This blog post was written by the National Women’s Law Center for our 2018 PowHer The Vote campaign.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of #metoo going viral. In this past year, countless survivors have come forward to share their stories of sexual harassment and sexual violence.  Their voices highlighted longstanding and deeply rooted structural and systemic gender and racial inequity in our laws, institutions, and culture.

This is reflected in the experiences of the individuals calling the National Women’s Law Center’s Legal Network for Gender Equity and the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, which is housed and administered by the National Women’s Law Center Fund. Our Legal Network connects individuals who have experienced sex discrimination at work, school or in a healthcare setting with attorneys for a free legal consultation. Since January 1, 2018 over 3,500 people have come forward to share their stories of workplace sexual harassment, violence and retaliation with us. (If you are looking for legal assistance, you can fill out an intake form here, attorneys can join the network here). The TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, which began operating on January 1, 2018 is supported by over $22 million in donations and will help defray legal and public relations costs in select cases of those who experience sexual misconduct including assault, harassment, abuse and related retaliation in the workplace or in trying to advance their careers, based on criteria and availability of funds. (attorneys can fill out a funding application here).

Individuals coming forward to challenge their harassment has been powerful, and it has exposed the many obstacles that still exist to effectively address and prevent workplace sexual harassment and sexual violence. In response, in the past year, state legislators introduced over 100 bills to strengthen protections against workplace harassment, and to date, eleven states and two localities have passed new protections.  New York is leading the way. Just this past year New York State passed legislation to:

• Protect contractors, subcontractors, vendors, consultants, and others providing services pursuant to a contract from sexual harassment in the workplace; employers can be held liable if they knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action.
• Prohibit employers from using non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s) in settlement agreements or other resolutions of a claim that prevent the disclosure of the underlying facts and circumstances of sexual harassment claims, unless the condition of confidentiality is the worker’s preference. In addition, the individual must be given twenty-one days to consider the provision and has an additional seven days following the execution of the NDA to revoke the agreement. Finally, the agreement will not become effective or be enforceable until the revocation period has expired.
• Prohibit mandatory arbitration to resolve allegations or claims of sexual harassment.
• Develop a model sexual harassment prevention training program. Employers are also required to conduct annual interactive training using either the state model or a model compliant with state standards.
• Create and publish a model sexual harassment prevention guidance document and sexual harassment prevention policy that employers may utilize in their adoption of a sexual harassment prevention policy.
• Require bidders on state contracts to certify as part of the bid process that the bidder has implemented a written policy addressing workplace sexual harassment prevention and provides annual sexual harassment prevention training to all of its employees. If a bidder is unable to make this certification, they must provide a signed statement explaining why.

New York City has passed additional measures, including clarifying that independent contractors are covered by the city’s law against gender-based harassment at work, amending its Human Rights Law to extend gender-based harassment provisions to all employers, regardless of the number of employees and extended the statute of limitations for filing claims of gender-based harassment with the New York City Commission on Human Rights from one year to within three years.

While we celebrate the progress that has been made in New York in the last year, the last few weeks have shown us that there is still much work to be done to reform our culture, our institutions, and our laws.  We need policymakers who will continue to strengthen protections and fill gaps in existing law and policy to better protect working people, promote accountability, and prevent harassment. We need lawmakers to not only listen to the stories of survivors, but also respond with urgency and action.