What regrets about a hasty, high-profile #MeToo resignation reveal

I myself thought at the time that if Franken had actually groped women during photo ops, as was alleged, he was right to resign – jokey photos are one thing, ass-grabbing is another. Mayer’s reporting leaves me less sure – is an arm around someone’s waist really a sexual incursion? But in late 2017, we were all pretty on edge, I think, combing our pasts for dormant memories of assaults and affronts, and there were so many stories – too many to make sense of. It was an off-with-their-heads moment, and for a while that felt great.

But there were also opportunists “telling their truths”. There was failed distinction-making and political expediency, and the impossibility of sorting motives from facts. That’s what’s starting to get unraveled now, in deep reporting like Mayer’s, as well as in the courts. Campus findings based on “victim-centric” approaches to sexual misconduct are increasingly being overturned by judges, and employers who were over-hasty with the axe are being forced into settlements.

The fallout isn’t going to be pretty, especially as the accused, when permitted, air their side of the story. It’s certainly not going to be unifying. And I suspect there’s plenty more fallout to come.