Reporter Describes Reporting Behind Story That Sparked the #metoo Movement

Do you think anybody’s going to care?

New York Times reporter Megan Twohey recalled asking that question during a cab ride with her reporting partner, Jodi Kantor, just before a demanding investigative story they had been working on was to appear in print. The two had been told they would never get the story in the paper. The two had been told few would care if it did appear.

During an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall on Friday (May 11), Twohey described what led up to printing their story on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s record of sexually abusive misconduct. Their first story ran at the top of the Times’ front page in October, 2017.

Other journalists had set out to do publish stories on Weinstein’s long-rumored treatment of women. None had succeeded in getting something published. Women who are victims of such treatment are often reluctant to talk publicly, and that was especially true with Weinstein, who had great power and influence in the entertainment industry. Furthermore, Weinstein had fought strongly against such stories being published. Kantor and Twohey were told he would intimidate the Times into withholding publication.

Twohey said the two realized they had to build a case based on evidence that went beyond he said-she said versions of what happened in specific incidents. They were able to do that using materials such as corporate documents and records of out-of-court settlements. She said the Times set rigorous standards for what could be put in print.

Twohey said that once the story appeared, she and Kantor were so involved in follow-up work, they didn’t pay much attention to the impact in the first few days. But the impact was huge – their work played an important part in sparking the #metoo movement that has made harassment and abuse of women in the work place a national issue. Twohey called it a time of reckoning for those who have been involved in harassing women.

Among other recognitions, Twohey and Kantor have won a Pulitzer Prize and been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in America. They have signed a contract to write a book and an option on movie rights to their story. Twohey was in Milwaukee to be honored by the Milwaukee Press Club at a banquet.

Gousha asked Twohey what it was about the Weinstein story that triggered such strong reactions. Other prominent figures, such as television commentator Bill O’Reilly, already had lost their jobs over similar allegations.

Twohey said a big factor seemed to be that in this case, the perpetrator, as powerful as he was, was not as famous as some of the victims who agreed to speak on the record. Twohey said the fact that such well-known movie figures were willing to say they had been victimized and wanted justice motivated  women across the country to speak up about their own experiences.

“The real moral horror (about the Weinstein situation) . . . was that he was able away with this for 40 years,” Twohey said. What she called “the complicity machine” in which Weinstein’s aides, associates, and friends protected  him was just as important, she said. She and Kantor did a follow-up story on the systemic failures and assistance that allowed Weinstein to intimidate people into staying silent.

“It was remarkable at every turn what we uncovered,” she said, when it came to the extent of sexual harassment problems in many different settings. Twohey, who has a 14-month-old daughter, said she hopes the revelations reported by the Times and other  news organizations will mean her daughter will not find herself years from now in workplaces where there are such problems.

“I think this has been a big teaching moment for families,” Twohey said.

To watch the hour-long conversation, click here.

To watch Gousha’s  interview with Twohey on the “Upfront with Mike Gousha” television program, click here.  

 

 

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California Supreme Court Justice Calls for Improving Access to Legal Services

Goodwin Liu, a justice of the California Supreme Court, came to Marquette Law School Thursday to be a judge of the Jenkins Honor Moot Court Competition Final Round. The widely-known justice also brought with him a fascinating personal story and provocative ideas for lawyers and law students on several subjects, presented during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall. I encourage you to listen to the program by clicking here. This blog item will on two of the messages Liu delivered.

Liu, then a professor at the University of California-Berkeley law school, was nominated in 2010 by President Barack Obama to be a federal appeals court judge. The nomination drew strong opposition from Republicans in the US Senate, largely because of controversial things Liu had written. After the nomination was held up for more than a year, Liu withdrew. He was appointed by California Gov. Jerry Brown to that state’s Supreme Court in 2011.

Did Liu regret the things he had written? Liu said there were  some specific things he would handle differently in retrospect, but overall, he was not sorry he had taken strong stands. He urged the law students in the audience not to fear taking positions on things they care about.

Liu said, “You should not just kind of live your life in an exceedingly cautious or antiseptic way, never saying anything, never doing anything that could cause someone else to disagree with you. No. That’s not a good way to live. You have to think about (and) remember why you came to law school — what were the things that motivated you – and, within reasonable ethical and prudent bounds, pursue those things. Because you’re not going to be happy if you don’t do that. . . .  or do anything. . . .

“I had a friend who told me a nice quote once, which was, ‘no one ever goes to his grave seeking an epitaph that reads, “He kept his options open.” I mean, that is no way to live.”

Gousha asked Liu if the nation was in a situation where there two justice systems, one for those who can afford lawyers and the other for those who can’t.

Liu said that was one of the biggest issues facing America. He spoke of the principle that everyone should have equal access to the legal system.

“The principle is an important one .We are so far away from that principle overall in society. Most of us, myself included, do lots of important transactions every year or every couple years where we probably should have a lawyer look things over. Did you ever buy a house? Did you ever read all of those documents? My guess is probably not, but you just signed a lot of your life away in those documents. Wouldn’t it be useful to make sure all those things were done right? This is a big thing.

“Two piece of concluding thought there. One is, of course, that I’ll offer an exhortation to the lawyers and the law students here that doing work for people who can’t afford legal services is so important. No matter whatever you do in your career, that has to be one of the things that you do.  . . . Especially for the younger people here, it is one of the things that will actually give you the greatest skill-building types of opportunities. . . .

“The other piece however, is more fundamental, which I think those of you who are in the public policy realm might give some thought to. And that is (that) law is a strange profession in so far as it is not a differentiated profession as, for example, the health care industry is. Not that our health care industry is any great paragon of success. However, it is the case that when you go to seek health care, it isn’t thar you only go and see a doctor, a physician. We have differentiated roles up and down the health care system. We have nurses, we have nurse’s assistants, we have physician’s assistants, we have technicians, we have all kinds of people where we are triaging your needs to the lowest-cost provider and allocating in an efficient way functions up and down the system and differentiating those functions up and down the system.

“In the legal system, we don’t have that. We have lawyers and nobody else, right? And it doesn’t seem to me that it’s absolutely necessary to have just this one model where, for many things like an eviction or a simple family law matter or immigration matter, whatever it , a lot of things are just about  navigating complicated forms or figuring out what building to go to, or how to do a process.

“There are a lot of roles there that could be filled by people who will not be as fancy as all of you will be when you graduate from this august institution, right? If we could bring the cost of those services down by having different kinds of roles to help people navigate the legal system, why, I think that would be a great service.

“The analogy I would give is: The cost of accessing this kind of basic legal service should be no greater—we should have a model where it’s no greater — than the cost of getting a plumber. If your toilet doesn’t work, you’re going to get it fixed and you’re going to pay the price of a plumber to get it fixed.

“Well, shouldn’t we have at least the same bargain available for very important things in people’s lives, like whether you’re buying a house, whether you’re negotiating a custody agreement, whether you’re trying to get special education for your kids, whatever it is? These are at least as important as your toilet. And so we need to have a market in which access to those kinds of things can be priced accordingly, so average people – average people, I’m not talking about low income people, I’m talking about average people –can afford them. . . .

“I think this is an idea whose time has come. And I think also, for the younger generation, technology is going to be a big part of this, too. Law firms remain brick and mortar enterprises in an age when most  legal services can be done pretty much at a home computer in many instances.“

Liu said that some say that the legal profession resists such ideas as a way to defend the profession. “I think that kind of mentality has a shelf life, because there is a greater and greater demand in our society for fair access to legal services.” Liu said. “As the world becomes more complicated, more and more people are going to need this and we as part of the legal profession should be part of the solution, not a hindrance to it.”

 

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Conference on Chicago Megacity and the Great Lakes Covers a Big Waterfront

Great Lakes water collaboration, Great Lakes water wars, Great Lakes water problems, Great Lakes water improvement, the Great Lakes of today, the Great Lakes of one hundred years from now – all of these were focal points Tuesday of a half-day conference at Marquette Law School titled “Lake Michigan and the Chicago Megacity in the 21st Century.”

The Marquette Water Law and Policy Initiative and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cosponsored a conference focusing on the Chicago megacity – southeastern Wisconsin, northeastern Illinois, and northwestern Indiana – in 2012 and a conference on public attitudes about the region in 2015. During the same period, the Law School has developed a water law and policy initiative, led by Professor David Strifling.

In opening remarks on Tuesday, Joseph D. Kearney, dean of Marquette Law School, said the conference brought together the Law School’s megacity and water policy interests and was “a continuing step in our efforts to become a leading center for the exploration of water law and policy issues.” Strifling and David Haynes, Solutions for Wisconsin Editor of the Journal Sentinel, were the principal organizers of the conference.

A sampling of the discussion:

Great Lakes water collaboration: Randy Conner, water commissioner of the City of Chicago, said he thought there was a good level of collaboration among the water authorities in the region, but there could be more. There was general agreement that working together on issues related to protecting the lakes and using them wisely was good — although ultimately almost every community has its own specific needs. (When it came to building collaboration, there may have been some tangential benefits of the conference. After the session ended, Conner and Jennifer Gonda, superintendent of the Milwaukee Water Works, were seen in the Zilber Forum of Eckstein Hall having a lengthy one-on-one conversation.)

Great Lakes water wars: Peter Annin gave a keynote address that focused on battles going back more than a century and continuing until this moment about diversions of water from the Great Lakes. Annin is co-director of the Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation and director of environmental communication at Northland College in Ashland, WI. He also is author of a 2007 book, The Great Lakes Water Wars, which he is updating.

“The Chicago megacity is the front line in the Great Lakes water wars,” he said. “I think we’re just going to continue to see more of it.” He recounted the controversy over using Lake Michigan water to supply much of Waukesha, Wis., and the current debate over whether the Foxconn factory planned for Racine County should be allowed to use millions of gallons a day of Lake Michigan water. The planned factory site straddles the boundary of the Lake Michigan watershed. (Click here to read a piece Annin wrote about the Foxconn issue for the Journal Sentinel.)

Great Lakes water problems: Molly Flanagan, vice president-policy of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, based in Chicago, said a proposal to cut out the US Environmental Protection Agency from oversight of ballast dumping by ocean-going ships when they are in the Great Lakes is before Congress now. Ballast dumping has been the way some harmful invasive species have entered the Lakes. Giving the US Coast Guard sole oversight would harm the fight against such invasions, she said. Dan Egan, senior water policy fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of the 2017 book, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, amplified on her concerns, saying that the only thing the Coast Guard cared about in the water was sailors.  (Click here to read a Journal Sentinel story by Egan on the issue.)

Great Lakes water improvement: While Egan sounded warnings about several major concerns about the state and future of the Great Lakes, he said things had in some important ways improved in recent years when it came to water quality, use, and recreational opportunities. He contrasted the low use of Bradford Beach along the lakefront in Milwaukee years ago, when there were more problems with things such as dead fish, sewer overflows, and algae, with the large crowds of people using the beach in recent years.

The Great Lakes of today: A panel discussion on the Great Lakes as a tool for economic development in the megacity region included descriptions by economic development advocates from Milwaukee and Chicago not only of the advantages of siting the nation’s top water technology cluster near an abundant supply of water, but the need to use the water “wisely and carefully,” as Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of The Water Council, based in Milwaukee, put it. That call was underscored by Bob Schwartz, senior policy advisor to the consulate general of Israel to the Midwest, who talked about the world-leading technologies related to water that have been pursued in Israel and about avenues for increasing involvement between Israel and the Midwest on water-related work.

The Great Lakes of a hundred years from now: Michael R. Lovell, president of Marquette University, recounted to the audience a conversation he had several years ago with the head of Kikkoman Foods, the Japanese company known for its soy sauce. Kikkoman located a plant in Walworth County, southwest of Milwaukee. The Kikkoman leader said one reason the company did that was because it believed that one hundred years from now, the population base of the United States would be focused in the Midwest. A big reason will be the value of water. Another reason was “to make great soy sauce, you need great water.” Lovell urged the participants in the conference to think about what should be done to see that water is available in good supply and quality a century from now.

Video of the conference may be viewed by clicking here.

 

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