G.C. needs harassment policy — now, not later

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Ever since allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood big shot Harvey Weinstein and funny man-turned-politician Al Franken, the former Democratic senator from Minnesota, broke late last year, we’ve been tracking harassment policies at the local level.
Herald editors and reporters have interviewed dozens of officials in various municipalities. Nearly every government body in our coverage area has a policy, most often detailed in a manual that, besides giving the legal definition of sexual harassment and the term “hostile work environment,” also discusses specific remedies for various offenses.
Nearly every government body, except one.
The City of Glen Cove does not have a policy against sexual harassment. It’s tempting to go for the cheap laugh and wonder whether it might be a harassment-free paradise. But interview after interview has yet to reveal a single instance in any town, village or city of a woman who has never been harassed anywhere by anyone in any way. So, it’s natural to conclude from those interviews, and the list of 75 Glen Cove attorneys who list sexual harassment as an area of legal expertise, that harassment happens in Glen Cove, just as it does in communities across Nassau.
While this egregious oversight baffles, it may also present Glen Cove with an opportunity to address the issue in a way that is at once more compassionate and creative than in other locales.

Sexual harassment thrives on silence, on an unequal power dynamic that motivates some to shield or enable the perpetrator while simultaneously failing to protect the victim, according to Dr. Liena Gurevich, a Hofstra University sociology professor. She favors the zero-tolerance approach common to most harassment policies.
The combative approach common to court cases often intimidates even powerful complainants from coming forward, as shown by the A-list actresses who allege they were Weinstein’s victims. Gurevich suggests a policy akin to the reconciliation commissions set up after the overthrow of apartheid in the Republic of South Africa in the early 1990s, when victims told their stories without interruption while their alleged perpetrators listened silently.
Whatever approach Glen Cove were to choose, it would surely be an improvement on its current “zero” option: zero opportunity for redress, zero consequences and zero policy. It’s time for a change, Glen Cove.