E64: Own Our Voices | Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky on Changing the Law that Perpetuates Silence

This week’s episode of Aspire is a conversation about breaking silences around workplace harassment and discrimination, and how survivors can turn personal pain into policy change. Hosts Chessy Prout and Alex Prout are joined by intern co-host Kalaya Hudziec-Leiva, and guests Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, the co-founders of Lift Our Voices.

Gretchen and Julie share how their own experiences at Fox News led them to challenge the systems that kept people silent, including forced arbitration and non-disclosure agreements. They reflect on how difficult it can be to speak publicly, how institutions often protect power instead of people, and why educating young people about their rights is essential. The conversation also explores how public storytelling, legal advocacy, and bipartisan organizing helped move major federal reforms forward.

Chessy brings the discussion back to the survivor experience, naming the importance of holding onto a full identity beyond trauma and of building communities where people feel safe to speak up. Alex highlights the need to shift culture, not just law, while Kalea asks thoughtful questions about legislative change and the role of public voices in shaping public understanding. Together, they make a strong case that silence is what allows harm to continue, and that collective action can create real accountability.

Make sure to follow Lift Our Voices and learn more at https://liftourvoices.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Aspire, and I have the Right2 podcast, where we amplify voices, share stories, and drive change in the fight against sexual assault. We explore the critical issues surrounding student safety, institutional accountability, and survivor empowerment. In every episode, our goal is to provide insightful conversations with survivors, experts, educators, and advocates, giving you, our listener, valuable information, resources, and actionable steps to create safer environments and cultivate a culture of respect and consent.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Welcome back to the I of the Right to Aspire podcast. I'm Chessie Prout, and I'm here with my two co-hosts for today, Kalea Hudsick Leva and Alex Prout. Before we jump into our conversation today, I'd like to introduce Kalea. Kalea is an intern with I Of the Right to, and she's studying criminology and sociolegal studies specialist with a philosophy and sociology minor at the University of Toronto. She's also a member of the student group, the PEIRS Project, and serves as a peer supporter for survivors. Kalea, we're so thankful for your work with I Of the Right To and excited you're here with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be part of this conversation today.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

And finally, we are so incredibly grateful and excited to announce that our guests today are Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, co-founders of Lift Our Voices, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the use of forced arbitration and non-disclosure agreements that silence survivors of workplace harassment and discrimination.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Gretchen Carlson is a fierce, fearless, and internationally recognized advocate for women's rights whose bold actions against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes helped pave the way for the global Me Too movement. A former CBS News and Fox News journalist, author, TED Talk alum, and champion for workplace equality, Carlson was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Also joining us is Julie Roginski. Julie is a nationally recognized political consultant. Roginsky began her career working at a prominent organization dedicated to electing more women to political office. Throughout her career, she has focused her efforts on mentoring and empowering women to become engaged in the political process. Since filing her lawsuit for sexual harassment and retaliation against the Fox News Channel, she has dedicated herself to ending the silencing mechanisms that prevent survivors of workplace toxicity from coming forward about their experience. She serves as an advisor to major corporations, startups, nonprofits, labor unions, and dozens of elected officials, including governors, senators, members of the House of Representatives, and state legislators. They have both transformed their personal experiences into powerful advocacy, helping to drive landmark legislative change and amplify survivor voices across the country. Through Lift Our Voices, they are working to ensure that no one is forced into silence and that survivors have the right to speak their truth. And on a personal note, Gretchen and Julie, again, thank you so much for joining us as a father of a survivor, as someone who's been through the criminal justice process and seen the secondary victimization that all survivors of sexual violence face, meaning the shunning and the blaming and the silencing from society. I can't be more proud to have you on as guests and so grateful for the important work that you guys chose to do as a result of everything you had to face and turning that into something positive. So a big thank you and a big welcome today.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Thanks for having us. So we wanted to start off by just recognizing that the work that you do is based on these sort of deeply personal experiences that a lot of people have to go through or endure in the workplace. And you've turned that into a powerful national advocacy machine. If you could pinpoint for our listeners, what was the moment that you that it clicked that your voices could drive this sort of systematic change?

SPEAKER_04 4:21

I guess I'll kick it off. I thought I was going to be sitting in my house house crying my eyes out, you know, for the rest of my life after doing something like that. I never intended or thought that it would lead me to advocacy, but immediately I started hearing from thousands of women across our country and frankly around the world. And they really buoyed my spirits and lifted me up in a dark time. But then I realized that they were all telling me the same story. Not only that sexual misconduct in the world was still a huge problem, but that the silencing of people who had the courage to come forward was also an epidemic. And I just had this feeling inside of my gut, like I've I've got to try and do something about this, because the majority of people who reached out to me said, Thank you for being my voice. I'm voiceless. So please, could you please be my voice? And it just began a long process of me starting in Washington, DC, meeting with members of Congress and other organizations who had long been fighting these issues and really trying to make profound change, which we have ultimately been able to do, at least as a starting point.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Yeah, for me, it was um a little different than Gretchen. I filed my lawsuit, actually, the anniversary was just a couple of days ago, nine years ago now, and um against Fox. I wanted to just move on with my life when that was all over and not be a face for either sexual harassment or for any of these issues. I just wanted to move on. So a little different than Gretchen's reaction, naively, I think, in some ways. And so right around the time that that happened, uh, a bunch of young women who I'd been working with on a campaign approached me because of my Fox News lawsuit and said, listen, we never thought you were kind of one of us. Uh, you're much older than we are, but we wanted to just tell you about what's been going on here. And uh told me horrific stories, just awful stories. I approached the candidate who was my client and told him about this. And uh, instead of doing something about this, he fired me for blowing the whistle. And uh, that was just an incredibly stunning moment in my life. And it reminded me that I was bound by a very stringent NDA where I could not discuss anything that had happened on that campaign. Uh, about eight months later, nine months later, a young woman called me up because she had been raped on that campaign and nobody had taken her seriously. She wanted help. I could not help her because I was bound by this NDA. And it was really the darkest moment of my life professionally, just to have a young woman. She'd been a volunteer on the campaign, crying, literally asking for help. And I had to weigh whether um I was going to do the right thing or whether I was going to do something that was going to protect me financially from not being sued into oblivion by a multimillionaire now governor of New Jersey named Philip Murphy. And so, from that perspective, that was just such a horrible moment in my life that I said, I have to do something about this. Nobody else should go through this ever again and have to make these kinds of decisions. And so at that point, I'd obviously known Gretchen from Fox. I knew how deeply engaged she was in these issues. I called her up and I said, we've got to do something about this. And that's how we got together and created Lift Our Voices and I really made some incredible lemonade out of some pretty big lemons that we were handed.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

I'm there's so many different things that I want to react to with what you both just said. Um, so much of it sounds so similar to the experiences that I hear from other survivors as well as my own experience in coming forward. It is such a double-edged sword to come forward and share your story with huge ramifications with the NDAs that you you had to consider, but also because being a public face, like you said, Julie, of this issue can be, I mean, you don't want to be known as just a survivor of harassment or assault when you are such a full, complete human being with so many other attributes and successes and um hopes and dreams. And, you know, I was 15 when I was assaulted at St. Paul's school and came forward to the police, and then 17 when I came forward publicly on the Today Show. And I have made a concerted effort the last 12 years to make sure that I maintain an identity outside of the identity that I carry as a survivor as well, and have spoken to so many survivors about how when you're when you're labeled that so young, it's so important to also remind people that, you know, we're all human beings that are multifaceted. But I also wanted to just appreciate as well the dichotomy that you both represented in that Gretchen, you know, you said you it just felt immediately you knew your voice would make an impact. And Julie, that sort of hesitation that you faced. Now, with both of those sort of experiences and feelings at the beginning of your journey, how has that served you as partners in an organization that as an English major, I wanted to point out the lift our voices. I love the idea of it's our, it's a collective, it's all of us. Instead of lift your voice or lift my voice, it's not singular, it's collective. So I'd love to hear about your experience working together and building this movement. I think we're all in, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Um, I think, yeah, there's it's it's it's uh we both have other jobs, but this isn't in many ways a full-time job as well, and one that we're deeply committed to. And I think we both have said this is the most important thing that we will ever do short of short of our children, because it has the potential and has already changed so many people's lives. And so from that perspective, it's not really about us. Look, Gretchen and I will never be able to talk about what happened to us at Fox News. We're bound by NDAs for the rest of our lives. We've tried to get out of them. Um, Fox has refused to even get back to us. So it's not so much about us, but it is about helping other people and making sure that other people will have their voices. And it's an incremental process. It's a very long process. It's not like waving a magic wand and making sure that people will be able to speak right away, but we are making that slow and steady progress. And we will continue to do that until everybody has their voice in this country.

SPEAKER_04 10:44

Yeah, I'd just add to that that I people are always stunned to find out that we don't own our own stories because of, you know, the amount of advocacy that we are doing. And there's been a major motion picture about our story and a mini-series about our story. And so people just assumed that we participated in these projects and that we collaborated and that we actually signed off on our life story, which ironically, we we couldn't even talk to the producers. Uh, we certainly didn't get paid for anything. So we live in a world where it's okay for other people to tell your own personal heart-wrenching story and you can't even comment on whether or not the portrayal of you as a person is accurate or not. And I'll take that a step more. My husband can't comment on it, my kids can't comment on it. These NDAs are so far-reaching, you know, that it's that it's really absurd. And in my case, my NDA is with three separate parties. So even if one party, for example, the parent company of Fox decided to let me out, would my alleged abuser, Roger Ayle's wife, let me out? She's the third party. I mean, it supersedes to her. He's dead. It supersedes to her, their son. He's 25. So, you know, just to footnote how how much Julie and I will never own our own voices. And I think that inspires us to make sure that we're gonna do it for millions of other people. Remarkably, millions of people will probably never even meet. And that's what's so gratifying about this work is that we don't own our own voice, but we're gonna be damn sure that other people do.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So my goodness. I mean, that is so inspiring to just hear the strength in both of your guys' voices with how you sort of declare what your mission is and and your work is. And, you know, within the Proud Family, we developed the term of we just found all these beautiful people that we rebuilt as our community post-Chessy's assault, finding people with unbelievable particular areas of superpower. Right. And what we've loved doing over the years is working with people who have these different specific superpowers, areas that they work in with particular strengths or or focuses. I find it quite remarkable that two accomplished people like yourselves could be silenced, you know, in such a way, right? Because I just think, fortunately, in my case, I had to sign an NDA with my employer at the time that um where I had a job when Chessie was assaulted. But I can speak about what generated the most frustration with me when my my boss in Hong Kong, you know, when I gave him an update on Chessie, he said, Well, I certainly hope Chessie learns better judgment in the future. I sort of left and then, you know, got no support from the firm and was eventually fired for cause. But because Chessie knew all about this and wrote it in a book before my lawsuit was settled, I can always just refer to the page in Chess's book about what happened. But I cannot even imagine the f the frustration that would, you know, exist. But I need to credit you guys because when you were going through all of this, it helped inform our family when we were in our lawsuit with St. Paul's School. And we um be because of reading about all of this nonsense at Fox Um and NDAs, we did not agree to an NDA with St. Paul's School and just said that's black and white. And with someone who is isolated in silence, taking their voice seems like, you know, just such cruel, extraordinary, you know, punishment. But what was it crystal clear to you guys that this would be the area of your focus from the beginning? Or did you think about other areas to, you know, sort of point and direct your your work?

SPEAKER_04 14:38

It was very clear to me because I had a forced arbitration clause in my last contract with Fox News. I had signed three or four different contracts with them over 11 years. I did not have arbitration in my previous contracts. So it really stood out to me, even though I will say as a highly educated woman who had reached the pinnacle of the television industry, I didn't understand what forced arbitration meant. And I asked my agent and my lawyer at the time, why are these, why are they putting this into my contract? Because obviously I knew already how I was allegedly being treated. And they said, oh, don't worry about it. It's becoming the way of the world. Well, unfortunately, that is incredibly true because people never used to have to agree to forced arbitration to adjudicate, you know, bad behavior at work. This idea of being forced into the secrecy of arbitration where you can't go to an open jury process. And this it's how companies hide their dirty laundry. This really exploded since the early 1990s when only 2% of employees were under forced arbitration. In this year alone, 82% of all American workers are under forced arbitration. It's just exploded out of control. So that's why companies have been able to give a false impression to the world that they don't have any problems because all of these cases are going to arbitration instead of to an open process, which is one of your amendment rights. So when I assembled my legal team, they looked at my contract and they said, We got some bad news for you. And I said, What? I've got all this evidence. They said, it doesn't matter. You have a forced arbitration clause. You also are going to go over to this secret chamber where thousands of other people have gone over the last couple of decades, and no one's ever going to know your story, and no one's ever going to hear from you ever again. Well, that would have been what happened to me unless my lawyers came up with a brilliant move to try and sue my alleged perpetrator personally. There was a law on the books in the city of New York, a human rights violation law that allowed them to do that. And so I technically did not sue Fox News because of my arbitration clause. I sued Roger Ailes for human rights violations. And that's the only way that my case was able to be public. Otherwise, you know, we arguably might not be in the Me Too movement because my case would have also gone to secrecy. Then after my story became public, I realized what a horrible thing was for forced arbitration to be adjudicating these claims. And that really was what spearheaded me to try and make moves in, you know, in Capitol Hill to really try and make meaningful change. Luckily, there were organizations that have been working on this for a long time, but they never really could get the notoriety behind it because it's kind of a wonky issue. People don't know what they're signing in their contracts. And so I had a little bit more of a public-facing case, and it was a perfect storm of us coming together where I learned a lot from them. They were able to use my story to try and get news attention for it. And, you know, it took us five years to really build enough members of Congress to support this movement, but we did pass the law to get rid of forced arbitration for sexual misconduct in the workplace in 2022, which is one of the biggest labor law changes in the last 100 years.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Yeah, and mine was much more, as I said, based on NDAs, because I did not have a forced arbitration contract clause in my contract at Fox. And the one thing I will say is when I went to sue Fox News, I used the same lawyers Gretchen used. And about less than a year later, the first question they asked was whether I had an arbitration clause in my contract. And I said, I have no idea. Same thing, highly educated, know how to read, just never ever uh occurred to me to even know what a forced arbitration contract or an arbitration contract was or clause was. And so I said, I'll have to get back to you. And they said, fine, you know, if you do have one, we will not be able to take your case, not because we don't believe you, not because you don't have evidence, but because you uh will never get any kind of justice if you do. And so luckily I did not have one. They did not put an arbitration clause in my contract, probably because I was a contributor and not a full-time staff member. So that was not something that was really on my radar. It is now very much because of the work that we do, because of the experience Gretchen had. But at the time it was not. NDAs, as I said, were really what inspired me to do this work because I just understood the really awful, pernicious effect that NDAs have, not just for survivors, but for people who want to help survivors. In my case, it wasn't because of me. I mean, I have one with Fox, but the one that really triggered my work was not because of um anything that I had experienced personally. It was really because this woman, this very young woman, was asking for help and I could not help her. And that was just an untenable situation to put somebody in. And I just decided that could not happen to anybody else.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Just for some more background context, um, lift our voices has played a key role in legislative progress, specifically around the ending forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment act passed by President Biden in 2022 around forced arbitration. Can you walk us through what that fight looked like behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Sure. So as I alluded to, um, that was the first law that we were able to get both parties to come together on over a five-year period of time before we could get enough to agree to it. And then um I'll just talk as well about the Speak Out Act, which is our second federal law that we were able to pass just eight months later in December 2022. And this one has to do with NDAs because we believe, you know, the two evils of silencing are forced arbitration and non-disclosure agreements, as well as non-disparagement, but that falls under NDAs. So we passed the Speak Out Act in December 2022, which eradicates pre-dispute NDAs for sexual misconduct in the workplace. So, what does that mean? Um first of all, let me just say it's not everything that we wanted, because we wanted to get rid of NDAs for not only for sexual assault and harassment survivors, but also for all forms of discrimination, whether it's race, gender, age, uh, you know, et cetera. Um, but we have decided to tackle this one piece at a time. And then to make it even more limiting, specifically the Republicans wanted to make it only apply to pre-dispute NDAs, meaning that this does not uh ban NDAs upon settlement, for example, or upon uh leaving the company and getting your severance. That would mean that you would still possibly have to sign an NDA, unfortunately. What this law does is that one-third of all Americans sign NDAs on their first day of work, not knowing that they're signing away their right to talk about anything from pay to sexual assault to race discrimination. And this gets rid of that NDA from that point forward for sexual misconduct, up until a dispute arises. And that will be decided by the courts as to what a dispute is. We would argue that you own your voice all the way up until maybe you get your right to sue letter from the EEOC, or you actually file a lawsuit. A more conservative interpretation of that might be that a dispute arises the minute. That you go to complain. So judges ultimately will be making that decision. But we will say that so far for our first law with regard to arbitration, judges have been ruling quite liberally. And that has been extremely good news because people are getting more justice out of our ending forced arbitration law than we really ever thought that they would. And so we just released a study, in fact, about how many people have actually received justice so far. And it's really mind-numbing how many people that we've been able to help who haven't had to go into secrecy.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

It's so incredible to hear you talk about the ways that things have changed since the action and the work that you all have started with Lift Our Voices and your own personal stories. Now, a lot of our listeners are students and young kids and teachers and young adults. And, you know, as a young adult myself, I often have looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, even though I've experienced a handful of traumas in my life at 12, experiencing the Toku earthquake in Japan with death and devastation and nuclear fallout. I learned at that age that, you know, okay, maybe the world isn't all roses and sunshine, bad things happen and we've got to move on from them and deal with them. But I still hold out hope that institutions eventually will want to do the right thing, that governments want to protect their people, or I'd I'd hope that this would be the case. How have you found the institutional reaction to the work that you're doing? What was it like to hold these negotiations with the members of Congress and the Senate to get their support for the bill that you passed in 2022? And what was the pushback like? What are their fears? And yeah, do you see this as a step forward that will lead to much more institutional change?

SPEAKER_03 23:58

I I think institutions, whether it's Congress or corporate or any other stakeholder, is not a monolith, right? So you've got people on both sides, some people acting in very good faith, some people having concerns. Um, some people having concerns not because they're trying to be dodgy, but because they truly have a core set of beliefs that may not align with ours. I think to some extent, it's like negotiating anything else in the real world where you create alliances where you can. And then Gretchen has this incredible way of being persuasive with members of Congress who might not otherwise have been on the right side of these issues. Um, I've never seen anybody have that kind of gift. And I worked in politics a very long time. So from that perspective, it is very plotting, it is difficult, it is in many cases exhilarating and in many cases mind-numbing at the same time, where you have to um approach people over and over and over again to get them to yes. And sometimes you're successful and sometimes you're not. But I but I do want to say, at least from my perspective, having both worked um on the hill and and working in politics and also going through the process of of this legislation, you know, I think whether there are people who vote with us or against us, for the most part, and I really want younger people listening to it to understand this, for the most part, these are people who truly believe in their worldview, even if we don't agree with it. And to say that they're doing this for reasons that they believe are the right reasons, not because they are trying to necessarily prevent somebody from receiving justice or or in our view being able to speak out. Sometimes they're wrong, but they nevertheless, I think, have their own core set of beliefs that it is our job to change and and be persuasive with.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

I just add to that that first of all, it's all about education. Even members of Congress have no idea what we're talking about when we come in the room to talk about forced arbitration. They just have no idea. I mean, if you think about all the pieces of legislation that come before them, they can't possibly read everything and be educated on it, which is kind of scary when you think about it in that way. It's their it's their 20-year-old assistants who are really doing the deep dive and then telling them how to vote. I mean, I'm not gonna say for everyone, but that that's kind of how the system works. So education was crucial to be able to express to them how debilitating this kind of a secrecy system has been on people in America to be able to get justice. And really, we would say to them, look, the train is leaving the station. American workers want more transparency. They don't want, when something bad happens to them, to go to secrecy. And I think because we had lived so publicly our sexual misconduct cases, at least for the sexual harassment and assault side of things in changing the law, there was much more empathy about what we had gone through. And I think from a Republicans' point of view, they were probably thinking, wow, if this could happen to Gretchen Carlson, who worked at Fox News, maybe I should really take a look at this. And then I would just say from a strategic point of view, when I was trying to get Republicans on board, because this tends to be more of a Democratic issue, we got all Democrats without really even trying. Um, it was Republicans we really had to try and get. I really tried to strategically go after those who had been more amenable to crossing the aisle in the past. So, you know, at Lisa Murkowski or a Susan Collins. And then I went to Senator Rob Portman, who unfortunately has now retired. And why did I go to him? Number one, he was retiring, so maybe he would take more of a risk. And number two, because his son had recently come out as gay. And I thought, okay, he's he's gonna have empathy for protected classes and how they may face discrimination. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. So it was it was a process, and then I would just add in that there were a lot of surprises on people that we would get that we'd be like, wow, like we'd start to do our pitch and they'd be like, hey, you don't even need to pitch us, we're we're with you. I'll I'll give an example, Senator Josh Hawley, like one of the most conservative members of Congress. Why? Because what we found over time is that if members of Congress had been trial lawyers in their past life, they had seen the inequities in the system. They had seen how people had not been able to get justice when they deserved it. Um so then we started going after trial lawyers. So it was, you know, it was a process of um really strategically thinking through who can we possibly get and who will be more amenable to our pitch. And the number one lesson I learned through this whole thing, which is a great lesson for young people, is a really old lesson that you can't judge a book by the cover. Because if I had just gone in or we had just gone in and said, hey, we're never gonna get so-and-so, then we would have never passed these laws. But because we went in with an open mind, and some of them surprised us, we, you know, were able to get it to get it done. So there was a lot of strategy involved, but there was also a tremendous amount of education on our issues, which you know, we still do on a daily basis. I bet for your students listening, they have no idea what we're talking about. And they need to, because when they go out to start their first job, they need to know what they're signing because they're signing away their life. They're signing away their voice. So if you see a forced arbitration clause, we're trying to encourage young people to band together and say, we're not gonna sign this document unless you take that out. Change it to mediation, which is a fairer process, or allow us to go to the court system. Right now, if you say that on your own, you're probably not gonna get the job because they'll just move on to the next person. That's what's happened over time, is that companies have been able to and institutions have been able to accrue this massive power over their workers. So, you know, we have a huge battle in front of us as the only organization doing this work, but it really does start with young people having a better understanding of what they're about to sign and coming together and saying, no, we're not going to do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Well, I I can see then the collaboration ahead of us because what you mentioned, Gretchen, is something that is the reality for students, whether they're in higher ed or in K through 12, because the same lawyers, the same insurance companies are behind higher ed and and regular education, and they're giving the same darn advice in terms of how to, from a you know, actuarial perspective, what is the cheapest, most effective way to silence and make things go away? Right. And that's usually by steamrolling people into silence through any means necessary. So I do think there is a very self-serving message to deliver to young people because God forbid something should happen to them. And the statistics in middle school, high school, and in universities are the same as the workplace, unfortunately, in terms of the likelihood of facing sexual harassment or violence. Um and Julie, one thing you said that made my blood boil because of understanding was this core of set of this core set of beliefs that you referred to that you were sort of up against. I I do acknowledge the reality of that, but it is based on ignorance or maintenance of the old boys' club, right? Um and it's not based on any set of ethical values or integrity or whatever the buzzwords that we might see on websites for corporations, universities, or or schools, right? Um, so I I see a fundamental issue of truth in labeling being significantly lacking um across all of our you know institutions. And I do think there is a need for us all to, you know, collectively use our voices, right? Um, which is and I do think amazing things can happen. I mean, we we are very focused on education that I have the right to. Um, and you know, because we had to go through our own learning curve of that I referred to as listening, learning, and then acting. And when Chesse was assaulted, my wife and I had no idea about anything. We did not know what to do, and we were scrambling for resources and and knowledge. Unfortunately, the other side, St. Paul's School, had an established playbook where they I saw in the emails during our own discovery phase, they were sending emails to each other saying, it's happened again. All right, we know don't let this teacher speak to the press. This is what we got to do. They they had a machine, a practice routine set up. And the fact is every one of our listeners now knows a survivor of sexual violence. The fact is that person hasn't felt safe enough to come forward and speak up because they don't feel safe. And we worked quite some time to develop a simple tagline at our org. Safety starts with respect. And we wanted to create something that everyone could agree with, a simple statement like that. But it's almost a trap because if you do agree with that statement, there's a lot of you know, follow-on that needs to be, you know, implemented to make sure that you know you saw that. And I did see the various, you know, the the the the TV version and the movie version of your experiences, and I'm so sorry what you guys had to face. And, you know, it is such a horrific process to go through, but as you guys know, millions of people understood what you were going through. But in your experience since speaking up, you know, what are the roles of, and I don't like this term, male allies, but you know, what can we do to activate men in this conversation, right? Because theoretically, we all believe that safety starts with respect. We want to create work environments, school environments where everyone can reach their full potential, regardless of who or what they are. Have you seen pushback or have you seen embrace embracing happening when you speak to XYZ Corporation?

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Well, to answer your, I think, your first question about what we could do to enfranchise men and and make them allies in this discussion, I it begins at home. Gretchen and I both have sons. Mine is a little younger than Gretchen's, but nevertheless, it is our job as parents to raise boys who become men, who treat women with respect. And that is fundamentally, I think, the most important thing that anybody can do in this movement. And to the extent that we can get to parents early and explain to them that men have not just nothing to fear from women who are empowered, but in fact should support that and treat women with respect, whether it's sexual assault or sexual harassment or just equal pay at work or or any kind of workplace justice. I mean, these are all things that are deeply important. And if it's not parents who are doing it, it should be teachers who are doing this. As I uh, you know, I have a 13-year-old son, and he's been at a school where they've been teaching them to be quote unquote upstanders, uh, a word I'd never ever heard when I was growing up. But that's something that he learned from kindergarten on. I have no idea how that translates into the real world. And that needs to be reinforced in schools, it needs to be reinforced at home. And Chesse, I think part of the most dis the most disappointing thing, one of the most disappointing things about your story, of course, is that your school did not lend you the support that it should have. Because if a school creates a culture where this kind of behavior is just unacceptable, then that goes a very long way to ensuring that behavior is not acceptable, especially at a boarding school where the parents are not there every single day. Uh to answer your second question about what corporations and organizations do, again, look, these are, you have to look at this uh from my perspective, at least in a in a very kind of cold-blooded way. These are companies that exist to make money and to advance interests, and that they're not necessarily interested in corporate culture for its own sake, but are interested in corporate culture only so much as it advances their goals of prosperity and and growth and whatever else the corporate, you know, game is. And so it is important to make clear to these corporations, and Gretchen said that education's a key, and in this case it really is, that the more your workers feel empowered at work, they are more productive, which means that it's better for your bottom line. The more women, people of color, LGBTQ members, and others that you have in your place of employment. There are studies that have shown that the more diverse your companies are from those perspectives, the better they do financially. And so all of this is something that requires education, both in answer to your first question about raising boys who become young men, who become grown men who treat women with respect, and also companies, because it is in everybody's interest for that to happen.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

And the majority of people at the top in America are men. Right or wrong. So we always extend the olive branch to men because we need them. We need them to help us to get this job done. And imagine if you're a CEO of a company and you decide to change the dynamic just by listening to us for five minutes. So you gather your employees together and you say, We're not gonna tolerate bad behavior at this place, and we're not gonna penalize people who come forward to say that something bad is happening to them, and we're not gonna cover up bad actors for bad actors. Instead, if you have the courage to come forward, we want to know what's not right for you, and we will do an independent investigation, and we will do a fair investigation, and if we find your claims to be accurate, we will get rid of the bad person and not you. You will be able to stay in your job, and that will be our company culture. Now, that sounds really simple. That ain't what's happening in America right now. That's not what's happening. It's the exact opposite. It's like we live in this culture where the minute somebody comes forward, they are automatically the bad person. We gotta get rid of them. And that's what we've all experienced on this call. And it's unfortunate. We Julie and I often say passing bipartisan legislation twice in the most hyper-political time of our generation was easier than changing culture around these issues. Now, passing laws is one way to force change, and that's why we do it. Education also incredibly important. But getting actually to the majority of Americans to change their mindset, that starts at the top. So if anyone's listening and they run a company, reach out to us. We'll be happy to make you move in the right direction or help you move in the right direction because we've got to start somewhere. And if it's just one company at a time, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

So um, Gretchen, you mentioned using both your known story and research and education to convince lawmakers to sign onto the bill at I Have the Right to, we center survivor-centric voices as catalysts for change and education. As public figures, how have you seen your professional platform of storytelling shift public perception?

SPEAKER_04 39:58

Well, initially we had the platform about sexual misconduct because that's what happened to us. And we were both public-facing people. So as I said earlier, I think that that helped us sway members of Congress who thought, wow, if that could happen to them, maybe we should listen to them a little bit more intently. And I would just say as we continue our work at Lift Our Voices, it helps that we're public-facing people because we, you know, our voices sometimes are heard louder, whether it's with the press or otherwise, where we can get more attention. That's why we we always think about all the people that we're doing this work on behalf of, who maybe don't have the same kind of public-facing ability to get their messages across. So, you know, to that extent, I guess I feel personally responsibility to do that for others because I I do have a bigger platform probably than than most people, just based on the job that I that I chose to do and how public our stories became. Julie, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Um no, I think that's actually a great answer because ultimately it's just a question of having a voice to be able to do this. As Gretchen said, the fact that we're public-facing, the fact that we're able to get these points across is fine, but we should not be the only ones who have that kind of public voice.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

That's so, so true. And and you shouldn't have to be in a high-profile case to be able to get justice or for people to care or for attorneys to pay attention and for attorneys to stay on deadlines. You know, we also need attorneys and um advocates who are as invested and can teach us our rights in the legal system as well, because you know, we have shifted our language around the it's not the criminal justice system, it's the criminal legal system. There's not a lot of justice that happens in that system as we can see. And the it there is a there is a system set up to silence survivors, but thankfully, because of people like you and the people that I've been able to meet on my journey and gather around as people that have closely supported us. There are so many people, like you said, who have done the work prior and who are doing the work now. And thank you for being a part of that group that's doing the work now for everybody, for the benefit of everybody, not just not even just the survivors of the people who've experienced the harassment at the end of the day. You you better the life of a perpetrator as well when they can take accountability for their actions. A lot of the time that those actions stem from a place of deep hurt from their end as well. And, you know, to to stop that cycle of hurt from moving forward, there does need to be some sort of addressing um the backgrounds of perpetrators, which is a whole nother topic that we can get into another time. But to end our conversations on the podcast, we like to ask our guests to complete their own I have the right to statement. That was a phrase that was really important to me when I was going through my journey at the beginning. And I'd love to hear what that phrase means to you today.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

I have the right to feel immense satisfaction in knowing that we are helping so many millions of Americans and people around the world be able to own their own voices. And that'll be more important than any job I've ever had, other than being a mom, and will be our legacy. And I think it's a testament to the fact that you never know what your real purpose in life is until you find it.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

And I have a message. Um, you know, a lot of times at our org, since we've named ourselves, I have the right to, you know, we have to flip it a bit to say, for especially those who have the privilege of responsibility or power is I have the responsibility to, right? And I think there are many of us that have the responsibility to listen to the voices. That are being raised. Right. Because there are more and more voices being raised now, thanks to you guys, thanks to Chess, thanks to all of the other thousands, millions of survivors that that speak up every day now. A message to the men out there, we have the responsibility to listen better, to develop empathy, to use our voices to bring about change. If it's because you have a mother, then do it, right? I think we all have mothers, but I've heard some strange reasons why men should get involved with these topics. But I can tell you as someone who's impacted their family that this is an epidemic in our country. To our listeners today, I think I don't remember, Gretchen, if it was you or Julie that said, you know, this would be a great episode for you to invite number one, your mom to listen to and to ask a conversation. Mom, have you ever faced any, you know, other forms of sexual violence? Right. And how were you able to deal with it? How were you able to process it and develop those connections and conversations? And hopefully there might even be a dad present at some of these conversations to sort of listen to and understand is this something that we want to accept in our society, right? That these things can happen without consequence, without accountability, without any kind of you know, support structure in place for the people that are impacted by this violence, which occurs to men, women, all people. This happens to. So, you know, I'm just so thrilled that you guys um came on our show because obviously I've been following your work since you started. And I think it's such an important way. I've been in finance for 40 years. I've seen it every single day in the workplace, right? And things need to change. And we can't just re you know, resolve ourselves to a pass the trash policy, which is effectively what is in place now. If someone does face consequences, then they are just allowed to leave without any knowledge of what happened and they move to another firm and and probably do the same darn thing again. But I think there's a lot for our listeners to absorb here. And I think some very interesting conversations that can happen around the dinner table based on what we said today. So, Cessia, maybe I'll turn it to you to bring us home.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Gretchen and Julie, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. We're so grateful for your voices and for your advocacy and for the way that you're changing the world for people like me and Kalea and the students that we work with. Thank you so much. To everyone listening, if today's episode resonated with you, we invite you to share it with someone in your life who might need it. These conversations grow stronger when more people are willing to lean in. And if you're looking for ways to bring these conversations into your school or community, I of the Right2 partners with K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to provide trauma-informed programming on consent, healthy relationships, and leadership. You can reach us at takeaction at ioftheright to.org. You can also learn more about Gretchen and Julie's work at liftarvoices.org in our show notes, along with ways to connect and support their work. And as things can feel very heavy lately, I'd like to leave you with this reflection. What is your Eye of the Right To statement? What is the boundary, the truth, the hope, or the future you are claiming for yourself and for your community? Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring about safer communities, and thank you for doing your part to build them.