Journalist Gretchen Carlson is a fierce and fearless advocate of women’s rights who helped pave the way for the #MeToo movement, and her work isn’t done yet.
She served a monumental role in the passing of H.R. 4445, which amends the Federal Arbitration Act to make it easier for victims of sexual assault and/or harassment to bring suit in court and not be forced to arbitrate their legal claims, according to Forbes.
Carlson said the passing of the bill is for those who were “shunted into the secret chamber of arbitration.”
“It was the darkest day of my life when my lawyer said to me ‘you have no case against Fox News for harassment,’ because I had an arbitration clause,” she explained to Sam Rubin on the KTLA 5 Morning News. “What it meant was, I would have to go into this area of secrecy and not make my case public.”
To get around the clause, Carlon’s legal team sued Roger Ailes, the disgraced chairman and CEO of Fox News, which is how the case became public.
“This bill, and now that it is law, means that people have a choice of whether or not they want to go to secrecy in arbitration or if they want to be able to have their seventh amendment right, which is to go to an open jury,” she explained.
Another item Carlson has her eye on is non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
She already has another bipartisan bill that is currently on Capitol Hill, which is called the Speak Out Act. If passed, it would mean it would take away NDAs from a person’s first day of employment for harassment and assault.
“It would make it against the law to be able to try and enforce a woman or a man who’s harassed or assaulted at work into signing an NDA or being kept silent,” Carlson said.
The Lift Our Voices founder believes getting rid of forced arbitrations and NDAs, in workplace contracts, is the key to solving some issues in the workplace.
While there have been major strides in workplace culture since the start of #MeToo, Carlson said there’s still more to do.
“It’s easier to pass bipartisan laws, even in the hyperpolitical time that we live in than changing culture,” she explained. “Changing culture is really really tough and takes time.”
Carlson believes the way to stop bad behavior is when “we give people their voices back.”
“If we silence them, then the vicious cycle continues,” she continued.
When Carlson left Fox News, her NDA was so stringent that neither she nor her children or husband can weigh in on certain matters, like talking about Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of her in “Bombshell.”
The author’s ongoing activism is showcased in the upcoming documentary “In Her Words,” which follows her non-profit and all of its legislative work.
“Through my story, you’ll be able to find out that you have a voice and your opinion matters,” she said.
There’s no official release date at this time for the documentary.