Michael Best with Jean Grasso. Susan Fowler is an engineer who worked at Uber. On Sunday, Fowler, who recently left the company, posted on her blog an account of sexual harassment against her, alleging that her boss at Uber tried to have sex with her and that when she reported it, the company told her it would not be doing anything
about it. Uber CEO Travis Klanic issued a statement calling the allegations abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in, and the company has now hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to lead an independent review of the allegations UH and also about diversity and inclusion issues at Uber. More broadly, Fowler's accusations are the latest in a line of claims by women that their sideline in Silicon Valley's
male dominated culture. Here to talk with us about this situation is Michael sell Me, a professor at George Washington University Law School. Michael um so Ms. Fowler writes this blog post, what what is she detailing? Happened during the course of her time at Uber. UH daily agencies detailing or you know as you mentioned are similar to a lot of UH allegations that have been coming up recently, um in the listen since she's alleging imparting egregious sexual harassment.
But equally important, I think the for Uber where they have really moved quite quickly on is the fact that they told her specifically or supersized stores specifically, that they would do nothing about it, So they were they were not concerned about these allegations at all, Michael. There have been surveys. There was one in by the Elephant in the Valley that found that six of women in tech
have experienced unwanted sexual advances from colleagues. There have been there's been a lot on social media, a lot of different claims. What is there about tech or is there something about tech that makes it more susceptible. There's probably a couple of different things. Whether it makes it more susceptible or not to an industry, that's hard to say. But I think with respect to tech tech um UH, it's clearly been a male dominated UH industry. It's also
filled with a lot of younger people UM. And it's certainly when the companies began, or when so Colon Valley was going, they were not as concerned about legal restraints as a lot of other more mature industries would have been. So I think there was a bravado among a lot of the people in the industry. Um uh that may be not so prominent in other UH industries. UM and then uh um the use UH possibly might be part
of it too. But I think it's you know, a combination of things that has made the tech world so susceptible to these allegations. Michael, what do you expect that Attorney General Holder is going to end up doing in this investigation? Well, that's always hard to know. Um. These
allegations were just reported. As as far as i'm there has not been a formal complaint filed, and so he would probably take the place of well would would do what you know, the UC or another agency might do in terms of the investigation, UM, with interviews and the like. And I presume he will come up with a report fairly quickly, would be my guest to that all this
will move, you know, quite quickly. It's it may seem unusual that a lawsuit hasn't been filed yet, or that she hasn't gone outside the agency rather posting on a blog. What does that tell you it is unusual? Um? And the fact that the blog was the way that she chose to uh make these allegations public is highly unusual. Whether it's um, you know, there was recently the Fox News allegations that hit the news very quickly and settled
very quickly. And I think maybe what you're seeing as a strategy that bringing public attention to these allegations UM is the quick this way to a settlement. Well, Michael, when you look at the kinds of allegations she's making here,
what what is it that Uber should have done. Well, certainly they should have had a plan in place, which they may have formally had when most businesses do for their employees to report harassment and to report harassment uh generally to the human resources officer as opposed to supervisors. There should have been an investigation of those and internal
investigation of those allegations, UM. And then you know, consistent with then investigation, there should have been some determination of the merits on med and if they proved to be true accurate, uh, then there certainly should have been some discipline for the offending party. And it sounds like they skipped all of those steps. Well, our thanks to Michael sell Me, a professor at George Washington University Law School
for being here on Bloomberg Law. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, will be talking about a decision by a federal magistrate which refused to give the government a warrant that would force people to compel to use their fingerprints to open their cell phones, even though there was a warrant to search a computer on the on the premises when the
police got there. The police also wanted to be able to force anyone who had a cell phone, uh that would require their fingerprint to use their fingerprints to open it up, and a judge said that would violate their constitutional rights and he was not going to issue it. Uh, we're gonna be talking about that decision coming up straight ahead on Bloomberg Glove