Tatiana Spottisswoode is a first-year law student at Columbia University.
While working at call center technology company Afiniti, Spottisswoode said the company's founder, Zia Chisti, sexually harassed and assaulted her.
Bound by Afiniti's forced arbitration clause, Spottisswoode could neither sue nor report her abuser in the public court. Instead, she was forced to fight for herself in “arbitration,” a kind of in-house kangaroo court overseen and operated by the company itself.
“Forced arbitration silences victims forever,” she said. “Chisti was able to stay in my life for years, monitoring my statements, all while retaliating against my father in secret arbitration.”
Spottisswoode is one of roughly 60 million Americans affected by contractual forced arbitration clauses – the fine print legalese that silences victims of workplace sexual assault and harassment.
Last fall, Spottisswoode was one of several women to address Congress on behalf of House Resolution 44-54, a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat who represents parts of Greater Peoria.
And now, President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law any day.
On Tuesday, Bustos organized a press call with Spottisswoode and other survivors of forced arbitration. WCBU sat in on the call.
"This has been called the most significant labor law of this century," Bustos said. "This will change lives."
Like Spottisswoode, Andowah A. Newton said she was twice victimized by her employer – first, when she was assaulted and repeatedly harassed by a colleague; and second, when she was silenced through forced arbitration.
Newton is an attorney and Vice President of Legal Affairs and Head of Litigation at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc., a multibillion-dollar conglomerate of luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot.
Newton said she was assaulted and repeatedly harassed by the company’s director of property and facility operations.
“Even as an attorney, I have been rendered powerless by forced arbitration,” Newton said. “It has incentivized my current employer to first ignore my reports of sexual harassment. Then suggest that I apologize to the harasser. Then punish me by investigating me, reprimanding me, having its CEO target me, seeking sanctions against me, and ultimately suing me for attorneys’ fees. All while promoting and celebrating the harasser.”
Lora Henry is a former employee of Ken Ganley Kia, a car dealership in Medina, Ohio, where Henry said her supervisor, Mike Gentry, sexually assaulted her. When she complained, Kia told Henry she was at fault and she was eventually fired.
“Many women when starting a new job are given a stack of papers, in front of them, told to sign ‘here,’ ‘here’ and ‘here.’ ‘Just HR stuff,’ I was told. I did not know at the time that I had signed a binding, confidential arbitration agreement,” Henry said. “That secret agreement allowed my boss to sexually harass me wit the confidence that no one would ever find out, so that he could block me from having my day in court.”
By voiding forced arbitration clauses in the case of sexual assault and harassment, Bustos said her bill will provide survivors of sexual violence and harassment the freedom to decide what legal path works best for them.
For example, they can choose whether they want to bring forth a claim in public court, discuss their case publicly or seek another kind of legal remedy.
To this day, arbitration clauses continue to prevent Spottisswoode, Newton and Henry from speaking publicly about what happened to them.
It was only after being issued Congressional subpoenas last fall that the three women able to share their stories.
Julia Duncan, Senior Director of Government Affairs for the American Association for Justice, said this fact highlights the cruelty of forced arbitration.
“It’s important to remember the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American a right to trial by jury,” she said. “Forced arbitration allows corporations to write themselves out of that constitutional right.”
The fight to end forced arbitration dates back to 2015. However, previous attempts were broader, and fell under the Civil Rights Act.
To achieve bipartisan support, however, Bustos said the bill was moved out of the Civil Rights Act and was re-written "simply" to include victims of sexual harassment and assault.
"We were willing to compromise," she said. "We got a Republican co-sponsor right off the bat. ... Morgan [Griffith] was a good partner. Ken Buck was a tremendous partner."
Gretchen Carlson praises bill that ends forced arbitration in sexual assault cases
Part of what ultimately pushed the needle on the issue, Bustos said, was Congress bringing women forward to share their stories through the subpeonas.
"You think about getting in front of members of Congress, where it's streamed on C-Span for everybody to see and hear, and tell their personal stories," she said. "It's just incredible, incredible bravery."
Had Biden’s Tuesday night State of the Union address been in-person for lawmakers and guests, Bustos said, Spottisswoode, Henry and Newton would have sat alongside her in Washington, D.C.
Bustos would have also invited Tanuja Gupta, another woman who testified o behalf of the bill last year.
Gupta is the leader of Googlers for Ending Forced Arbitration, an organization protesting the power structures that silence sexual harassment and assault survivors in big tech. Google ended forced arbitration in 2019.
