[deanCommie]

It still is - in the judicial system.

There has never been and never will be such a presumption in private enterprise. We can fix it if you want, but you won't like the amount of Government control over industry that would require.

Also, I realize "unverified accusation" is a commonly used distracting turn of phrase, but that hardly seems appropriate here:

> ...an official at X told her, per the Times, that “her account was ‘more likely than not’ true and that ‘appropriate action’ was taken.” Simpson says she was asked by officials at Google not to speak about the incident again. In a statement to the Times, DeVaul apologized for his “error of judgment.”

Sounds like verified, and admitted by the guilty party.

[all2]

I am very curious about how people who do things like these remain employed. Is there anyone who has been on the back-end of one of these decisions? What's the motivation for keeping a predator around?

[jpm_sd]

Upper management is afraid to lose people who are supposedly valuable.

[angrow]

Sadly often it's sympathy.

[empath75]

If the predator makes them more money than it costs to pay off the victims.

[gowld]

Which victims are paid off? The cost is in lost/demoralized employees who would otherwise do valuable work, and in externalized harm to people outside the company.

[creep]

>The cost is in lost/demoralized employees who would otherwise do valuable work

No, stop, that's hardly a cost worth paying attention to for a large company. An exec is worth much more than almost anyone of lower rank.

That's the problem, though. There is no way you can appeal to a large company in terms of the cost of lost employees who are victims of assault by higher-ups. The media storm is what gets them, it's the bad publicity they fear-- in my opinion that is the only way to get anything "done" in terms of assault cases like this.

At the same time, when we rely on bad publicity to force action, we risk ruining the lives of innocent people. Men and women in powerful positions are often targeted with these sorts of accusations for the sole purpose of getting them out of the way.

I have no proposed solution but appealing in the way you have is not it. It just does not make sense.

[tomjakubowski]

I don't think you understand. It is the morale of the whole Google X rank and file, or at least, some large portion thereof, that's at risk. If my employer protected a sexually harassing executive like this, I would be quickly looking for a new job and likely be significantly less productive in the meantime. Why should I bother to work hard for a company whose leaders have those values?

That's why execs even bother to put out damage control emails like the one Astro Teller sent. Or the ones following mass layouts. They are trying to stop the morale bleeding to avoid a crisis. Maybe it will work this time, maybe it won't and they'll have to fire DeVaul.

[creep]

You might leave but many other employees wouldn't, for the usual reasons (apathy, money, livelihood, prestige, etc). Obviously it's not a big deal for Google X since they kept their accused exec. It's only a big deal now because it's in the public eye again.

Also, I'm sure a lot of employees weren't, and maybe still aren't, even aware that an accused man still works at their company. Most employees at any company don't have reason to be in contact with or have any information whatsoever about the executives of that company and, apart from that, businesses will work hard to keep that info under the radar.

Mass layoffs definitely get around in the workplace because it's directly related to everyone's job security. Some exec accused of sexual assault doesn't really affect job security, so most people don't really care to know, if they ever catch wind of it anyways. There isn't a huge cost here when the majority of your workforce doesn't know and doesn't care.