Tom Brokaw, the latest high-profile man to be accused of workplace sexual harassment, has some good friends in high places. After the Washington Post published allegations that he groped and forcibly kissed Linda Vester more than 20 years ago, sixty-five TV industry women signed a letter supporting Brokaw. Brokaw, they say, is “a man of tremendous decency and integrity”.

The politics of prominent women supporting men accused of sexual harassment are complicated. Can the sisterhood really require that we reverse our own positive judgment of a male friend or colleague based on the word of a stranger, as long as that stranger is another woman? On the other hand, nearly every male predator (or alleged predator) enjoys the support of some women, from our president to Bill Cosby. Even Ted Bundy had female fans. Clearly female voices of support are not in and of themselves exonerating.



Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw accused of 1990s sexual misconduct Read more

There seems to be a strange fallacy that if a man didn’t sexually harass or assault you, then he couldn’t possibly have sexually harassed or assaulted anyone. We see this time and again with high-profile cases and those that never make the news: women are trotted out in defense of men accused of wrongdoing, and their main defense seems to be: “I’ve known John for years, and he’s never been anything less than a gentleman.”

It’s as if sexual harassers and assailants sexually harass or assault literally every woman they come across, and are not in fact discerning and strategic, often targeting women who have less power or social capital.

The fact that Donald Trump does not sexually harass, say, Sarah Sanders or Kellyanne Conway is not evidence that he is innocent of the harassment and assault accusations many women have leveled against him. That Cosby never drugged, assaulted or harassed most women he met is not evidence that he did not drug, assault or harass the 60-odd women who say he did just that.

The Brokaw letter, then, isn’t evidence that the harassment never happened. But it is nonetheless a powerful testament to the man’s character. It does say something when so many women in your industry stand up for you.



Not every incident of sexual harassment is identical, and the response to them shouldn’t be identical, either

But instead of insisting that Brokaw probably did not harass the women he is accused of harassing, it might be better to take a clear-eyed look at the accusations, give time and space for a real investigation, and determine a proportionate penalty if there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. The accusations are serious, but hardly Cosby-level; not every incident of sexual harassment is identical, and the response to them shouldn’t be identical, either.

That 20-year-old accusations that don’t seem to involve Brokaw leveraging his power and influence to extract sexual favors (as Harvey Weinstein is accused of doing), but rather seem like inappropriate advances that were relatively swiftly curbed, is a different beast from the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, Cosby and even Matt Lauer, who is accused of systematically making the workplace sexualized and sexist.



When women speak out against sexual harassment or assault, it’s crucial to trust them, but also to verify what they say. It is both true that women are not infallible creatures immune to exaggeration or falsehood, and also that it’s rare for women to lie about sexual assault or harassment. We can believe women’s stories. And when it comes to determining what happens next, we can insist that workplaces have fair, transparent and thorough investigative procedures.



After six months of #MeToo, the burning question is: how soon can these guys come back? Read more

Brokaw denies the allegations. But, unfortunately, he is not doing himself many favors here. He is clearly stunned and angered by these accusations, writing that he was “ambushed and then perp walked across the pages of the Washington Post and Variety as an avatar of male misogyny, taken to the guillotine and stripped of any honor and achievement I had earned in more than a half century of journalism and citizenship”.



It is worth noting that Brokaw was neither ambushed nor perp-walked. He was not arrested, nor charged, nor physically forced to walk anywhere, let alone through a scrum of reporters. The Post reached out to him for comment before they published the piece, which is the opposite of an ambush. He is still with us, and so clearly was not guillotined. He has been stripped of exactly no honors – he has won a great many journalism awards, including the Peabody, the Presidential medal of freedom and multiple Emmys, all of which he continues to hold – and so far he has suffered no formal consequences at all. His accounting of the ill effects of the Post and Variety pieces is more than a little bit overstated.



But when one is accused of wrongdoing, it’s only natural to want to respond, especially when one’s career, reputation and legacy are on the line. These are not small things, and we should not dismiss them. When one’s valued friend or trusted colleague is similarly accused, and when one has never seen even a hint that this person may be a misogynist in mensch’s clothes, it is also natural to want to respond in their defense. It is neither sane nor healthy to create a climate wherein it’s understandable to defend loved ones against accusations of most kinds, but wholly unacceptable when the accusations are sexual harassment or assault.



And yet the defenses against sexual harassment or assault charges tend to be uglier and more personal, routinely focused on the accuser’s alleged bad behavior, or her sexual history, or her supposed suspect motivations – money, celebrity, attention (never mind that you would be hard pressed to name a single woman who became a beloved celebrity by accusing a powerful man of assault). This is Brokaw’s theory of Vester, that she is a “character assassin” whose goal is “much more Look At Me than #MeToo”. Even Brokaw’s defenders must realize that he would be better served in his own self-defense by steering clear of these personal attacks.



Instead of zeroing in on whether Brokaw is guilty or innocent based on whether those who know him believe he’s a person of integrity, this would be a good moment to take a step back and ask what we expect from our workplaces – and ask whether NBC has done what we would expect of them.

The network has reportedly been slow to make systematic changes, even after the Matt Lauer harassment story. Part of what makes accusations like these so complex is that companies routinely act more to save face than to actually address serious problems; they measure public outrage and make calculations from there.

From that perspective, the letter of support for Brokaw could be particularly persuasive in protecting him from consequences – a good outcome if he is indeed innocent, but a bad one if he’s not. In either case, the support of one’s colleagues should not be a decisive factor in what penalties (if any) one faces for sexual harassment, if that harassment happened.



Instead, NBC – and every other employer – should have clear and transparent mechanisms for reporting, investigating, and penalizing sexual harassment at work. That wouldn’t always mean the outcome is ideal, but at least the process would be fairer, and the parties involved would know what they face.

Guilt, innocence and consequences wouldn’t depend on public support or disgust, or one’s reputation as wholesome or dishonorable – but instead on the facts.

