For Many American Women, Sexual Harassment Comes With the Job

Coming up on today’s show:

• A fifth woman has come forward accusing Judge Roy Moore of sexual misconduct, saying that the U.S. Senate candidate sexually assaulted her when she was just 16-years-old. We hear some of her testimony, and get the latest out of Alabama, with Alabama Public Radio News Director Pat Duggins.

• Controversy continues to swirl around one of President Trump’s judicial nominees. Brett J. Talley, a 36 year old Harvard Law School graduate who the American Bar Association says is “not qualified” for a federal judgeship, failed to disclose that his wife is a senior attorney in the White House Counsel’s Office, and chief of staff to Donald McGahn II. David Lat is an attorney and founding editor of the legal news website Above the Law. He says the outcry is overblown.

• Recent research tells us that false confessions are more common than we previously thought and that teenagers, in particular, are vulnerable to the kind of police coercion that brings them about. Andrew Cohen, senior editor at The Marshall Project, and Klara Stephens, research scholar for The National Registry of Exonerations, explain the complex and often blurry laws surrounding police conduct during interrogations. 

• Some seven million people are facing starvation in Yemen as Saudi blockades prevent aid from getting into the country. Saudi Arabia’s U.N. ambassador has denied the blockade, saying it was only a “temporary procedure” to ensure the safety of Yemenis. Suze Van Meegen, protection and advocacy adviser with the Norwegian Refugee Council, weighs in on the crisis in Yemen. 

• After a three year period of stability, carbon missions are expected to reach record highs in 2017, according to The Global Carbon Project, which analyses CO2 emissions. Corinne Le Quere helped lead that research. She’s director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in England, and a lead researcher on the annual update by the Global Carbon Project.

• Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has prohibited recipients of EPA grant funding from serving on its scientific advisory committees. Joe Arvai is a scientist who both received grants from the EPA and served on the agency’s Science Advisory Board until this past September, when his six year term expired. 

• As the number of high-profile men being accused of sexual misconduct continues to rise, what do these incidents reveal about the nature of gender roles, and our perceptions and attitudes about sexual harassment and assault? Dr. Denise Cummins is a cognitive scientist, author, and elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She joins The Takeaway to talk about how differences in demographics are disrupting the status quo.

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich