The New York Post Will Have to Face Its Sexual Harassment Lawsuit
Four years after former editor Sandra Guzman sued for sexual harassment and unlawful termination, a district court has ruled that New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan will have to appear in court to face the charges, Politico reports. And they aren't pleasant: Guzman alleges that the Australian editor "rubbed his penis up against" one staffer during a Post party, "made sexually suggestive comments about her body," and approached Guzman and other women with lewd pictures of a naked man on his Blackberry. Another male editor is accused of telling a female copy assistant, "If you give me a blow job, I will give you a permanent reporter job."
Guzman's firing is also at the center of the case: she was let go after objecting to an infamously racist cartoon showing a dead chimpanzee as the author of Obama's stimulus package. The tabloid has been noted for having hired shockingly few African-American editors over the past, and the hispanic Guzman's 38-page complaint is full of other examples of racist treatment—for instance, having to endure editors singing West Side Story songs when she walked by.
RELATED: And the New York Post Employee with the 'Mommy Madam' Relationship Is...
This, of course, is the newspaper that once published a column ordering sexual harassment victims to "deal with it," because "we’ve each endured some too tight hug or some slob whose hand wandered where it shouldn’t." If only Guzman's allegations were so mild.
Post parent company News Corp has had its motion for dismissal accepted. The newspaper itself, and Allan, weren't so lucky, though a spokesperson said it looks forward to "presenting the truth about the remaining charges—which are completely unfounded—to a jury."
This article was originally published at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/10/new-york-post-will-have-to-face-its-sexual-harassment-lawsuit/71062/
