Bill O’Reilly’s $32 million sex settlement shocker. Harvey Weinstein. A reckoning for non-disclosure agreements. Is it time to stop buying silence?
Gretchen Carlson joins us to discuss.
The sexual harassment and assault revelations just keep coming. Bill O’Reilly and his stunning $32 million harassment settlement of complaints brought by a colleague at Fox News. Harvey Weinstein, and former employees begging to be allowed to speak. One breaking her nondisclosure agreement to tell all. Those agreements have kept women silent for years. Gretchen Carlson signed one with Fox. She’s with us. This hour, On Point: Nondisclosure agreements, and breaking the silence on sexual harassment. — Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News Channel anchor and author of “ Be Fierce: Stop Harassment And Take Your Power Back.” ( @GretchenCarlson)
Kathleen Peratis, attorney at Outten & Golden and chair of the firm’s sexual harassment practice group.
Shannon Bond, media correspondent for the Financial Times. ( @shannonpareil)
From Tom’s Reading List:
Los Angeles Times: Weinstein Scandal Puts Non-Disclosure Agreements In The Spotlight — “Harvey Weinstein. Bill O’Reilly. Roger Ailes. Bill Cosby. The Catholic Church. All were able to skirt years and sometimes decades of allegations of sexual harassment or assault through the use of settlements or contracts that included nondisclosure agreements: legal provisions that swear employees or alleged victims to secrecy.”
Washington Post: Why One Of Harvey Weinstein’s Former Assistants Just Broke Her Confidentiality Agreement — “A former assistant to Harvey Weinstein has broken a nondisclosure agreement she signed nearly two decades ago and is speaking out about sexual harassment she said she observed — and experienced firsthand — while working under the now-disgraced Hollywood mogul.”
The Economist: How Non-Disclosure Agreements Can Protect Workplace Abusers — “In recent days, as numerous actresses have described harrowing encounters with Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer, attention has turned to the vehicle that helped keep these episodes quiet for years: non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). ‘We did not know we were working for a serial sexual predator,’ thirty or so of Harvey Weinstein’s former employees write in an unsigned letter published in the New Yorker on October 19th. ‘We knew that our boss could be manipulative,’ they go on. ‘We did not know that he used his power to systematically assault and silence women.'”
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