Ultraprog, Super-Feminist Agitprop Organization Center for American Progress Ignored Complaints of Sexual Harassment;
Staffers Shocked When CAP President Neera Tanden Outs Name of Victim in Staff Meeting

CAP's president Neera Tanden took a no-mercy position on allegations of Republican sexual harassment:

The organization's president, Neera Tanden, has vehemently criticized Republicans for their reaction to the accusations of sexual misconduct against President Donald Trump and wrote in a tweet still pinned to her profile, "I don't think the country has understood how psychologically wounding it was to so many women that Trump won after the Access Hollywood tape."

Yet, when CAP's union complained of a sexual harasser at CAP who was not disciplined and thereby encouraged to "escalate" his harassment, Tanden took a very soft, very hands-off line:

Documents obtained by BuzzFeed News and interviews with 19 current and former staffers describe a chaotic internal culture in which, according to a July 2016 memo written by CAP's employee union, there were "several incidents of sexual harassment against several members of our unit." The documents and interviews pull back the curtain on a culture in which young staffers felt there was a gap between the organization's mission and its everyday realities.

The memo -- which union leaders never delivered to Tanden, but used as talking points in a meeting with her -- laid out what members saw as CAP's failures, both broadly and in the specific case of [Benton] Strong, who had recently left the organization:

* "Management failed to promptly take sufficient tangible employment action against the said employee for sexual harassment, thereby allowing the said employee’s behavior to escalate.

* "Management has failed to present measures to correct the effects of the said employee's sexual harassment, thereby perpetuating a hostile work environment.

* "Management has failed to create a safe space upon which members of our unit --- including those subjected to the said employee's unlawful harassment -- feel comfortable enough to report incidents of sexual harassment, among other forms of discrimination, without fear of retaliation or further harassment.

* "Management has failed to take reasonable steps to prevent incidents of sexual harassment from occurring in the workplace.

* "Management has failed to adequately inform employees of what constitutes unlawful harassment in the workplace, how to report such incidents, and what kind of recourse is available under such circumstances."

The union wrote in its memo that while CAP "eventually took appropriate course of action," management "failed to adequately address the situation." And interviews with staffers suggest that the process at the time was messy.

...

The union wrote in its memo that while CAP "eventually took appropriate course of action," management "failed to adequately address the situation."

Tanden refused, one former union member with intimate knowledge of the discussion told BuzzFeed News. "Neera's approach was maybe we can start hosting brown bags with HR so people will feel more comfortable coming out and doing things. So they had almost a do-nothing approach. ... They said they would think about things that [the union brought up], and that was essentially it," the former union member said.

What sorts of things were going on? Well, stuff that was clearly inappropriate for any supervisor to say to any subordinate in any workplace -- let alone in a leftist, "feminist" organization which housed an anti-sexual-harassment political messaging unit.

One employee referred to as Mary described receiving "lewd and inappropriate text messages" from Strong, including wanting to perform oral sex on her. He discussed with male staffers whether or not black or white women are better at blow jobs and praised her body, she claimed.

Another woman claimed she reported to human resources that Strong asked women if a man had ever flashed them or masturbated in front of them. He allegedly made fun of a woman who claimed that it happened to her.

"It was like incessant... It was like strings and strings of texts and her just being like 'no no no,'" said Mary’s friend, another former staffer at the organization.

One point Jordan Peterson makes well in that video I linked yesterday (don't worry, I'm posting it again today) is that because collectivists actively devalue the individual, and only care about the group, it makes it not only easy but ideologically necessary to ignore the pain of an individual if recognizing and rectifying that pain would damage the almighty group (through negative press exposure).

Only the machine matters. The cogs can be damaged, mutilated, fondled and then discarded as much as a higher-ranking cog likes, so long as the machine keeps moving.

As I Was Saying: The machine cares not about its replaceable cogs, nor their desire to remain anonymous.

Two days after BuzzFeed News unveiled allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation at one of the nation's top liberal think tanks, the Center for American Progress's president, Neera Tanden, met with staff to restore confidence in the organization’s ability to handle the issue and ensure that employees feel safe.

But during the meeting Wednesday afternoon, Tanden named the anonymous victim at the center that story -- a revelation that a CAP spokesperson said was unintentional -- and what began as a tense meeting became what three staffers in the room described as a textbook example of the organization's failures to appropriately handle sexual harassment cases.

"There is literally one thing you cannot do in this meeting and that is out the victim and Neera did it multiple times... It also destroys whatever small level of confidence in the system remained," one CAP employee who was in the room said in a text to BuzzFeed News. "As a manager I don't know how I can tell staff to trust the system when the head of the organization just outed the victim in front of the entire organization. It is impossible to trust her."

"Neera lost the organization today," another CAP employee who was in the meeting said.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:45 PM

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