Name: Hanako Gibersztajn

Social Justice Group: Street and Workplace Harassment

Date of Fieldwork: February 2, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Kevin Samuelson, CEO of Infor, Laurie Forbes, EA to Kevin Samuelson

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On February 2nd, 2022, we had the honor of interviewing Kevin Samuelson, the CEO of Infor, and Laurie Forbes, his EA (executive assistant) about the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace. We attended an in-person meeting at the head quarters of Infor, where we were sat down in a conference room and recorded the entire interview. During the discussion, we reviewed the company’s zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment and what occurred when a case was reported. We discussed the power dynamic, how the offender was almost always a more senior employee, while the victim was a more junior one.

We are all very grateful towards both Mr. Samuelson and Mrs. Forbes for allowing us to come into their workplace and discuss this topic. It was truly an amazing experience to get yet another perspective on sexual harassment as a whole and to brainstorm even more ways to combat it. It was very important that we talked to someone who has had experience with sexual harassment, both as a bystander and as the person who administered the punishment to the offender. Everything that they explained to us about previous cases of sexual assault left me in shock. The fact that this is an issue in our society today and that countless people have to grapple with it on a daily basis is not okay.