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“I Didn’t Know” Is A Cop-Out That Can Do As Much Harm As A Sexual Harasser
“I didn’t know.” We’ve heard that a lot lately from bosses and co-workers who say they failed to notice that their female colleagues were being harassed.
The latest person to use that excuse is Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, who was the long-time executive producer of The Today Show in the years when Matt Lauer was its co-star.
“No one ever brought to me, or to my knowledge, there was never, there was never a complaint about Matt,” Zucker told a Business Insider forum, according to the New York Times. “There was never a suggestion of that kind of deviant, predatory behavior. Not even a whisper of it, nothing like that.”
As of Sunday, three women have gone to NBC with formal complaints about Lauer’s behavior, while his reputation is now sullied by lurid stories about an automatic locking office door and a sexual assault in his NBC office.
“I didn’t know” just isn’t acceptable any more, now that we’re learning the broad reach of harassment, and how many women have be robbed of peace of mind in the workplace.
By using “I didn’t know” as a dodge, you may have done as much harm, or more, to your company and your colleagues, as the harasser himself.
