by Sarah J. McCarthy

About the author: Sarah J. McCarthy is a restauranteur and writes on sexual harassment issues for Forbes, Regulation, and Restaurant Business.

Mitsubishi Motors, facing what is threatening to become the biggest sexual harassment case in history, gave 3,000 of its employees a day off with pay to demonstrate against a lawsuit filed by 29 fellow employees with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). [Mitsubishi voluntarily settled with the EEOC in June 1998 for $34 million.]

One of the protesters, Kathleen McLouth, 42, a parts-deliverer at the Mitsubishi Motors plant near Chicago, exhibited more common sense than the collective wisdom of the National Organization for Women, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court when she said, “Sexual harassment has got to exist—you can’t have 4,000 people and not have it exist.”

The Cure Is Worse than the Disease