Grossberg attorney: House leaders failed young women and my client | Opinion

Emma Curtis is right: No one should suffer in silence when faced with inappropriate statements.

The most important information all of us can take away from her OpEd in the Herald-Leader this week is that Kentucky Democratic House Leadership and those who guide and advise them have failed young folks in the political space. Emma Curtis, Daniel Grossberg, and their peers have not received the training, support and protections they need, and we must hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for this.

Rep. Grossberg has sincerely apologized and has sought professional coaching and counseling to improve his professional interactions. Emma Curtis is moving forward as well, holding all of us in the political space accountable for not having the basic policies and protections in place that all workplaces in Kentucky should have.

We learned this lesson the hard way in the 2010’s when the Kentucky Democratic House Caucus received a number of sexual harassment complaints about inappropriate behavior by male and female legislators. To protect victims, we wrote and adopted a sexual harassment policy that provided prompt, confidential and effective help (let’s call it the “2016 Policy” since it was in full effect at that time). To ensure that everyone working in and around Democratic politics understood appropriate behavior, we trained candidates, campaigns, staff and elected officials each year on the 2016 policy. Many news stories were written about this new House policy.

I was part of the team that worked across party lines to make that happen. The 2016 Policy was highly effective in providing and making public access to resolution for complainants who sought help. Legislative leaders stood aside so that a neutral party could investigate, reach conclusions and impose retraining and remedial action for any act of harassment.

The 2016 policy and standards of conduct were posted online, in legislative offices and around the LRC, because sexual harassment policies don’t work unless people knows they exist. Reporting was simple, straightforward and confidential where requested. We also shared our drafts and training on the 2016 Policy with Republican leadership so they could adopt similar education and remediation in their offices. Each year after implementation, this confidential system addressed and remediated at least five cases annually. Numerous additional complaints were resolved which did not rise to the full case level. Legislative leaders and partisan politics were never involved in the process, which focused on resolution and remediation..

Unfortunately, that training and the policy which provided immediate investigation and action appears to have now been eliminated. The code of conduct and harassment reporting policies are no longer visible online or in offices, hallways or rest rooms. Caucus members no longer receive the stand alone anti-bullying and anti-harassment training that would have prevented these incidents in the first place, or at least provided a complainant with immediate relief.

This problem isn’t solved by House leaders tacking newspaper stories onto the inaccurate and unsupported ethics complaint they filed against a freshman legislator. Every incident in that complaint is months or years old, and should have been promptly dealt with when it occurred. A delayed ethics investigation will never take the place of the swift involvement of a neutral party and prompt remedial action as provided for in the 2016 Policy. House leaders must reinstate the effective and well publicized sexual harassment reporting policy they inherited, or these cases will never be dealt with appropriately.

Emma Curtis is a brave young woman with a bright future ahead of her. I have worked on her prior campaigns and hope to work with her in the future as well. She is an outspoken advocate and educator for transgender persons and is courageously herself in every situation. Her name and her causes are known throughout the state and beyond.

She is also a political peer of Rep Grossberg, who is alleged to have made inappropriate remarks to her, missing social cues and asking inappropriate personal questions related to bills impacting trans rights. Had Emma known there was a reporting policy in place, the improper actions could have been immediately reported, investigated and corrected with retraining, discipline and other measures. She would not have been left to suffer in silence and she would have had an immediate solution.

Rep. Grossberg is now receiving training and coaching in understanding social cues and workplace behavior from trained professionals. Other members of the caucus, staff and peers who call his neurodiverse behaviors “creepy” should receive training in understanding and working with peers with ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders and other neurodiverse behaviors. Nobody should refer to those who are different from them as “creepy” or “weird.” I have provided links to that cultural competency training to Democratic House Leadership and KDP and hope they have followed up on those recommendations.

We all must recognize that Emma Curtis, and anyone who is bullied or harassed by a legislator, needs to know where to get easy and immediate access to a nonpartisan, independent investigator to handle the situation and correct the behavior. Appropriate policies and training must be immediately put back in place.

Democratic House leaders failed young politicians and their own freshman legislator. If the leaders in the Democratic party truly want to stand with those who fight against inappropriate behavior, bullying and sexual harassment, they will promptly reinstate a successor to the 2016 policy and apologize to all those they abandoned by eliminating it in the first place.

We owe it to all the young people who devote their lives to politics and the public good.

Anna Whites is a Frankfort attorney who is representing Rep. Daniel Grossberg.

This story was originally published September 23, 2024 at 10:34 AM.