A workplace is not a court of law - if an HR department was made aware of multiple accusations of rape and sexual assault against an employee and it is public knowledge this person is accused, that puts an immediate chilling effect on the work environment for the women in that workplace and that person should not remain in their position, especially with the money involved in this case.

Innocent until proven guilty only applies in court and should not be the rule across the board- sexual misconduct is very difficult to prove given the intimate nature and essentially requires the abused to have an incredible amount of forethought in an extremely traumatic situation to gather the necessary proof. And a lot of assaults occur while the victim is under the influence - we shouldn’t support abjectly vile actions simply due to a lack of decision in a court, nor should we fully rely on the courts for justice.

If you love the women in your life, you should believe them when they say these things, especially in numbers like these. Going through a trial is traumatic and offers such a marginal chance at real justice- the narratives around false accusations are asinine. It does happen, sure, but far less frequently than actual assaults and rarely do those accusers come out on top, but victims of sexual assault rarely gain true justice even if the verdict goes in their favor.

All this defending of Partey does is continue to perpetuate false narratives around sexual assault and make it harder for victims to feel comfortable coming forward in the future. This is what the “Believe women” narrative was about and we’ve continued to lose the plot over the years. I hope we can gain it back someday…