“Take It Down’s success rests entirely on the shoulders of survivors,” Jenna Sherman, campaign director at the feminist organization UltraViolet, told Jezebel.
“We’re currently witnessing a very high-profile case that involves a very, very rich and powerful person and are experiencing together with Cassie the courage it takes to look your abuser in the eye, in court, in public,” Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of UltraViolet, a woman-led gender justice organization, says.
The petition, which has amassed 40,000 signatures, calls for corporate support in demanding the firing, arrest and charging of the three LMPD officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death.
Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet, released this statement:
Daniel Snyder has enabled, encouraged and fostered a hostile workplace and toxic culture for women. He must go. If the NFL is serious about cleaning up its act, they will force Snyder to sell the team.
The NFL has repeatedly failed women by putting our safety and wellbeing in jeopardy. Yesterday’s report by the Washington Post that more than fifteen women were routinely subject to sexual harassment and abuse by people in positions of power at Washington state’s NFL Team shows that the league is continuing to fail women.
Unfortunately these allegations are not surprising. Dan Snyder’s long refusal to abandon the football franchise’s racist namesake and logo speaks volumes. As we have continued to see over and over again, misogyny and racism seem to go hand-in-hand.
There is no place in any workforce for harassment and assault. The NFL must act now, and fast.
“We are cautiously optimistic that Reddit is finally working with groups like ours to dismantle the systems that enable hateful rhetoric on their platform,” Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for the women’s advocacy organization UltraViolet, said in an emailed statement.
The group said its members met with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman via Zoom last week, encouraging him to address racism and hate speech on the platform.
UltraViolet, a national women’s group, cheered the exit of longtime NBC News Chairman Andy Lack on Monday as a “positive development” that “suggests NBC is beginning to take issues regarding its workplace culture seriously.”
“After a career of enabling sexual abusers, preying on women in the workplace and silencing stories from survivors, Andy Lack’s name is synonymous with NBCUniversal’s toxic workplace culture. Lack should have been forced to step down after Ronan Farrow’s reporting exposed his role covering up sexual abuse at the network,” UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas said in a statement, citing previous accusations about Lack’s behavior as chairman of NBC News and MSNBC since 2015. (Lack has denied retaliating against the two women who spoke with Farrow about his behavior.)
“While no single decision or individual can eliminate the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, these are positive developments,” she continued. “Still, NBC has a long way to go before it takes the steps necessary to address their toxic workplace culture, which has been cultivated by men like Andy Lack for decades.”
As the coronavirus pandemic dramatically changes lives across the United States, it is women who are on the frontlines of the outbreak at work and at home.
Women make up more than 80% of America’s health care workers, and are on the front lines of this epidemic, often without personal protective equipment.
Women make up the majority of grocery store workers who are keeping America fed and are working overtime to reduce the risk of infection when people need to leave their homes to buy supplies.
Women make up the majority of educators who have been forced to radically shift the 2020 academic year and make sure that their students do not fall behind while they are out of school.
As American’s social distance, and schools and daycare facilities close — women who are working from home are doing double-duty — serving as caretakers and home educators in addition to their regular lives.
Women are on the frontlines of this pandemic, and women are the heroes helping us get through it.
Late last week, in partnership with MomsRising and We Testify, UltraViolet—a leading women’s advocacy group—launched a major six-figure new digital persuasion and storytelling campaign targeting progressive younger voters and moderate swing voters on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in Virginia, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio.
The ads have a simple message for these voters: “Someone they love had an abortion.”
View the 30-second spot here:
“We support survivors, and that includes supporting survivors to make their own decisions to make deals with their abusers,” added Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the anti-rape group UltraViolet, in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. “But it’s hardly lost on us that these brave women made the only choice that was available to them under our flawed and disempowering judicial system. Survivors of sexual abuse deserve better.”
This is not the potential end to all civil lawsuits against Weinstein: It doesn’t include one famous accuser of Weinstein, Ashley Judd, who’s filed a separate sexual harassment and retaliation suit against him in California. She has said she wants a trial in her case.
In the letter, which was coordinated by the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, the senators say they’re concerned about the message it sends to sexual assault survivors if the Democratic debate happens without the network’s parent at least agreeing to conduct an investigation into allegations of harassment, assault and a cover-up at NBC News.
The candidates join a rising chorus of voices calling for NBC to truly get to the bottom of a swirl of allegations, including claims of harassment and assault that led to the firing of “Today” show host Matt Lauer and questions over the way Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct was handled.
Current and former NBC employees, media critics and women’s rights advocates, including UltraViolet, have demanded a thorough transparent accounting of what happened. UltraViolet is also demanding the firing of NBC News President Noah Oppenheim, MSNBC executive Phil Griffin and anyone in leadership that enabled abusers.
A handful of protestors gathered outside NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Center on Wednesday to demand the ouster of top NBC News executives for the network’s handling of internal sexual misconduct allegations, among other issues.
The feminist advocacy org UltraViolet organized a demonstration outside of NBC News headquarters to deliver a petition with nearly 20,000 signatures calling for the firing of NBC News president Noah Oppenheim and MSNBC president Phil Griffin. Oppenheim recently signed a new contract with NBC News and is expected to succeed Andy Lack as chairman of the division after the 2020 presidential election.
NBC News has been at the center of controversy for two weeks amid the publication of Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill,” which details what he describes as NBC’s effort to quash his reporting on sexual assault allegations against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Farrow criticizes NBC News for its handling of internal sexual misconduct and harassment claims, most notably those involving former “Today” anchor Matt Lauer, who was fired in November 2017.
UltraViolet Action, a women’s advocacy organization, called on the Democratic National Committee to pull its fifth Democratic presidential debate — co-hosted by MSNBC and the Washington Post — in light of new revelations made about NBC News and NBCUniversal in Ronan Farrow’s new book, “Catch and Kill.”
“The DNC needs to make it clear that they support survivors of sexual abuse and cancel the upcoming 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate on MSNBC until Comcast and NBC News take clear steps to clean up the toxic culture that exists across their networks,” Shaunna Thomas, the co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet Action, said in a statement on Tuesday.