Date:
May 23, 2012
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One of the big turning points, according to Michelle Caiola, a senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum and former senior trial attorney at the EEOC, was the EEOC v. Mitsubishi suit of 1998. That case had an impact because it was so large—300–400 class members, a $34 million settlement and rampant, egregious harassment. Those aspects made headlines, which made all the difference. “Whenever a sexual harassment lawsuit gets a lot of media attention, I think that’s what starts the cultural shift,” she told me. “The media attention informs the employees of what is acceptable or what is not acceptable or what their legal rights are. I also think it brought home to employers that this was