Such A Muddled Claim, Such A Brutal Weapon

SOME of Gov. Mike Lowry's longtime supporters keep trying to tell him something. Last week, Democrats announced a survey of party leaders showing widespread hope he not seek re-election. Two women's groups won't support him because of sexual-harassment claims by a former staffer.

For Lowry and others who have tromped through the muddle of sexual-harassment claims, it's death by a thousand lashes. Lowry hasn't decided whether to run. But everywhere he goes in the coming political year, he'll face doubts and whispers.

Before we drop the governor into the dust bin of political correctness, we ought to take a closer look at the label we're branding on him.

Breezily dubbing what happened between Lowry and former deputy press secretary Susanne Albright sexual harassment seems to dilute the term and diminish other, more-compelling cases.

Something happened here. But extensive interviews reveal events far murkier than what has been portrayed: a powerful man sexually abusing a staffer who wanted no part of the attention.

What more likely happened is a brutal collision of personal agendas - a governor relying too much on office friendships, a sensitive staffer who at least sometimes enjoyed a chummy relationship with him as she sought a job promotion.

Albright bears some responsibility too. Yet she never told Lowry his behavior made her uncomfortable. In fact, she pleaded with supervisors not to tell him. She said she would handle it, then

never did.

The cause of feminism was not advanced.

"She makes us look weak and frail because we want everyone to be careful around us." said Karen Brewer, a Lowry staffer who briefly roomed with Albright.

A footnote buried deep in the report commissioned by the governor's office speaks volumes: "If someone feels they know what really happened in this case, they should be viewed with extreme suspicion or canonized."

I'm not defending the governor. He socialized with his staff too much, sometimes with alcohol. He stepped over several lines and has little to brag about.

Yet, the case doesn't set well. It illustrates how brutal a weapon a sexual-harassment claim can be, how confused people are about this issue.

In a recent op-ed piece to the Washington Post, Albright compounded the confusion by using broad strokes to compare Lowry to Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood.

"I now feel I must speak out or the Mike Lowrys and Bob Packwoods of this world will just carry on as always . . ." she wrote. "I have had enough of betrayal and loss of faith to last a lifetime. I'm sure that the women Bob Packwood betrayed feel the same way."

The danger of lumping Lowry and Packwood into the same sentence is women begin to seem like unreasonable people who can't distinguish between remarkably different cases. This is going to cost us one day.

Packwood physically overpowered, french kissed and grabbed women. He was, as one columnist described him, a human PEZ dispenser. The most Lowry is accused of in the Albright case is hugging her, patting her on the leg, knee and midriff, and making several stupid suggestive comments.

Of course, none of this behavior is proper for any boss, and certainly not the most powerful public figure in the state. But Mary Alice Theiler spent weeks analyzing the case and concluded it did not meet the legal threshold of harassment.

That didn't mean Lowry would get off cheap. To head off a civil suit, he paid $97,500 from his own pocket. Many people figured if he paid that much, he must have done something bad. It would have cost twice that to defend himself and the state - to win. If he lost, well, double or triple it.

Albright paid too - emotionally and with a job she cared deeply about.

Where do we draw the line? Several years ago, a city employee complained of harassment. A co-worker had whistled at her. She did not respond. A week later, he called to check her reaction. It was negative.

She reported him. Most people would say whistling is gauche, but it's not harassment. It's flirting, which isn't illegal. This gets trickier. The whistler was the department's human-resources manager.

In her report, Theiler defines two kinds of workplace harassment. Quid pro quo harassment occurs when getting or keeping a job is conditioned upon accepting conduct of a sexual nature. Hostile-environment harassment occurs when the behavior is so severe it alters conditions of employment and makes it difficult to work. To create this environment, the conduct must be uninvited, unwelcome, sexual and so on.

Albright's case is blurry because she invited the governor to dinner at her house and, according to several staffers, flirted with him on occasion.

Of course, bona fide harassers should be stopped. Women should be comfortable coming forward. But we're still trying to figure out this delicate cha-cha.

It's so easy to rush to judgment, to say a Lowry is a Packwood is a Clarence Thomas is a Bill Clinton . . . is a whistler. By refusing to make clear distinctions we are condemned to perpetuate the confusion.

Like scientists mixing unlabeled chemicals, we have invented a powerful tool: a sexual-harassment claim. We're still terribly clumsy using it.