
It does not excuse the behavior, but it may very well be that coworkers who broke off a relationship are more likely to falsely accuse each other of harassment and/or overreact to innocent or trivial incidents. It may not be true in this case, but if it's true in general, it is a reasonable factor in evaluating how they reacted to her complaints.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  You mean she was asking for it? Where did you pull the false accusation / innocent or trivial incidents from? And if may not be true in this case why bring it up? She asked to be transferred away from him because of this and they ignored her, how much more insensitive could it get. Even when you're in a relationship 'no' still means 'no' and 'leave me alone' still means just that.
  - kevinpet 14y ago
    Yes, because I can recognize factors that may reasonably influence whether you should take someone's complaints of harassment at face value, I am clearly advocating rape.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      I'm not asking you to take them at face value, I'm asking you simply to consider them at all without immediately jumping to possible alternative explanations of the same set of facts that are a lot more complicated than the original one, that she claims that she was harassed and then ignored and that was the end of it. Occam's razor and all that. Harassment does happen, and in cases like this the person that steps up has enough problems on their hand without being dealt more crap. The prior situation has no bearing on what she claims happened, it either did or it did not, and even if it did not the complaint should have been taken serious. So we're not even getting to 'taking the complaints at face value', we're simply establishing that she claims that her complaints were ignored. That's a pretty low bar to have to jump over, if someone claims sexual harassment and you ignore them then you're simply wrong, regardless of whether or not the complaint is true.

badclient 14y ago

Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no? I'd go as far to say significantly more complexity, especially if their break up was anything like the average break up today and the ensuing drama--where depending on the time of the day, each partner could be found guilty of harassment if they chose to pursue. On the larger topic of sexual harassment, I often wonder if there should be a word for sexual harassment just as we have one for rape(where stop means stop). With sexual harassment, seemingly normal conversation could be construed as criminal. Alas, don't shit where you eat.

aplusbi 14y ago
It does make the situation more complex, but sexual harassment isn't black and white. There is a huge difference between investigating a harassment claim and determining that no harassment took place and completely ignoring it.
- badclient 14y ago
  I am curious if she pursued this criminally. And if she did, I think it is important to take into account the view of the DA/cops. If she is not bringing up the criminal angle, chances are she never pursued it or the DA passed on the case. That is not great news for her case. Typically you do the civil case after the conclusion of the criminal one, especially if you are confident he will be found guilty.
  - NoPiece 14y ago
    Sexual harassment is against the law, but it isn't a crime (at least in California). A DA wouldn't be involved unless it went well past sexual harassment into assault or stalking.
  - starwed 14y ago
    To be blunt, you have no idea what you're talking about here.
larrys 14y ago
"Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no?" Was thinking the same thing. Also a psychological component, intermittent reinforcement. She had rebuffed him and then agreed to have sex 2 or 3 times. Who knows over what period that happened and whether there was any rebuff in between the sexual events. After all, he persisted and to away with it at least one time after being rejected. (Not agreeing his behavior was proper obviously just pointing this out.)
brudgers 14y ago
"Certainly it introduces a new complexity to the case, no?" No. Which means, no.
- _debug_ 14y ago
  Except it meant yes, for a while. When she first said no, and he persisted, and then she acceded, she trained him into believing that persistence pays off. So when she says no again, it seems to me that it is almost mathematically predictable that he will re-double his persistent efforts to win her back. 'no means no' does not apply when it sometimes means yes. With added flakiness, 'no means no' means : 'no means yes once in a while, and no means no when I feel like it, and you're a rapist and I'm still an angel if you cannot figure it out'.

kevinpet 14y ago

It does not excuse the behavior, but it may very well be that coworkers who broke off a relationship are more likely to falsely accuse each other of harassment and/or overreact to innocent or trivial incidents. It may not be true in this case, but if it's true in general, it is a reasonable factor in evaluating how they reacted to her complaints.

jacquesm 14y ago
You mean she was asking for it? Where did you pull the false accusation / innocent or trivial incidents from? And if may not be true in this case why bring it up? She asked to be transferred away from him because of this and they ignored her, how much more insensitive could it get. Even when you're in a relationship 'no' still means 'no' and 'leave me alone' still means just that.
- kevinpet 14y ago
  Yes, because I can recognize factors that may reasonably influence whether you should take someone's complaints of harassment at face value, I am clearly advocating rape.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    I'm not asking you to take them at face value, I'm asking you simply to consider them at all without immediately jumping to possible alternative explanations of the same set of facts that are a lot more complicated than the original one, that she claims that she was harassed and then ignored and that was the end of it. Occam's razor and all that. Harassment does happen, and in cases like this the person that steps up has enough problems on their hand without being dealt more crap. The prior situation has no bearing on what she claims happened, it either did or it did not, and even if it did not the complaint should have been taken serious. So we're not even getting to 'taking the complaints at face value', we're simply establishing that she claims that her complaints were ignored. That's a pretty low bar to have to jump over, if someone claims sexual harassment and you ignore them then you're simply wrong, regardless of whether or not the complaint is true.