A new survey from RECORD and ENR gives a snapshot of the experience of sexual harassment in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries.
It has been a year since multiple allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein for sexual assault and harassment (which he has denied) reignited the simmering #MeToo movement. Accusations of sexual misconduct in other professions—television, academia, performing arts, publishing, and journalism—quickly followed, with many high-profile men terminated from their jobs. And now #MeToo has spawned what may have been an inevitable backlash, as was clear in the contentious aftermath of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Yet a serious reckoning in the architecture profession has been slow to emerge. Last March, I asked in this column, “Where is Architecture’s #MeToo Movement?” Just weeks later, The New York Times broke the story of five women who accused the Pritzker Prize–winner Richard Meier of sexual harassment over many years. Meier responded by apologizing—sort of—and offered that “his recollections may differ” from those of his accusers, but he immediately took a six-month leave from his firm. Now his office has announced that he is stepping down permanently from “day-to-day” operations, though the name on the door will still be Richard Meier & Partners, and he remains “available to colleagues and clients.” (The clients outside the U.S., where the firm reportedly has quite a bit of work, may be less concerned about the tainted brand than those in this country.) Meier has continued to send mixed signals by telling the Times in an interview that “people can say whatever they want . . . I focus on the work.”
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