[Self-referential warning: If this post is true, then it is not safe for work (NSFW). Otherwise, you have nothing to worry about.] “Love is love.” It sounds like mere tautology, but the Urban Dictionary says otherwise: “A phrase meaning that the love expressed by an individual or couple is valid regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of their lover or partner.” Over the last twenty years, this idea has gotten very far. It’s tempting to look back on earlier times as a puritanical era, when social mores cruelly forced people to hide their true feelings. Happily, hardly anything like that goes on today, right?
Are there a lot of successful sexual harassment lawsuits based on someone asking out a coworker one time and accepting their rejection without retaliatory behavior? I haven't heard of many but I'm not very familiar with that area of law.
I think it's worth looking at these laws in the broader context.
Back in the 1970s, it was totally standard practice for professors to date and either marry or not marry their students (both grad and undergrad), but universities had anti-nepotism laws that made it illegal for a department to hire the spouse of a member. The big example of that working out badly was Berkeley's math department not being allowed to hire Julia Robinson, because her husband Rafael Robinson was already in the department. He was a professor in math and I don't know of anything notable that he accomplished, but while she was a lecturer in statistics, she did the important work solving Hilbert's Tenth Problem, and didn't get a tenure-track position until he had retired and she had been inducted into the National Academy of Sciences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Robinson#Professorship_at_UC_Berkeley
I do think there are many problems with the current situation. (My university several years ago issued a blanket ban on any employee having any "romantic, amatory, or sexual relationship" with any undergrad - which means that technically, a first year physics grad student is supposed to be fired if they hook up with a person at a bar who turns out to be an undergrad from the agriculture school. And given the size of town, there's not really many people the appropriate age *other* than other students.)
But I don't think the injustice of being barred from true love with coworkers is the same magnitude as the injustice of being barred from your preferred gender, and it's hard to compare the life difficulties of being barred from starting a romantic relationship with someone you have an employment connection to vs the life difficulties of being barred from starting an employment connection with someone you have a romantic relationship with.
Sadly, another low quality post. So many links in this post and none of them provide any support for your argument.
First, many people find their spouse at work! Here is a Stanford study that found 11% of people in the survey in 2017 had found their spouse at work: https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_et_al_Disintermediating_Friends.pdf This was down from 19% in 1995, but still a very large portion of people are meeting at work and not getting fired for it! This is just spouses as well, so presumably many more people are dating co-workers and not marrying.
I am married to someone I met at work! I was never worried about getting fired or sued. Why? Because we were coworkers and neither was subordinate to the other, it was totally reasonable for us to be dating in any context (similar age, background, attractiveness, etc), I didn't just walk up to them and say "want to go out?" like some doofus.
Bryan, your experience at a state affiliated university is not reflective of what goes on it the rest of the world. Stop reasoning from it. You may also want to talk to an expert in sexual harassment law. The scenario you describe is highly unlikely to result in a law suit. The victim would have to complain to HR about the "harassment". Any competent HR department would do anything in their power to prevent a lawsuit. For the issue to become a law suit, the victim would have to convince a lawyer the lawsuit is winnable which would likely require them to show a pattern of misconduct that the HR department ignored. Your scenario does not meet this standard! Its highly unlikely a lawyer would take this case!
I'm almost through binging The Morning Show on AppleTV. It takes a surprisingly nuanced and mature view of the complexities of these issues. Check it out, Bryan.
He has spoken the truth. Kill him!
Are there a lot of successful sexual harassment lawsuits based on someone asking out a coworker one time and accepting their rejection without retaliatory behavior? I haven't heard of many but I'm not very familiar with that area of law.
I think it's worth looking at these laws in the broader context.
Back in the 1970s, it was totally standard practice for professors to date and either marry or not marry their students (both grad and undergrad), but universities had anti-nepotism laws that made it illegal for a department to hire the spouse of a member. The big example of that working out badly was Berkeley's math department not being allowed to hire Julia Robinson, because her husband Rafael Robinson was already in the department. He was a professor in math and I don't know of anything notable that he accomplished, but while she was a lecturer in statistics, she did the important work solving Hilbert's Tenth Problem, and didn't get a tenure-track position until he had retired and she had been inducted into the National Academy of Sciences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Robinson#Professorship_at_UC_Berkeley
I do think there are many problems with the current situation. (My university several years ago issued a blanket ban on any employee having any "romantic, amatory, or sexual relationship" with any undergrad - which means that technically, a first year physics grad student is supposed to be fired if they hook up with a person at a bar who turns out to be an undergrad from the agriculture school. And given the size of town, there's not really many people the appropriate age *other* than other students.)
But I don't think the injustice of being barred from true love with coworkers is the same magnitude as the injustice of being barred from your preferred gender, and it's hard to compare the life difficulties of being barred from starting a romantic relationship with someone you have an employment connection to vs the life difficulties of being barred from starting an employment connection with someone you have a romantic relationship with.
Sadly, another low quality post. So many links in this post and none of them provide any support for your argument.
First, many people find their spouse at work! Here is a Stanford study that found 11% of people in the survey in 2017 had found their spouse at work: https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_et_al_Disintermediating_Friends.pdf This was down from 19% in 1995, but still a very large portion of people are meeting at work and not getting fired for it! This is just spouses as well, so presumably many more people are dating co-workers and not marrying.
Here is more data from the UK where they find 19% of people met their partner at work: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2020/02/13/how-do-brits-find-love
I am married to someone I met at work! I was never worried about getting fired or sued. Why? Because we were coworkers and neither was subordinate to the other, it was totally reasonable for us to be dating in any context (similar age, background, attractiveness, etc), I didn't just walk up to them and say "want to go out?" like some doofus.
Bryan, your experience at a state affiliated university is not reflective of what goes on it the rest of the world. Stop reasoning from it. You may also want to talk to an expert in sexual harassment law. The scenario you describe is highly unlikely to result in a law suit. The victim would have to complain to HR about the "harassment". Any competent HR department would do anything in their power to prevent a lawsuit. For the issue to become a law suit, the victim would have to convince a lawyer the lawsuit is winnable which would likely require them to show a pattern of misconduct that the HR department ignored. Your scenario does not meet this standard! Its highly unlikely a lawyer would take this case!
I'm almost through binging The Morning Show on AppleTV. It takes a surprisingly nuanced and mature view of the complexities of these issues. Check it out, Bryan.
Sad, but true...
Is this prompted by the Sabatini story?