Sexual Harassment

The pros and cons of ‘mandated reporting.’

Catholic scandals past and present

Pope Francis, Cardinal Wuerl, Theodore McCarrick, and the crisis of a church divided.

Funny how leftist academics mistreat their underlings.

Second thoughts about the sexual revolution.

And would the disgraced host pad around in a bathrobe interviewing his subjects?

There may be no better showcase for the sociopolitical contortions our culture’s made in the last two decades than what the #MeToo ethic makes of the campus novel Blue Angel, by Francine Prose. Recently adapted—honestly but shallowly—into a movie starring Stanley Tucci under a toupee, the limited…

For anyone counting #MeToo casualties with a wary eye, one of 2018’s first will have stood out. On January 13, in a lengthy exposé published on a website for college-age women, a 23-year-old photographer charged comic Aziz Ansari with the crime of being a bad date. The pseudonymous “Grace”…

For Rose McGowan, it was only a matter of time. She’s an ice-cold operator who’ll verbally shiv with military precision anyone who crosses her. She’d have to be, to survive the hellhole of Hollywood hypocrisy with her sanity mostly intact. It was only a matter of time, then, before she’d turn on…

The “Shitty Media Men” list that came into a short-lived existence during the Harvey Weinstein awakening enjoyed a second life of sorts Tuesday and Wednesday, in the form of a viral controversy about its creator and a pending magazine story about the #MeToo movement. The result is that we now know…

Hollywood these days is investing more and more resources into rebooting old franchises. And not just in movies. Last week, a new blue-ribbon committee to investigate and eliminate sexual harassment in Hollywood announced that its chairwoman would be Anita Hill.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott has been accused of sexual harassment by a woman who served in his office.

Thérèse Dreaming, by the Polish-French painter Balthus, is undeniably creepy. Creepy enough to launch, in this day and age, an online petition demanding it either be removed from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, or that “context” be added to the display. The museum abstained from any action,…

Very few congressional Republicans wanted Roy Moore to win. They knew, for one thing, that Democrats were prepared to link them to him for at least the next three years. Rather than make it clear that Moore had no place in the GOP, however, many referred blithely to “the will of the people” and the…

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post took time recently to accuse Republicans, specifically Representative Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina of sounding “altogether too complacent, too passive and too resigned” to Roy Moore’s failed U.S. Senate candidacy. Moore,…

How does an accused sex offender go about getting elected to public office? With Alabama’s special Senate election taking place Tuesday, Republican Roy Moore has chosen to pursue a bold strategy: putting on the full armor of Trump and vanishing almost entirely from the voters’ view.

Birmingham, Alabama

As we celebrate this Christmas season (or this “holiday,” for Christ-haters), I don’t wish to be a killjoy to the world. But reflecting on the year gone by, it’s hard not to notice that we have lost a few of our favorite things: Tom Petty, political moderation, our dignity.

Congressman Trent Franks announced his resignation from Congress Thursday evening, saying he was unwilling to undergo an Ethics Committee investigation into conversations about surrogacy he had in recent years with two female staffers.

Sen. Al Franken took a quick glance up at a jam-packed Senate press gallery as he entered the chamber Thursday, preparing to ask Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who was presiding over the chamber, to allow him to make the speech that would end his political career.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken announced Thursday morning that he would resign from the Senate amid allegations that he forcibly kissed or groped several different women. Franken’s resignation would trigger a special election for the seat in the 2018 midterms and allow Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton to…

After a week spent limping along under the weight of accusations of sexual misconduct, Sen. Al Franken announced his resignation from the Senate Thursday morning.

The adjectives “Orwellian” and “Kafkaesque” (but, curiously, never Orwellesque or Kafkian) are some of the most overused and abused in the English language. They’re oft employed, one suspects, by those with hazy memories of paging through the Cliffs Notes of 1984 or The Hunger Artist a couple of…

Bill Cosby. Bill O’Reilly. Harvey Weinstein. Kevin Spacey. Charlie Rose. Matt Lauer. John Conyers. What drives these men to engage in such terrible behavior? The Book of Genesis may offer us some answers.

I’m not sure who coined the term “pervnado” to describe the torrential whirlwind of sexual harassment allegations roiling the already morally unhinged mirror worlds of show business, media, and politics. (Although, from the looks of it, we can thank headline writers at the New York Post for the…

Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore's account of when he began dating his wife Kayla would place the start of their courtship before her divorce from her first husband, according to court documents.

Birmingham, Ala.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan announced Tuesday he would retire from Congress effective immediately, making him the first sitting congressman to resign amid the wave of sexual misconduct allegations that has swamped the nation in recent months.

When this fall’s rampant #MeToo movement rippled overseas, it found a far superior French hashtag—#BalanceTonPorc, meaning “squeal on your pig”—and an already pending piece of legislation.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would be more likable were it not for the fact they’re craven opportunists.

Because it looks increasingly and unfortunately likely that we’re going to have to hear the phrase “Senator Roy Moore” before too long, journalists have moved on to the next question: Will the U.S. Senate make good on its threats, and perhaps refuse to seat the twice-booted judge, who has been…

When the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA) passed in 1995, the vote was 98-1 in the Senate and 390-0 in the House. However, in light of recent allegations of sexual misconduct against Rep. John Conyers and a settlement with at least one former staffer, the "accountability" promised by the…

There’s no denying it now: In the hurricane of sexual harassment scandals felling powerful men from Kevin Spacey to Matt Lauer to, now, Garrison Keillor—no one is safe. Not even women of paramount grace and accomplishment who engage in a single instance of wrongthink. Yesterday the beloved Dame…

The Alabama special Senate Election is a bit of a rollercoaster. Republican Roy Moore held a real lead over Democrat Doug Jones for most of the race—until the Washington Post and other outlets published credible allegations that Moore had inappropriate sexual contact with teenagers while he was in…

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

Longtime Today host Matt Lauer was fired Wednesday morning after a complaint of sexual misconduct, the latest public figure to fall from grace during a remarkable moment of cultural reckoning. As NBC is one of President Donald Trump’s favorite punching bags, he wasted no time crowing about it.

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore made his first public appearance in nearly two weeks Monday night, dodging press and refusing to take questions at a rally in Henagar, Alabama, as he railed against “malicious and false attacks which reflect the immorality of our time.”

In the two weeks since sexual misconduct allegations began to surface against him, Senator Al Franken has repeatedly apologized to the four women who have accused him of groping them. He’s said he’s “embarrassed and ashamed,” and insisted that “we have to listen to women and respect what they say.”…

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t say Sunday if she believed the multiple women who have accused Democratic Rep. John Conyers of sexual misconduct, and instead encouraged “due process” as a congressional ethics committee probes allegations made against the 88-year-old lawmaker in multiple…

Longtime congressman and civil rights icon John Conyers is under fire for a previously undisclosed settlement with a former staffer who claimed she was fired for rejecting Conyers's sexual advances. Buzzfeed broke the story that after the woman was fired in 2014, she filed a complaint with…

The New York Times suspended one of its star reporters Monday after allegations surfaced that he had made inappropriate sexual advances toward younger colleagues throughout his career.

The wave of sexual abuse allegations against men from Harvey Weinstein to Roy Moore has prompted significant reflection among liberals about how Bill Clinton’s misdeeds were handled and how his accusers were treated in the 1990s.

Widespread allegations of sexual harassment have in recent weeks rocked legislatures across Europe and North America. In London, harassment claims have brought down one cabinet minister and are threatening to bring parliamentary business to a standstill. In Brussels, the European parliament has…

The urge to vote for the outsider—the dissenter, the maverick, the troublemaker hated by those elites—is a reasonable one. Political parties become stale and predictable, their officeholders self-seeking and cowardly. The ordinary voter, exasperated by his elected leaders’ inability or refusal to…

A Los Angeles news anchor and former model on Thursday accused Sen. Al Franken of sexually assaulting her during a USO tour to the Middle East in December 2006.

Nearly a month ago, I wrote “There's an Awakening Against Sexual Assault, So Why Is No One Talking About Bill Clinton?” It took long enough, but there is a growing chorus of voices on the left demanding that Clinton’s crimes not be ignored. The disturbing allegations against Roy Moore appear to…

Breitbart News sought this weekend to discredit the Washington Post and a woman who accused Roy Moore of trying to initiate sexual encounters with her when she was a minor, but the right-wing tabloid ended up doing the exact opposite.

Roy Moore has a story, and he is sticking to it. One day after a damning Washington Post story alleging that Moore, the GOP candidate in the upcoming Alabama Senate election, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and sought out relationships with three other teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18,…

Since the Washington Post published its bombshell report Thursday—in which a woman alleges that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore molested her when she was a 14-year-old and Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney—almost all Republican senators and President Trump have said that Moore…

Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., said Friday she believes allegations about Roy Moore and demanded this type of misconduct end.

In November 2014, a female member of Brown University’s debate team had oral sex with a male colleague while they watched a movie. Eleven months later, she filed a complaint with Brown, accusing him of sexual assault.

Judge Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama's upcoming special Senate election, denies allegations that he romantically pursued teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. Even if the allegations are true, one statewide elected official in Alabama said it's "much ado about nothing."…

Each new report of sexual harassment and assault that has come out in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations—Kevin Spacey, James Toback, Brett Ratner–is followed by evidence that the predatory behavior was widely known, but that victims chose not to speak. Why? One reason is that sexual…

My first contact with Leon Wieseltier was by letter. The year was 1977. Written on Balliol College, Oxford, letterhead stationery, the letter informed me that I was a force for superior culture in America, one of the few contemporary intellectuals worthy of respect, and through my writing the all…

My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.

My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.

You don't have to be a liberal or conservative, woman or man, to find Harvey Weinstein's conduct repulsive. Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax Films and the eponymous Weinstein Company, producer of dozens of well-known, well-regarded, and multiple-Oscar-winning movies over the past three decades,…

During the election of 1940, the married Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, gave speeches from the apartment of his editor girlfriend, Irita Van Doren (who helped write them for him), while the campaign train of President Franklin D. Roosevelt made routine stops at a certain small town in New…

On Monday I detailed how the Washington Post's survey claiming that one in five women have been sexually assaulted in college is deeply flawed. But there was an aspect of the survey I didn't get to, one that does not bode well for the future of relationships among students.