I would encourage you all to remember that there are two sides to every story before you get your pitchforks out. This story doesn't even attempt to investigate anything beyond compiling and accepting the allegations at face value.
With the instance of rape called out in this piece I was shocked but I was also confused as to why she didn't go to the police. That leads me to believe that there is likely something else going on here.
something leads me to believe you don't realize the can of worms this statement opens
personal traumas are highly complex for one, and more to the point, there's many reasons why someone may not report such an event to a particular authority.
And the allegation was found to be baseless and, instead, was some sort of a ploy - ruins the false accuser's life.
My larger takeaway from the article (when did Engadget get so serious?) is that it calls out Apple HR's apparent failures to take the cited examples seriously. The individual merits of each case are important, and at the micro level they have huge conseqiences, but my takeaway was a larger "do better, Apple - live up to your own claims and ideals".
To be fair, it is certain that there were a lot of other cases where Apple's HR shined, but these - newp.
The obvious problem is that HR lacks any oversight, and is not a legal, moral, or investigative authority. They are woefully unsuited to perform an investigation or to enforce punishments. An obvious issue is that they cannot compel testimony; how meaningful is an investigation where the only info they can get is that which is voluntarily provided, and it's perfectly legal to lie to them?
That sword cuts both ways; the insufficiency of the investigation and lack of due process can penalize both legitimate accusers and the guilty party.
We have a whole justice system designed to handle situations like this. They have due process to ensure the fairness of a trial. They can compel testimony, even from third parties if they want to look at text messages or whatever. They have the authority and mandate to hand out punishments.
People refusing to use that justice system, for whatever reason, is not a problem Apple needs to solve. That's a problem society needs to solve. I really don't want to privatize the enforcement of legal issues, lest we bring the Pinkertons back.
It does feel as though HR, not having the full weight of the legal system should, instead, be able to be an arbiter (imperfect though it would be) with the weight of "consequences to continued employment" as the authority.
Why in god's name would you want HR doing this instead of the police?