I thought the first case was a pretty straightforward example of sexual harassment. It did not matter how vulnerable Elise Roberts was or how bad of an attorney she was the things that Kevin Murphy said would be classified as sexual harassment. Both sides agreed to the remarks he made concerning Elise and the things he did, those alone are sexual harassment. No matter who the victim is of the comments Kevin Murphy crossed the line. Not only were Kevin’s actions considered sexual harassment, but, the way the district attorney’s office handled the situation made it even worse. It is not hard to move an employee to a different office or to sit both sides down and try to come to a conclusion, but none of that was done at all. I think that throughout the case it was difficult to remember it was not Kevin Murphy who was on trial for his guilt but it was a case against the office for how the sexual harassment was handled. Kevin Murphy was clearly guilty of sexual harassment but that was not what was being looked at, it was the fact that nothing was done to help Elise and that she was transferred because the district attorney’s office didn’t want to deal with the problem. I think the most compelling facts in the case was that office had been informed of the problems between Elise and Kevin, they were aware of her absences, and her declining performance. Yet, they still chose to do nothing to address the situation. Her office could have been moved, someone could have talked to her, or her complaints could have been recognized with reprimanding Kevin Murphy. None of that was done which is why I believe that the verdict of guilty was the correct choice because the office was guilty of not handling the situation of sexual harassment in the workplace in the correct manor. In order to reach a different outcome I think I would need to see evidence that Elise and Kevin may have gone on a date or two and were starting a relationship and maybe a fight happened that caused Elise to complain and make these accusations after the fact. That is the only thing I can think of that would make this case not considered sexual harassment.
In the second case I did not really agree with the verdict of not guilty. I think that David Jones clearly did something wrong in the situation. A picture was painted that David clearly had somewhat of a temper and couldn’t take “no” for an answer. With that in mind David put a condom on before anything even happened, showing that he was going to have sex that night whether Susan wanted to or not. While I think that Susan may have made some choices that put her in a bad situation, that by no means allowed David to rape her. I think it would be a different situation if Susan said she had been raped after the fact simply because she regretted her actions but that was not the case. Susan said “no” many times and tried to get up and remove herself from the situation. The most compelling facts were that David put on a condom before anything started to happen, her clothes were not even off, and David could never accept the answer “no” from Susan. For the verdict of guilty to actually have been reached I think the above facts should have been stressed more. I feel that too much time was spent talking about his partner for the project and their relationship and not enough time was spent on the actual facts of the rape.
I think that people should be aware that whether it is a comment, or an action if it makes you feel uncomfortable or threatened you have a right to feel that way. I think that people sometimes feel their reactions are wrong and unjustified, but if something makes you feel a certain way its probably because you should. I don’t think this is too much of a significant problem at DHS. I’m sure that people sometimes feel threatened or targeted in a way that makes the feel uncomfortable but nothing that crosses the line too much. I feel that everyone in our community is basically educated on what is right and what is wrong. Although people may not act on those things 100% of the time I think that everyone knows each other so well that people can make pretty good judgments about a person’s intentions and character.
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