This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated March 25, 2022
As we near the end of March, Women’s History month comes to a close. Just over a week ago at a Women’s History Month celebration, some women’s history was made as three important bills addressing sexual harassment, retaliation, and discrimination in the workplace were signed into law by Governor Hochul.
These laws will close a loophole that prevented state government staff from getting justice, prohibit retaliation, and provide legal resources to those who are subjected to workplace sexual harassment.
Workers who have faced sexual harassment will now have access to a toll-free hotline to file confidential complaints and connect to pro-bono lawyers who can advise them of their rights and what legal avenues are available to them. The law has also been clarified so that releasing the personnel records of complainants is now considered unlawful retaliation. Lastly, public employees will now be afforded the same rights as those in the private sector, preventing New York State from avoiding responsibility for harassment of state government employees, which had shielded many elected officials from accountability in the past.
Joining the Governor for the bill signing were the sponsors of these bills, Senators Alessandra Biaggi and Andrew Gounardes, and Assemblymembers Jessica González-Rojas and Yuh-Line Niou. In addition to these lawmakers, standing immediately to Hochul’s left during the signing was Tori Kelly.
Besides serving as Gounardes’s Chief of Staff, Tori is a co-founder and member of the Sexual Harassment Working Group, which was started by seven women who were harassed as legislative staffers. The working group had already been instrumental in the passage of anti-harassment bills, such as in 2019 when the extremely high standard of “severe and pervasive” was discontinued as the threshold level of abuse staffers needed to prove to demonstrate they had been sexually harassed.
A decade after Tori reported her then-boss, Assemblymember and Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Vito Lopez, she addressed those assembled immediately before the bill to close the personal staff loophole — commonly referred to as the “license to harass” – was signed into law. The loophole was used to deny Tori justice after she had come forward. She said, “I appreciate that the trauma that I have endured has now better informed our laws,” adding that “today we are taking a major step forward, but there is still much more to do.”
“He has to make his decision… and now he will make the determination on what he’s going to do with his life in the future.”
Mayor Adams, March 22, 2022, when asked if he thinks Andrew Cuomo has a path to public office this year and if it would be wise to pursue one
There is still much more to do and the Sexual Harassment Working Group will certainly be working with legislators to continue their movement of reform. “Fundamental changes will require electing candidates who are worthy of this movement.” Tori wrote those words in a Medium post in 2018 in explaining why she was supporting Andrew Gounardes for state senate, citing his broad campaign platform to address workplace sexual harassment and his support of proposals the Sexual Harassment Working Group had put forth.
Gounardes was elected to the Senate in 2018 and Tori became his Chief of Staff. Biaggi was elected to the Senate that same year, defeating six-term incumbent Jeff Klein, who was credibly accused of forcibly kissing Erica Vladimer, who is also a co-founder of the Sexual Harassment Working Group. González-Rojas won her seat in the Assembly in 2020 and Niou won hers in 2016, succeeding Sheldon Silver, who had previously been sued successfully for failing to investigate accusations and allowing for a culture of sexual harassment in the Assembly, much of that related to the actions of Vito Lopez.
Elections matter. State legislators first elected in the past few election cycles replaced several longtime senators and assemblymen who either did not work to effect change on this issue or actively contributed to the problem. Now, disgraced, former-Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was credibly accused of sexual harassment by eleven women, is hinting at a run for governor.
Since then, campaign-style commercials for Cuomo have been all over TV. Just a month ago, Mayor Adams spent two hours dining with Cuomo. Adams was asked March 22 if Cuomo has a path to public office this year and he replied, “He has to make his decision.” Technically, that may be true, but the correct answer is no, he has no path to public office, this year or ever, because New Yorkers understand that he is totally unfit.
