18 members of Time’s Up Healthcare left the organization last week due to the handling of allegations that co-founder and board member Esther Choo did not report complaints of sexual harassment.
A riot among members of Time’s Up’s health arm is damaging the public image of the influential gender rights organization, just as it is taking on a broader advocacy role in Hollywood, pushing for changes in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Eighteen members of Time’s Up Healthcare resigned last week due to the organization’s handling of allegations that co-founder and board member Esther Choo did not report complaints of sexual harassment made by a co-worker at Oregon Health and Science University. These members feel that the advocacy group has given priority to protecting Choo rather than supporting the anonymous author of the case.
The mass exodus represents more than a third of the industry, which was created to address issues of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in healthcare within the larger organization of Time’s Up Now. The controversy illuminates the persistent concerns that Time’s Up fails to fulfill its goal of prioritizing survivors of sexual assault and harassment when that goal conflicts with the interests of powerful members or funders.
“I believed in Time’s Up Healthcare’s mission, which I thought was to focus on survivors,” said Monica McLemore, co-founder of Time’s Up Healthcare and associate professor in the UCSF family health nursing department, who resigned from the organization last week . “I am angry because we missed a perfect opportunity to model the behavior we want to see in companies and workplaces. I don’t need more evidence to show me that some people don’t take what they say seriously. “
Time’s Up President and CEO Tina Tchen responded to the controversy in a long March 10 statement to The Hollywood Reporter, which would then go to Time’s Up leaders and supporters on March 11. “Dr. Choo acted in a way that she believed to support the survivor, including the issue of reporting abuse, and consistent with the values she demonstrated as one of the people who founded TIME’S UP Healthcare, ”says the statement in part. “Providing support and counseling to those who have suffered the trauma of sexual harassment and abuse, especially in the workplace, can be difficult. There is not always a clear path to advice and advice, especially when we center the survivor’s desires and ability to make decisions for herself at that moment … I don’t agree that staying with the survivor and supporting her in her quest for justice it demands that we walk away from Dr. Choo and her leadership ”.
Days after members of the Time’s Up healthcare group made public statements about the organization on Twitter, members of a Time’s Up entertainment committee received an agreement containing a confidentiality clause to sign before their next meeting on March 17 , a movement to raise eyebrows for an organization founded in defiance of confidentiality agreements traditionally used in sexual harassment and aggression settlements. A source at Time’s Up says the purpose of the deal is to protect the privacy of members who may be sharing stories of abuse or harassment, and not to protect the organization.
Some sexual assault advocates and Hollywood survivors have followed with concern the way Time’s Up is handling the OHSU case, including Weinstein’s accuser Rose McGowan, who calls the organization’s role here “gross and blatant”. “I’ve been trying for a long time to sound the Time’s Up alarm,” says McGowan THR. “These are the women at Time’s Up who help bad people. These are the perpetrators now on their own merits. There are many ways to participate in sexual activities [misconduct]. There is the act and the consequences. They are illegal and have always been a fraud ”.
Although created as a gender rights group, Time’s Up has expanded its reach, recently taking on a vocal role in HFPA’s critique of the racial makeup and ethics of this group. On March 9, Time’s Up called on all HFPA members to resign immediately, among other demands.
Time’s Up Healthcare’s resignations, which began on March 4 and continued through March 9, follow the February 26 filing of a sexual harassment case against former Oregon Health and Science University doctor Jason Campbell, popularly known as the “TikTok doctor” for videos of him dancing in his hospital, which were widely shared on TikTok during the pandemic. The complaint alleges that Campbell sent suggestive messages and photos to the plaintiff, and came up behind her and pushed his erection inside her. Neither Campbell nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff told Choo, professor of emergency medicine at OHSU, where he works with Campbell, about the harassment on March 31, 2020, and Choo did not report, as required by Title IX, to Laura Stadum, of OHSU Title IX coordinator and co-founder of Time’s Up Healthcare. (Choo, who also runs Equity Quotient, a for-profit company that advises on gender and racial issues in medicine, recruited Stadum to join Time’s Up). When the plaintiff provided details and screenshots, the complaint says, Choo responded by message: “Ugh, I’m giving him feedback.” In April, the plaintiff said she told Choo that Campbell had also harassed and sexually assaulted an OHSU employee, but that the victim was afraid to report him. Choo’s response to the complainant regarding the sexual harassment report was: “It’s never worth it. Never, ”says the complaint.
After media reports of the process began circulating over the weekend of February 27 and 28, several members of Time’s Up heard from colleagues in the healthcare industry wondering when the group would respond, and several members pressured the leadership of Time’s Up to do so fast. At the time, Time’s Up was focused on its prominent HFPA efforts around the February 28 Golden Globe ceremony.
Time’s Up consists of several arms, including the Legal Defense Fund hosted by the National Women’s Law Center, which supported more than 200 legal cases, the Time’s Up Foundation, which is the main public charity 501 (c) (3), and Time’s Up Now, a 501 (c) (4) social welfare organization, which oversees Time’s Up Healthcare.
When the OHSU case went public and started to generate discussion in the medical community, McLemore sent an email to Tchen and COO Monifa Bandele suggesting that the organization issue a statement of support to the plaintiff in the OHSU case and publicly say that Choo and Stadum would refrain from participating in any Time-Up related activities until the dispute is resolved. In a March 2 call from Zoom to several of Time’s Up Healthcare co-founders, Time’s Up Now leaders said that doing so would be tantamount to an admission of guilt by Choo and would attract more attention, according to several sources that were in the call. In a March 3 call with more than 20 Time’s Up Healthcare members in attendance, but without the leadership of Time’s Up Now, most members said they supported Choo temporarily. “Nobody hates Esther,” said a member who was on the March 3 conference call. “But they think she is human, and humans make mistakes and, when they make mistakes, they must admit and be responsible for them.”
On March 4, Time’s Up issued a statement saying it was “in solidarity with the survivor in its decision to share its story”, but defending Choo. “Although Dr. Esther Choo is mentioned in the complaint, it is important to clarify that she is neither a defendant nor a party to the case,” the statement said. “The two defendants are Dr. Jason Campbell, alleged in the complaint for having committed the sexual harassment and assault in question, and Oregon Health and Science University, then his employer. Since Dr. Choo is, at most, a witness to these events and may have to testify about them, it is not appropriate for Dr. Choo or TIME’S UP to comment further on disputed issues. “
That statement sparked a wave of layoffs. “There were divided loyalties,” says Pringl Miller, a surgeon and co-founder of Time’s Up Healthcare, who is also president and founder of the advocacy group Physician Just Equity. “Instead of just centering the survivor, [the statement] it was also about securing support for Dr. Choo. “
The concerns raised by the dismissed Time’s Up Healthcare group members reflect those that sexual assault survivors raised last year around the role of Time’s Up behind the scenes in the HBO Max documentary On O Record. Oprah Winfrey, one of the founding donors of Time’s Up , had initially supported the project on Apple + before abandoning it, telling The New York Times and CBS This Morning that there were “inconsistencies” in the accusers’ reports. When Time’s Up refused to add its name to a list of organizations that issued a statement of support for women in the film, many gender equality activists felt that the organization was choosing the interests of a powerful donor over the survivors. of sexual assault that was created. serve.
Tatiana Siegel contributed to this report.