Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News anchor and sexual harassment survivor / advocate, at a Hearst... [+]
It's been six months since Gretchen Carlson went public with allegations of years of sexual harassment at Fox News when she filed a lawsuit against then-chief Roger Ailes.
Carlson's accusations immediately set in motion a series of extraordinary events at the right-wing media network: first, more women came forward with their own claims of sexual harassment going back half a century. (Ailes denied any wrongdoing.)
Two weeks after Carlson first blew the whistle, Ailes was out as chairman and CEO at Fox News, but not before his lawyers attempted to move the case into arbitration to prevent witnesses (including the growing number of women who recalled similar treatment) from being called into court.
By November, Fox News' marquee star Megyn Kelly had joined the chorus of voices alleging a culture of sexual harassment at the network, including years of inappropriate behavior from Ailes. Kelly has since announced her departure for competitor NBC.
While Carlson agreed to a stunning and unprecedented $20 million settlement in September, her work isn't done. The Stanford graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and former Miss America this week announced she's established a fund to support organizations working with women and girls, including survivors of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse.
She launched the Gift of Courage Fund on Tuesday in front of an audience comprised mostly of millennial women at media giant Hearst, during one of the company's regular Masterclass Q+A sessions.
"I'm just a small town girl from Minnesota, and now this is my mission in life," she told interviewer Jane Francisco, editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping. "I've had many of them, and I plan to see it through."
Carlson's mission includes plans to testify before Congress this spring. Among the topics, she said: how employment arbitration can silence victims of sexual harassment and racial discrimination in the workplace.
"Arbitration clauses have become prevalent in most corporate agreements or contracts for employees," she said. "Initially it was brought about to unclog the court systems. But unfortunately, what ended up being lumped into all of that were really serious accusations, like discrimination, racially or otherwise, or sexual harassment."
She explained that signing an employment contract agreeing to send any internal disputes to arbitration means giving up your constitutional right to go in front of a jury.
"You're also shrouding yourself in secrecy," she said. "The minute that you go to arbitration, it's 100% confidential, so nobody ever hears about it."
As a result, Carlson said, there's a common misconception that instances of sexual harassment have drastically decreased since the Anita Hill era.
"The reality is, if these cases are actually happening, we're not hearing about it because they're going to secret arbitration," she said.
With her testimony to Congress, Carlson will aim to make employment arbitration headline news, as she did with sexual harassment.
"Now I have a voice to be able to speak about this, not just for myself, but for anybody else who might be going through a similar situation," she said.
It's worth noting that when Carlson sued Ailes in July 2016, a Fox News spokesperson called the move "a ludicrous ploy to try and get around the completely enforceable arbitration clause in her contract."
Carlson's lawyer explained her position to the Washington Post at the time. "Listen, do I want to be in arbitration? No. I don’t think arbitration is fair," she said.
She added that she'd noticed Fox News' arbiters had something in common: "They're all white men."
On Tuesday, the day Carlson announced her new fund, Fox News again found itself in the news for alleged sexual harassment, this time for reportedly striking a secret agreement with an employee in an attempt to keep her quiet.
This time, the man in question is top host Bill O'Reilly, who defended Ailes against Carlson and shamed Megyn Kelly when she came forward with her story.
He's accused of sexually harassing a Fox News employee, then trying to ruin her career when she declined his advances. O'Reilly and the network have denied these allegations.
