What would you do if you were falsely accused of sexual harassment?

Great question! First of all, the fact that he resigned, in my opinion does not indicate his guilt. With the legal implications involved in this situation, my guess is that he did not want to drag his personal life into the spot light of the press.

He may or may not be guilty, but sexual harassment law is very tricky and can go either way. The problem is that you can be convicted of "Sexual Harassment" for a minor offense that will forever stain your career and resume. I really think that it would be beneficial to have different levels of sexual harassment convictions, such as "Discriminatory Harassment" (I didn't hire him or her, because of personal issues specific to their sex that were brought up in the interview that shouldn't have effected my decision), "Criminal Harassment" (I told her she had to sleep with me to get promoted).

The first type of harassment would require a mild reprimand and additional mentoring before further advancement. The second type, might require jail time and obviously would require termination. So, one of the problems with these situations is that all "Sexual Harassment" is lumped together and a high powered executive doesn't want to chance being stuck with a sexual harassment conviction because even if his offence was minor, it will be viewed as criminal.

If I was wrongfully accused of sexual harassment, I would do the following: 1. Take responsibility for my poor procedures and unprofessional behavior that allowed me to be accused in the first place. There are very few sexual harassment cases that do not begin with stupid, unprofessional behavior such as becoming to personally involved with a co-worker or allowing yourself to be placed in an unprofessional work situation.2.

I would communicate with everyone involved, early, often, in writing and with complete honesty. The person who is falsely accusing someone of sexual harassment wants some type of monetary compensation and my first question would be, does this person think they actually deserve this money and feel cheated or is it just a greedy person who is taking advantage of my mistake. If they are a good person who is upset about being treated poorly and is looking to "get what they deserve" in a dishonest way; I would be willing to work with this person and open a dialog to talk through what they really feel they deserve from the company.

If they are just a money grabber, I would hire an attorney and tell them every single detail of my involvement with this person, painting the same picture for my attorney that the prosecution will paint so my attorney will be ready to defend me. 3. If the prosecution told my attorney that I was going to be convicted of some type of sexual harassment because they were able to twist the truth and take advantage of my mistakes and unprofessionalism, unless I resigned, and my attorney believed it.

I would re I enjoyed writing an answer to your question! Thanks for posting this, James Shepherd.

This actually happened to a friend of mine! He ended up being fired. The main problem here was the fact he was working in a store with more women and they clearly did nit like the fact he was there working with them.

He ended up having a buddy of his studying law write a letter to the Corp office, and he was paid his full salary and additional pain and suffering. Further Corp fired the manager for not properly investigating the claim. He was offered the job back he refused as there would now be a hostile work place.

Documentation saved his butt and cost the manager her job!

If you're true, never give up. The real looser is one who does not fight and not the one who fights. The best way to come out of such situation is to show your normal behavior & hire some professional detective.

Let him/her collects strong evidence in favor of you, which can be accepted in court of law. Video recording, phone call recording, email records etc. - there are many ways to explain & prove the truth.

I will adhere to the wisdom of the board of directors.

OMG I would lawyer up as soon as possible. If I were a man I would hire a female lawyer.

Some of my answer does not speak directly to your question, but I feel it is important (especially on the www) to portray facts accurately. You state that Hurd resigned "amid allegations of sexual harassment. " In fact, this is not true.

He resigned because in the course of the investigation that CLEARED him of sexual harassment, they found irregularities in his expense reports and that he had hired an independent contractor with whom he had a prior relationship. Have you ever been in a demanding management position? "Irregularities on expense reports?"

Please! They didn't state fraud or misappropriation of funds - they said "irregularities. " That's corporate speak for missing a receipt or dates out of whack.It's a convenient tactic for politically cornering someone to manipulate them into doing what you want.

Likewise, the old adage is "it's not what you know, it's WHO you know. " Everyone hires people they know. The entire business world is built on networking.

The whole lot of this is H-P's Board taking advantage of another person (Fisher) likewise trying to take advantage of Hurd. HP has no succession plan in place.It was very stupid of the Board to push Hurd into resigning, or even make him feel compromised enough that he decided that was his best solution. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle wrote to the NY Times saying "In losing Mark Hurd, the H-P board failed to act in the best interest of H.P. 's employees, shareholders, customers and partners.

The H-P board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false." It's really a shame that your question was worded in such a way as to not convey that Hurd was completely exonerated from the sexual harassment claims, but maintains the "spin" (the false impression) that continues to besmirch his reputation. My personal approach in answer to your question "What would you do if you were falsely accused of sexual harassment?

If one of your coworkers leveled complaints against you that were false, would you resign from your position at work?"...... My fighting it or resigning would be a function of: 1) Discussions with my family and what they wanted to do, 2) Attitude of work in general...is it the kind of place that fosters these sorts of political maneuverings and therefore I don't want to be there anyway, or is this an anomaly and fighting it will be worthwhile, i.e. I would have a truly fair chance to exonerate myself, 3) Aftermath fallout - is supporting the issue going on (throughout the investigation and subsequent to the outcome) worth the impact on my life as a whole.

Well, under most labor agreements and law, in a sexual harrassment case, like other crimes, the complaintant must provide ample evidence and/or witnesses corroborating the incident in order for the issue to go beyond simply an accusation. Anyone can be accused of committing a crime or improper behavior, but it is up to the complaintant to prove beyond doubt that the event or actions actually occured. Therefore, if I know I am innocent and being falsely accused, I wouldn't worry and I wouldn't resign, because there is no evidence supporting the accusation.

Resignations in the face of accusation usually occur to avoid the stain of guilt and improper behavior on the company's or organization's image and focuses strictly on the individual. A resignation also implies guilt since why would anyone resign from such a high post if they were innocent? The idea is that the company does not allow such activity and therefore the individual should no longer be associated with the institution.

Acctuly I will run 2 my friends or family or anybody I care about and he cares about me and he will believe that I didn't do that then we look at all locked doors we try 2 open if its didn't opened we will push harder until im free.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.