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Comment by rmc | Hacker News Reader

Or a crime has happened.

It's not uncommon for the accused to step down, or step away, while an issue is being investigated.

That's my point exactly. In theory, even an unpaid intern has the power to bring down top-level executives by simply walking into a police precinct. For a competitor, it's a better and far quicker strategy than competing on product features.

That's not remotely what happened here, according to Rabois.

The biggest problem with sexual harassment is not that police over over zealous with prosecuting, but that they don't prosecute enough.

just look at the stats for the amount of rapes which don't go to court.

This isn't even remotely true, most sexual assault cases result in no arrest or prosecution. Even in significant cases where a person of power commits sexual assault, they are likely to win their case -- the Diallo case comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn

For what it's worth, sexual harassment is not a crime.

Yep, it is. It is generally charged as criminal stalking, attempted assault or assault, and criminal sexual conduct.

Not to be pedantic, but in those cases criminal stalking, (attempted) assault, and criminal sexual conduct are the crimes, not sexual harassment.

go read the descriptions of each of those in your state's criminal code and see the phrase "sexual harassment" used multiple times.

Under the normal US definition, the only things that are workplace sexual harassment are quid pro quo and hostile work environment. IANAL, but I believe that while sexual assault can be used as evidence of a hostile work environment, I don't think that sexual assault is itself a criminal form of sexual harassment.

It can be. "Sexual harassment" is kind of a broad term that could include just about anything.

no it doesn't. eating a sandwich is not sexual harassment under any law. sexual harassment is is a defined law.

this is a dismissing tactic to imply that sexual harassment is some sort of pseudo law that isn't fair, with often the implication that it's a giant conspiracy to allow women and evil feminists to screw over men.

sexual harassment is a crime. it's a real crime. tech has a sexism problem.

except since this case since it involves two men, I don't exactly know what sexism has anything to do with anything

As sexual harassment cases have typically been matters between men and women, sexism can easily color perceptions of the problem.

mmmm, that is a good point, but it seemed like OP was trying to make this another "women in tech" thing, which in this case it was not.

While in this case there's not really enough information to make any kind of judgement, I feel it is important to point out that sexism can occur between people of the same gender and sexism is not strictly relegated the realm of how one gender is treated by another.

Yes it does. In California, sexual harassment includes assault and that, most certainly, is a crime. So you could face both a civil complaint and a criminal charge (for the assault part of the harassment)

http://www.equalrights.org/publications/kyr/shwork.asp

Note this quote: "The conduct of the harasser must either be severe or it must be pervasive to be sexual harassment. A single incident is probably not sexual harassment unless it is severe. For example, a single incident of rape or attempted rape would probably be sexual harassment (it would also violate criminal laws)."

eh? I'm pretty sure sexual harassment is an actual crime.

Sexual harassment tends to be civil. In most cases where some sort of sexual-related crime has occurred, there pretty much a guarantee that harassment occurred as well (think physical contact or labor-related crime such as extortion) though harassment can occur without a crime (unwanted verbal advances or comments leading to hostile work environment)

As others say, it varies by state, but sexual blackmailing (e.g. "screw me or lose your job") and unwanted sexual touching are illegal just about everywhere.

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