Sexual harassment at work - how to support my wife

March 6, 2017 1:48 AM

My wife is an assistant principal at an elementary school. She is nearing the end of a two year probationary period, which is the normal entry route into school administration. Her direct supervisor has been behaving very inappropriately, which she has tried to discourage. His disappointment has taken the form of objectively undeserved professional censure. She has taken a stress leave, and is checking in regularly with her doctor and therapist. I want to know how to support her. We are in Canada.

Their history goes back to University, and they have been friendly since then, though they don't interact outside of work. He has made some very inappropriate and unsubtle advances, including while out of town at a conference. I don't believe that there was any physical aspect to these advances. He is the one who is evaluating her performance, and will decide if she is able to continue to work at this level. He is also friendly with the IT and HR departments in this small school district, and is (maybe??) responsible for IT in his own school, which has disturbing implications. School tech that she has been issued is named "(principal's name)'s iphone, etc. The school district is small enough that I will re-read this several times to make sure I'm not identifying anyone.

She has been feeling very stressed about this, and is justifiably convinced that her career path will hit a dead end no matter how this plays out. Either her direct supervisor gives her a bad review, which will happen (the tone of his emails has shifted dramatically, and in a way that other principals/APs see as bizarre); or that will be irrelevant since she will not agree to return back to work under this man.

So far, I have been encouraging her to relax, go take pictures of the sunrise, visit friends, and do art-based projects. I have been telling her that it doesn't matter if she has to take the rest of the year off unpaid, and that we will be fine financially, which is true. We could survive indefinitely on my (much lower) salary alone. I would be happy to support her while she gets better. She has lost a lot of weight and a lot of sleep over this.

I don't know what advice to give her.

I see some options and have some questions:
- She will be contacting a lawyer with her teaching union. Can she trust this person?
- She has written evidence of some milder things, and work associates who can corroborate with similar stories. What "counts" in this kind of dispute?
- I want to tell this man's wife. She deserves to know. I feel that this might have some unforeseen repercussions.... What might they be?
- I want to state this bluntly because you will want to know -- I will not physically harm this man, despite any desire to the contrary.
- What are some sneaky tactics that he might employ that she should watch out for?
- How do I make sure that he doesn't get to stay in a position to do this to others? It is selfish, but I will put my wife's mental well-being above other women that he has some degree of power over. If she doesn't want to pursue this, I won't push her to. She knows the right thing to do, and if she can build up the courage I would like to help her make her workplace safer for everyone.
- How do I help her to internalize (she already "knows") that none of this is her fault, and that it wasn't a stupid thing to be trusting, or to not recognize warning signs until they were too big to ignore. Some things like "let's go to my hotel room for a nap" she dismissed as a bizarre attempt at humour, but in retrospect she is really kicking herself for missing things that were obvious. Her radar wasn't up, but it really shouldn't have to have been. She is not a cynical person and doesn't want to live her life mistrusting people.

I apologize for the length of this. I don't really know what questions to ask.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (6 answers total)

- She will be contacting a lawyer with her teaching union. Can she trust this person?

My experience with union lawyers, it's about competence rather than trust. She'll find out soon enough.

- She has written evidence of some milder things, and work associates who can corroborate with similar stories. What "counts" in this kind of dispute?

Off the cuff, anything that is well documented and especially, that can't be turned around as libel, counts. This is not legal advice, but informed by watching the downfall of a former boss of mine who harrassed women on his job. Talk to a lawyer about this question

- I want to tell this man's wife. She deserves to know. I feel that this might have some unforeseen repercussions.... What might they be?

I can predict that you don't want to know what they might be. Don't.

- I want to state this bluntly because you will want to know -- I will not physically harm this man, despite any desire to the contrary.

So the question here, I guess, is whether the answering MeFite would feel more or less revengeful than you?? Inside my head, very revengeful, yes. In practice: no way, as you say.

- What are some sneaky tactics that he might employ that she should watch out for?

The classic one, of course, is that he turns around and claims that it was she who made advances on him. Alternative facts, you know. It can turn ugly very fast.

- How do I make sure that he doesn't get to stay in a position to do this to others?It is selfish, but I will put my wife's mental well-being above other women that he has some degree of power over. If she doesn't want to pursue this, I won't push her to. She knows the right thing to do, and if she can build up the courage I would like to help her make her workplace safer for everyone.

Apart from the fact that it is worth pondering whether it is, specifically, your responsibility to make sure he doesn't stay in this position etc., it's not necessarily a question of either this or that: FIRST, however, your wife's well-being should be safeguarded, I feel.

- How do I help her to internalize (she already "knows") that none of this is her fault, and that it wasn't a stupid thing to be trusting, or to not recognize warning signs until they were too big to ignore. Some things like "let's go to my hotel room for a nap" she dismissed as a bizarre attempt at humour, but in retrospect she is really kicking herself for missing things that were obvious. Her radar wasn't up, but it really shouldn't have to have been. She is not a cynical person and doesn't want to live her life mistrusting people.

I think the proper technique is called supportive listening. It is something altogether else than, for instance, talking too much about problem solving. That's what lawyers are for, and ultimately your wife herself. What she likely needs most is an understanding set of ears; your big boots are likely much less important.
posted by Namlit at 2:25 AM on March 6, 2017

I'm sorry your wife is dealing with this.

1. Your only interest in this fight should be your wife's mental health. If she asks you for career advice, then go bananas but otherwise you need to let her handle this situation however she wants. This is not YOUR battle. So don't even make comments about wanting to hurt this man, contacting his wife, or otherwise you trying to destroy him. Stop. You can't make sure he never does this again. Let this go.

2. Your wife should contact a non-union employment lawyer and ask for help. Let this outsider be the judge as to whether the union lawyer can assist her.

3. Your wife needs to be documenting everything and sharing all of it with a non-union lawyer.

4. Continue doing nice things for her. Be her support system and continue to let her choose how she wants to deal with this. Also, know that in my US-based experience, while it's nearly impossible to get rid of people in education who have professional status/tenure, it is absolutely the good fight. But again, it's up to her how far she wants to go with this. If she decides to look for another position, continue being supportive.

5. Make her breakfast, go for a walk together, then lawyer.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:31 AM on March 6, 2017 [14 favorites]

i want to echo a commenter above, yes I said yes, in their first point: you, personally, cannot get involved in this situation the way you are imagining, whether by ruining the guy, telling his wife, or threatening him or anything else. your involvement is listening to your wife and being supportive of her and letting her decide how to handle this. she definitely needs an outside employment attorney and she needs to come home to a spouse who is listening to her, providing for her, and not peppering her with problem solving strategies or revenge fantasies. the outside attorney can tell her what her options are in the civil legal system as well as within the teacher union/administrative structure.

If you find that this situation is stressing you out enough that you're focusing on these fantasies of getting involved personally or getting revenge on the guy, that's something to talk about with a therapist - obviously it's totally understandable that this would stress you out as well, it's just that you cannot place the burden of hearing out your frustration on her, because she has enough on her plate.

"How do I help her to internalize (she already "knows") that none of this is her fault" - you can't actually help her internalize anything about this situation. She needs to gradually process what happened in her own mind, and she will likely eventually come around to this conclusion on her own. This is not something where if you just tell her enough, or in just the right words, that it wasn't her fault, a lightbulb will go off and boom, it'll be internalized.

Although she knows that she didn't solicit the harassment, I think she probably is looking back on what happened and wishes she handled it differently, which is normal. Talking to attorneys and getting legal advice will also probably help her understand that in a situation like this it's hard to immediately react the ideal way at the beginning of the harassment, and almost no victim has that strategic and well-timed reaction initially - which is why they later turn to legal counsel.
posted by zdravo at 4:13 AM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

She can prevail in a hostile environment, but you both need to evaluate if it is worth the battle. There are other opportunities out there for education administrators. Can she find another job? Life is short, and it's not going to get better. Even if the supervisor leaves, it sounds like he has numerous allies he can mobilize if he decides to be petty. No matter what you choose, looking to see what other jobs are available to her outside the district could be useful.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 4:37 AM on March 6, 2017

She needs to leave her devices in her non-union Lawyer's care and/or pull the batteries out of them so they can't be turned on remotely. Then someone needs to comb her devices for malicious software, etc.. She needs to screenshot and download everything (including her work emails) and store those files on an external hard drive not connected to the internet or anything else. Assume emails can be made-up and added, relevant emails deleted, and existing emails altered.

Her non-union lawyer needs to tell her if she has a case or not. She needs a second opinion, even if the union lawyer ultimately represents her.

News Flash: She's not the only one, she is not the first. If there have been other formal complaints to uncover, this will be great. If he has successfully turned past harrassment into either an affair or a firing, this is an avenue to pursue. This guy did not think he was harrassing your wife, he thought he was seducing her. It was only a problem (in his eyes) when she started to object. This did not happen in a vacuum - find the others.
posted by jbenben at 5:22 AM on March 6, 2017 [8 favorites]

Write a timeline, with as much detail as possible, to go with those screenshots and so on.
posted by geek anachronism at 5:45 PM on March 6, 2017