Last week the New York Times broke a story that primetime Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has been settling multiple cases of sexual harassment accusations from women that worked or appeared on his show.
O’Reilly has said that the accusations “do not have merit”, but has given more than 13 million dollars in settlements. According to uncovered reports, the accusations range from crude comments, unwanted advances, promises in career advancement for sexual favor, and invitations to his hotel room. While this story exists far away, its lessons are transferable to us. On our campus, April is sexual assault awareness month, and this week is Code T.E.A.L.’s awareness week. While these months/weeks seem somewhat arbitrary, their goals are transferrable after we graduate DePauw.
Women with sexual harassment claims may settle in court for many reasons, but in this case Fox News Network settled internal cases of sexual harassment. O’Reilly has the number one show in cable news, giving him an undeniably large fan base and the support of a major news network.
Yet those are small details compared to the money -- four million people tune into his show every night generating $446 million in ad revenue in two years. According to the Times, Fox News knew about the accusations but kept the show on air. A few days after, President Donald Trump defended Bill O’Reilly on the matter even though he was not requested to comment.
Disgusted with the accusations, several organizations have launched campaigns to get advertisers to drop out of the show. The Women’s March on Washington group support the campaign #DropOReilly and the National Organization of Women has called for him to be fired from the network.
Thus far, more than a dozen major advertisers have pulled their ads from the primetime show including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bayer, Allstate insurance, and other large pharmaceutical companies.
However, DePauw alum Angie Hick’s company, consumer-recommendation service Angie’s List, made a point to keep their advertising in the program. Their statement read, “Just as we trust members to make their own hiring decisions, we trust them to make their own media consumption decisions.” The statement incited a quick backlash online, with many women threatening to #GrabYourWallet and cancel subscriptions to the service.
So what does this have to do with DePauw? In one way, it allows us to see how the sexual harassment/assault conversation extends past campus walls to politics, media, and business. It is important to understand that while college campuses provide the environment that can normalize this culture, the practice of sexual harassment is internalized and repeated if unchallenged.
Furthermore, Angie’s List refusal to pull advertising is illuminating to how women can reinforce this normalization of sexual assault culture. By pushing the focus off of O’Reilly and onto the consumer, Angie’s List also shifted the responsibility away from the assaulter. Therefore, while conversations about sexual assault may seem arbitrarily assigned, their necessity cannot be understated.
I appreciate the work that organizations like Code T.E.A.L. does on this campus and hope that we, as students, engage more in these conversations. Then, when we are leading the companies of tomorrow, we represent DePauw better than Hicks and Angie’s List.