Microsoft Intern’s Rape Claim Highlights Struggle to Combat Sex Discrimination

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-14/microsoft-intern-s-rape-claim-highlights-struggle-to-combat-sex-discrimination

by Doches • 9 years ago

108 177 9 years ago

bloomberg.com

aero1425• 9 years ago

Most of these articles I have read in the past few years always leave me with the same question. Why is there not more focus on the police investigation. Why did they police decide not to press charges? If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn't that be a big priority to change? Aren't the police more accountable to the electorate than Microsoft's internal HR policy. I feel like there are a lot of questions that aren't brought up. Do people believe that the standard of evidence for Police is too high but isn't politically possible to change? If the police standard of evidence is too high, what should the standard of evidence be? What should the standard of evidence be for Microsoft? If someone files a police complain but that complaint is dismissed for lack of evidence, how exactly should Microsoft evaluate that claim?

I just feel like many of these articles stop short of discussing obvious questions, and it leaves me suspicious.

wccrawford• 9 years ago

Many of them focus on accusations and demand justice without actually going through our "justice system". For example,

And despite the allegations against him, Microsoft also hired her accused rapist.

I don't expect any company to act on allegations other than to apply some caution, which is probably already being applied anyhow.

It's clear that our police don't take rape seriously enough, but that doesn't mean that companies should start being judge, jury and executioner instead.

aero1425• 9 years ago

> I don't expect any company to act on allegations other than to apply some caution, which is probably already being applied anyhow.

I don't agree with this. Once an accuser has filed a criminal complaint of rape, I think companies should do a lot to protect that person from a co-worker. However, once those charges are dismissed for lack of evidence, which happened for reasons not covered in this article, the situation changes. I would like someone to tell me what Microsoft should do after charges are dropped.

pjc504• 9 years ago

judge, jury and executioner

Oh come on. It wasn't even a firing decision, it was a decision on which interns to hire. They can't have been short of applicants. How about not hiring the guy with the rape allegation?

Alternatively, if you believe the woman is entirely lying, why wasn't she barred from hiring? No, they just dropped the question on the floor entirely.

DanBC• 9 years ago

Police and criminal courts use a high burden of proof: "beyond all reasonable doubt".

Anyone else doesn't have to use that. If someone who's called a rapist sues for defamation the courts will use "balance of probability".

People get confused by the apparent contradiction between "innocent until proved guilty" and the fact that someone not prosecuted (or even prosecuted and found not guilty) may have done the crime.

For an example see the comments about football player Ched Evans being found "innocent" - he wasn't, at all. He was found "not guilty" which spans the range from "he definitely didn't do it" right up to "he almost certainly did it, but the prosecution didn't persuade me beyond all reasonable doubt".

So if you're Microsoft you can do what you like. If it ends up in court it's probably going to be "balance of probabilities".

rosser10• 9 years ago

If I had a very finite number of wishes, I'd probably be strongly inclined to burn one of them on making people somehow meaningfully understand the distinction between "not guilty" and "innocent".

RyJones• 9 years ago

Prosecutors decide if charges are pressed, not police. Police gather evidence, prosecutors build a case and decide to prosecute. Prosecutors are elected in King County (where both Seattle and Redmond are located).

The choice about which crimes to prosecute with what vigor is very much a political question, and I agree with you strongly, we need more discussion about it.

pjc504• 9 years ago

If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn't that be a big priority to change?

This is also a priority as the police are generally bad at this apart from a few places which have made it a priority. There is a national backlog in the US of unprocessed rape evidence kits: http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-rape-kits-legisl...

What should the standard of evidence be for Microsoft?

See other comment, but civil standards rather than criminal standards sound like a good place to start. But really consider the normal standards of "evidence" at work; people are fired for all sorts of reasons on the flimsiest of evidence all the time. Remember that Microsoft was a pioneer of "stack ranking" which would sack 10% of employees annually simply for relative performance on the judgement of their manager.

I just feel like many of these articles stop short of discussing obvious questions

A separation is usually maintained between "news" and "opinion", but I agree that journalism is often very bad at giving context.

aero1425• 9 years ago

I don’t believe that a police determination that this case would not be presecuted is a matter of opinion. The facts of why that decision was made is a very important fact that is relevant for me in how I feel about Microsofts actions.

rayiner4• 9 years ago

Rape cases are hard to prove, and prosecutors would rather go for things that are easy to prove, like drugs. But courts and the police aren’t the only aspect of our society charged with ensuring justice. This should be obvious to anyone on HN. Entrepreneurs don’t file a lawsuit every time someone screws them on a business deal. And if someone says “we shouldn’t go into business with that guy—he’s shady,” nobody asks “well if he did what you’re accusing him of doing, why didn’t you file a lawsuit?”

Reputation systems are important to fill these gaps. And in a reputation system, where peoples’ freedom isn’t on the line, a different standard of review is appropriate. If someone says “we shouldn’t hire this guy, I know he cheated in his classes.” Nobody says “well can you prove that beyond a reasonable doubt?” That’s not how things work.

aperrien3• 9 years ago

The downside of this is that reputation systems can be wrecked with rumor. A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can take the first step.

However, I don't know what's going to work to take people with vast amounts of power out of power for wrongdoing, either. What we've done in the past doesn't appear to have consistently worked. So here we are, unfortunately.

tfha3• 9 years ago

"don't work for that person, he rapes his employees"

That statement needs to be backed up by hard evidence. It's a very terrible thing to accuse someone of such a serious crime.

And if the statement is true, I somehow don't feel comfortable accepting that the solution is just to warn people not to work for them.

mnglkhn2• 9 years ago

Reputation systems are vulnerable to religious fervor/zealotry. A religious fervor builds up the numbers and the intensity needed to invalidate any reputation system that you might come up with.

bryanlarsen2• 9 years ago

"Rape cases are hard to prove"

Why are rape cases like this hard to prove? She was pass-out drunk, and the accused had sex with her. That's all the prosecutor should have to prove, there should be no she-said, he-said over consent.

Courts regularly rule that people don't have the capacity to sign a contract while drunk, yet somehow they do have the capacity to consent to sex? Come on.

Even if she did say yes, it's still rape in my opinion.

I know that drunken sex is the traditional way to consummate a relationship in modern Western culture, so this would be quite a difficult cultural change.

But IMO such a change would do more to strengthen the drunk college party tradition than it would to weaken it. Girls would be even more likely to party wildly if they weren't scared of being assaulted while doing so...

naasking• 9 years ago

And if someone says “we shouldn’t go into business with that guy—he’s shady,” nobody asks “well if he did what you’re accusing him of doing, why didn’t you file a lawsuit?”

Criminal accusations are much worse and deserve a much higher standard of evidence. Also, I think you're wrong. People ask that question all the time in the civil case.

yuhong• 9 years ago

Similar reasons are why I don't like employment anti-discrimination laws. They were really designed for manual labor jobs and the like.

ZeroGravitas3• 9 years ago

I was just reading a personal account of rape where it was claimed that most of her circle of friends had experienced rape at the hands of police, so possibly that's a good place to start.

Also, here's a couple of year old article that takes head on the question of how police deal with rape accusations. I can't recommend it enough, it won a Pulizter:

https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an...

DoreenMichele18• 9 years ago

Why is there not more focus on the police investigation. Why did they police decide not to press charges? If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn't that be a big priority to change?

I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons. So, here are some issues as I see it:

First, if you lower the burden of proof for rape because it is rape, then you open the door to men having their lives ruined because some woman wants their job, is mad he won't leave his wife for her, or whatever. Women are human too. We aren't all paragons of virtue simply for having been born with different bits between our legs. So if you set a low standard for convicting a man of rape, you open up a different huge can of worms.

Second, human sexual morality is all kinds of messy and complicated. Date rape routinely involves alcohol, yet if you tell women "Play defensively and don't drink and don't get so drunk that you can't drive home and need to crash at some guy's place where he can rape your inebriated, unconscious body," now you are blaming the victim. If we told someone "It's a rough neighborhood, so lock your doors." that would be good advice, not victim blaming. But make it about sex and try to give women practical advice, and suddenly you are impinging on their right to do any damn thing they so please.

I mean, I have seen an article where someone was literally quoted as saying "A woman should be able to walk naked down the street and be safe from rape." Is it okay for men to wander the streets naked? Last I checked, the answer was no. Why are we making up this ridiculous scenario?

Additionally, because in a court case you can't realistically lower the legal evidentiary bar, going through a court trial after a sexual assault is quite the ordeal. It isn't a sympathetic, hand-holding oh, honey, you poor thing experience. You will essentially be treated like you are lying, because the reality is that you could be.

Another thing that is incredibly hard to talk about at all is that we have things like BDSM and cultural standards that men are supposed to initiate, etc. So there is no bright line between a man pursuing a woman and a man harassing a woman or pressuring her into sex, which could then come back to bite him when she decides it constituted rape. I strongly suspect some men genuinely are surprised at being called a rapist after the fact. To their mind, it was consensual.

There are no simple, easy, straight forward cures for that last issue. I don't know how we are going to fix it. Perhaps the outpouring of #MeToos and multiple cases currently ongoing against powerful men will change the standard, but not without a lot of blood in the water.

I read some of the articles where multiple women have accused a rich, powerful of man of sexual assault and the man often denies it and swears it was consensual. Given my experience of human sexuality, I suspect a lot of these men firmly believe that -- because men are supposed to be the aggressors and rich, powerful men can be oblivious to just how much pressure their wealth and power can represent for a woman they are pursuing.

It's complicated and a desire for a nice simple solution in the name of justice tends to just lead to other injustices, not actual solutions.

s17n• 9 years ago

Actually, all the issues that you bring up are easy - being oblivious isn't a defense in any other aspect of the law and it shouldn't be for rape either.

If you didn't realize that you didn't have consent, sucks to be you, but you should still suffer the consequences.

aero1425• 9 years ago

Rape is perhaps a more complicated crime from both the human sexuality side and the prosecution side, but this case doesn't deal with all of those. I think that is why this article in particular is bothering me. For all the "rough sex" defenses, and power plays between bosses and subordinates, we have none of that. What we have instead is two coworkers out drinking and we have a second witness in the house. What is his side of the story? Did the roommate provide any details that might give some weight to either of their version of events? The article claims that she went to bed in the basement while they were up playing guitar, which doesn't sound like a precursor to consensual sex to me, but who knows. The statements from other people might help us have a better idea of what really happened. Instead we have a big gap in the story where the author of the article didn't provide any investigation that might help us decide. Instead we have an incomplete picture where everyone gets to fill in their preferred version of events. You can either believe that the rape victim is credible and law enforcement and Microsoft failed her, or you believe there wasn't enough evidence but people want to believe the victim regardless. Now everyone continues to talk past each other and nothing is solved. If I'm saying anything at all, it's that bad journalism is a major contributor to our inability to have rational discussions about anything, and I want to call it out every time I see it.

smallnamespace3• 9 years ago

I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons.

Firstly, I want to thank you for publicly sharing your opinion and bringing nuance to a complicated and difficult topic.

But secondly, how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion? Shouldn't the actual meat of what a person says hold greater weight than the group(s) that a person identifies with?

I've been noticing this trend a lot lately -- articles in, say, The Atlantic of the type of 'hold on, is this what feminism should be?' -- but always prefaced by the author first identifying as a woman, perhaps to insulate from criticism.

Please note that this is no way intended as a criticism of you. I find myself doing the exact same thing (prefacing comments with snippets of my bio) -- it just feels weird that 'progressivism' seems to have led to this, which doesn't feel much like 'progress' at all.

323454• 9 years ago

It's complicated and a desire for a nice simple solution in the name of justice tends to just lead to other injustices, not actual solutions.

Thank you for stating this idea so perfectly.

abalone• 9 years ago

I have seen an article where someone was literally quoted as saying "A woman should be able to walk naked down the street and be safe from rape." Is it okay for men to wander the streets naked?

It (was) fairly okay in San Francisco. There was even a hubbub about how nudist men were taking over a shiny new parklet a few years back. The city passed an ordinance, but I don't think any of them were too worried about getting raped.

(Note: You moved the goalpost from "safe from rape" to "is it okay".)

vfulco3• 9 years ago

First, let me wish you my sincere empathy for the horrible experience you went through. Second, I want to thank you profusely for the valuable perspective and insights. A breath of fresh air and plain old logic indeed. What is often lost in these dialogues, especially of the PC kind, is our innate biology and the complexity of the inter-play between men and women. I abhor anyone taking advantage of another. I myself was subjected to psychological torment by my first boss of a non-sexual kind (Both of us white males). The guy was a psychopath and mentally screwed with all the powerless people who worked for him. No wonder he was a drunk and on his third marriage. Power plays occur throughout corporate life. That having been said, as it relates to the workplace and sexual matters, specific individuals of both genders (I only know of two biologically derived) know how to work the system, of quid pro quo well, whether for protection from being fired, more money, promotion, etc. It's so complicated. Regrettably I have known male friends in the "lives ruined department" because they were blocking the way for promotion or longer duration in the company for good reason. Thanks again.

chickenfries• 9 years ago

Why is there not more focus on the police investigation. Why did they police decide not to press charges?

So, you might not find it in the same article, but if you want to do the research you can find out the answer to this question.

And there are a lot of answers. Here's on aspect: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/16/untested-rape...

Spooky233• 9 years ago

Rape is a difficult crime to investigate because by definition it is a he said, she said affair. It’s doubly difficult when the perpetrator is a date or acquaintance.

For the victim it’s particularly difficult as she will generally get branded a slut by the defense. On cross examination, the defense attorney can pretty easily rip the victim up.

Microsoft’s position is unconscionable in my opinion. This wasn’t a frivolous accusation — the victim made a police report and got a rape kit done. The intern is an at-will hire... he could be fired for any reason or no reason. Microsoft HR would probably had fired him if he stole her purse, but instead forced this woman to work in proximity to her rapist and hires the guy. Give me a break.

bsder• 9 years ago

Microsoft HR would probably had fired him if he stole her purse, but instead forced this woman to work in proximity to her rapist and hires the guy.

Microsoft HR would certainly NOT have done anything if she ACCUSED him of stealing her purse with no other evidence.

And, your way of thinking is not good for the victim, either. If I'm Microsoft HR following your advice, I will simply fire BOTH and now I can wash my hands of the problem.

mnm1• 9 years ago

Why would police try to solve rape and murder cases when arresting people for drug possession/loitering/panhandling is easier, simpler, and guaranteed? I wish I could add a /sarcasm tag to this, but it is not sarcasm. When normal everyday activities are criminalized and the police is incentivized simply by the number of arrests they make, why wouldn't they go for the low hanging fruit? It's not like police have ethics or honor to guide them. They are a brute force machine of state violence without morals or ethics. Expecting anything but the bare minimum from police is delusional. Hell, most of the time, expecting the bare minimum is delusional. If expecting police not to murder innocent civilians is clearly too high of an expectation--it is in the US--expecting them to solve rape and murder cases is a stratospheric, ridiculous expectation. Not to mention that many citizens are simply terrified of police. How are we, citizens, supposed to keep these thugs in check when they can legally murder us for no reason without any recourse whatsoever? Sure, if it came up on a ballot, I'd vote for reform because a ballot is secret. Expecting people to stand up to police and voice their concerns in public, putting their own lives and the lives of their family in danger in a futile attempt at police reform, is simply too much to ask of ordinary citizens. Also, most of the people that don't fear police aren't even aware of the problems with police. In this way, nothing gets done.

Lazare2• 9 years ago

If our police forces are failing to press charges against rapists, shouldn't that be a big priority to change?

The stereotypical case of rape would involve two people who know each other, may have had a prior intimate relationship, and then did something behind closed doors with no witnesses. One person will claim it was consensual sex or, failing that, that they had a reasonable yet mistaken belief that it was consensual sex. The other person will claim it was non-consensual sex, and that the first person did not have a reasonable believe that consent was present.

What are the police meant to do with that? Both parties agree that they were together, in the room, behind closed doors, and had sex; the disagreement hinges over extremely specific details about what was said and how it was interpreted. Classic police tools (checking alibis, interviewing witnesses, pulling security camera footage to track someone's movements, speculating about motives, following money, running DNA tests, checking forensics) are all totally useless here.

It's possible the justice system is failing to bring charges in cases where there is a strong chance of proving a crime occurred beyond reasonable doubt, but the nature of rape makes most cases extremely hard to prove, as the linked example makes clear. Here:

"The [woman's] colleagues took her out for drinks [...] after a night of drinking, she crashed with a male intern and his friend who lived in a group house nearby. She fell asleep in the basement [...] but during the night [...] the male intern [...] “forcibly penetrated her while she was sleeping”."

That's her story and I have no reason to think it's false. But here's the thing: All the guy has to do is say is something like "oh, I went down to check on her, she was awake, we chatted a bit, she seemed sober, we flirted, I propositioned her, she said sure, we had sex, I gave her a kiss, and left her to sleep" (or some variation of that; basically anything that expresses a reason why a reasonable person in his shoes would have believed she was consenting). And here's the thing: His story doesn't need to be true; it just need to be possibly true, because a conviction would require proving it was untrue beyond reasonable doubt. As long as the male intern says something that implies he had a reasonable belief in consent, and there's no third party witnesses willing to testify to undermine his claims, the justice system is powerless. And rightly so. (If he was dumb enough to claim they hadn't had sex at all, and the rape kit proved otherwise, then he'd be in trouble, of course. The rape cases that the justice system can deal with are the ones that hinge on whether or not someone was in the room, or whether or not intercourse took place. Ie, the rare easy ones.)

Do people believe that the standard of evidence for Police is too high but isn't politically possible to change?

Not at all. It's good that the justice system works by requiring crimes to be proven to a jury of one's peers beyond reasonable doubt, and that shouldn't change.

If someone files a police complain but that complaint is dismissed for lack of evidence, how exactly should Microsoft evaluate that claim?

Microsoft should evaluate the claim at face value. What the police do is entirely separate. If one intern is convicted (and only then) Microsoft can decide if they want to hire a rapist. Until then, they can look at the fact that two of their interns have had an extremely unpleasant encounter. Deciding to hire both, and then assigning them to the same team is clearly the wrong solution, whatever did (or didn't) happen that night.

skarap2• 9 years ago

Deciding to hire both, and then assigning them to the same team is clearly the wrong solution

Couldn't Microsoft also get into trouble by hiring just one of them (the other one could have a good case for being treated unfairly)? And what if they don't have 2 separate teams which need new members? Should they create a new team just to make sure they don't heart anybody's feelings?

g09980• 9 years ago

(Deleted)

froindt• 9 years ago

When you stop it there it's awkward.

, the male intern sexually assaulted her

When you finish the thought from the author, it's less clunky. Its saying "her lawyer wrote that during the night the male intern sexually assaulted her".

spraak• 9 years ago

In the meantime, she was required to keep working alongside the man. When she discussed getting a restraining order with Microsoft, HR told her if she wanted one, she’d need to change teams, her lawyer wrote. She liked the work and her boss, so she stayed put for the rest of the summer.

It really sounds crazy, but I can understand it. I was sexually assaulted by my boss (and I am a male and so was my boss) and couldn't understand my wife's anger when I said I'd still be working for him. Luckily I came to understand how poor a decision that would have been and I quit.

org3432• 9 years ago

That is really astonishing.

EpicBlackCrayon• 9 years ago

That part of the article fucking boggles my mind.

Steeeve• 9 years ago

That is bizarre. An HR rep's job is to minimize the company's liabilities, not expand them.

I understand not shifting employee job functions based on an unproven accusation. If there's a restraining order in place, it's not her problem. It's his. He's restrained. He has to go to his HR rep and say "I can't legally work next to this person, what happens?"

That's only one side of the story, though.

Gatsky• 9 years ago

So many of these stories start with 'Coworkers went out for a few drinks...' It is clear that there are persons that behave in a predatory manner when a soon-to-be victim becomes drunk, and social norms even legetimize this behaviour in some ways.

It doesn't say if the victim here was drunk, but some level of intoxication seems likely given the nature of the crime. This doesn't excuse anything.

I wonder how many of these crimes would be prevented if steps were taken to limit excessive drinking. I don't know how this would actually be implemented, or if companies or universities already do have a policy about alcohol and social events.

rmason• 9 years ago

I've counseled many younger people, HR is not there to help you - their primary mission is to help the company at all times. The same thing goes with college campus police.

She should have called the nearest city's police. If there was proof of a rape from her hospital visit they probably would have charged the guy.

On a side note it absolutely flabbergasts me that Microsoft offered a job to the alleged rapist! Surely it can't be that hard for them to find good employees.

kelukelugames• 9 years ago

At my last job, the HR rep considered suing the company for discrimination. So HR isn't even there to help HR.

Microsoft lost a case a few years ago when a female manager made up allegation to get a male employee fired. One of the employees she tried to convince to lie testified. That case may have influenced their decision to extend an offer.

On second thought, more likely that companies just don't care about a single allegation.

lawnchair_larry• 9 years ago

Because he was an alleged rapist, and he denied ger version of the events. You can't just blackball people over a single allegation.

cm2187• 9 years ago

I don't understand what is Microsoft's role here. This is a complaint between employees about a potential crime that happened outside of Microsoft's walls, outside of business hours, and between employees that have no position of hierarchy over one another. This seems to me as a simple police matter. I don't think employers should become an out-of-court justice system as long as they are not involved directly. All they can do is to separate the employees in a way that neither is negatively impacted until the legal proceedings are settled which from what I can tell from the article is what they did.

The other thing about tech companies is that it would be interesting to compare their statistics of sexual harassment to other industries. Putting at the front page some stories about sexual harassment don't mean anything. Microsoft has 125,000 employees, google 75,000, apple 125,000, etc. At this scale, and unless they have a special hiring technique that enables to spot criminal behavior that I am not aware of, they are bound to hire some future criminals: rapists, thieves, stalkers, etc. It's just statistically impossible for it not to happen. Is there any evidence that there is more sexual harassment in the tech industry than other industries?

fullshark• 9 years ago

Microsoft’s role is to be name dropped to get clicks

slang800• 9 years ago

Presumably the crime couldn't be proved to the standard that the justice system requires, so getting Microsoft to implement a punishment based on her allegations and public opinion is the next best thing.

leereeves2• 9 years ago

Getting someone punished for unproven allegations based on pressure from people whose only knowledge of the case comes from a news article isn't a good thing.

FabHK• 9 years ago

Similarly, I don't understand why universities get involved in crimes among or involving students. In other countries, crimes are a matter for the police. The university's job is to teach. This whole "in loco parentis" thing is a bit outdated, surely.

Microsoft Intern’s Rape Claim Highlights Struggle to Combat Sex Discrimination

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