The Article: 15 Women Allege Sexual Harassment And Verbal Abuse From Redskins Employees
*NOTE* The article is behind Washington Post's paywall. I agree with making people pay for well-researched journalism. Here's how the article begins:
WaPo - A few months after Emily Applegate started working for the Washington Redskins in 2014, she settled into a daily routine: She would meet a female co-worker in the bathroom during their lunch breaks, she said, to commiserate and cry about the frequent sexual harassment and verbal abuse they endured.
They cried about the former chief operating officer’s expletive-laced tirades, Applegate said, when she recalled him calling her “f-----g stupid” and then requesting she wear a tight dress for a meeting with clients, “so the men in the room have something to look at.” They cried about a wealthy suiteholder who grabbed her friend’s backside during a game, Applegate said, and the indifference the team’s top sales executive displayed when she complained.
Applegate is one of 15 former female Redskins employees who told The Washington Post they were sexually harassed during their time at the club.
So the article that has been teased all week just dropped in the Washington Post. 15 women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against many employees in the Redskins organization. The article goes into detail about allegations against a bunch of employees, most noticeably Alex Santos and Richard Mann II who were both fired last week.
In an exchange with one former female colleague, Mann joked about getting an “inappropriate hug.” In two exchanges with another female colleague, Mann informed her he and his colleagues were discussing whether her breasts had been surgically enhanced — “real or fake is the debate,” he texted — and offered to bring her lunch for a favor.
“If I bring that I want to squeeze your butt,” Mann texted.
And there's a lot of stuff in there like this:
“He would tell me I was stupid for not being able to print something out the way he wanted, and directly follow with, ‘Oh, did you run extra yesterday, you look really good,’” Applegate said
So the biggest takeaways from the article is Redskins Park was an old boys club where the men could do or say anything they wanted and the women put up with it out of fear of retribution, career aspirations, to fit in, etc. It all sounds like the Anchorman newsroom…but from 2010-now.
The article didn't discuss all those ridiculous rumors going on today about point shaving/paying refs, drugs/sex parties, sex trafficking, etc. Maybe that'll be another article, but for now, no dice on that stuff.
So what happens now? Well Dan Snyder already did the "hire a lawyer to investigate the culture" PR move. He'll release a statement saying he's shocked and appalled by all of this.
Obviously he knew. He SET the culture. They talk about that in the article as well. Napoleon Complex Dan is the reason all this happened. He hired these people, he belittled them, he set the culture of fear in place, it starts and ends with him. What the article doesn't do is make it concretely on him. In my opinion there is no damming evidence that could get him forced to sell or anything.
Will there be more now that this is out? Possibly. Again, like I've been saying forever, it all starts at the top. It all starts with Snyder. He knew. We know that. But he's probably safe for now. But thankfully these women spoke up and got at least some of the scumbags out of there.