How to mishandle a workplace sexual assault scandal

Note: this story discusses sexual assault.

A young female employee was found, semi-clothed and not well, in a secure part of her employer’s premises where she should not have been. This is not a hypothetical.

We are learning by the hour, as is the employee Brittany Higgins, more and more about what her employer did next. Putting aside the increasingly fevered politics of this exploding scandal, it is appropriate to examine what was done, and compare it to what should have been. Any employer or institution can easily find itself in the same situation and should know how to respond.