Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David and Time’s Up chair Roberta Kaplan are under fire this week for allegedly colluding with disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Last week, an investigative report was released detailing Cuomo’s numerous assaults and harassment of nearly a dozen female staffers. LGBTQ activists were shocked to also see David and Kaplan implicated in the report for reportedly working in collaboration with Cuomo and his aides to cover up assault allegations in December 2020.
Kaplan has since announced her resignation from Time’s Up, an organization that’s sole purpose is to protect women from sexual harassment and assault and promote gender equality. Since the report’s release, Kaplan has been dragged online for her glaring hypocrisy. In her resignation letter, Kaplan says the following:
“Unfortunately, recent events have made it clear that even our apparent allies in the fight to advance women can turn out to be abusers. We have felt the raw, personal, and profound pain of that betrayal. It has raised important questions about how and why Times Up does what it does, as well as demands on the part of advocates and staff for a kind of radical transparency.”
Kaplan, a lawyer, said she could not answer any further questions because of her profession. She will be representing former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, who is said to have led a “campaign” against Lindsey Boylan, a Cuomo staffer who first accused the governor in December. DeRosa resigned from her position on Sunday.
However, HRC President Alphonso David has taken a much different course of action in the wake of the report. David, who served as counsel to Cuomo from 2015 to 2019, is refusing to step down from his position. The HRC has hired an independent law firm to investigate David and his ties to Cuomo, led by the HRC board of directors. The investigation is estimated to take 30 days, and David will remain president in the meantime.
The HRC chairs have voiced their “full confidence” in David’s innocence. David, who called on Cuomo to resign, continues to say that he had “no knowledge of any incidents of misconduct involving the 11 survivors referenced in the AG’s report and in fact learned about these allegations by reading the report.”
However, the Cuomo investigative report found that both David and Kaplan were key advisors on an “op-ed or letter” that was drafted by Cuomo and his aides to cover up allegations.
In December 2020, Lindsey Boylan tweeted about her alleged sexual harassment at the hands of Governor Cuomo. In turn, the governor assembled his advisors to write the letter, which “denied the legitimacy of Ms. Boylan’s allegations” and “impugned her credibility,” according to the report. The letter also aimed to paint Boylan’s claims as “politically motivated,” even theorizing her possible connections to Trump supporters.
Cuomo’s secretary Melissa DeRosa sent this draft to David and Kaplan. Kaplan actively helped with the letter, saying it was “mostly fine” and suggesting some edits regarding Boylan’s interactions with male colleagues. While David refused to sign the letter, he did agree to pass it along to former staff members of the Executive Chamber to see if they would be willing to sign.
The letter was never published, no doubt due in part to the dozen-plus, former and current members of the Executive Chamber who saw it, many of whom said it was “victim shaming” and a “bad idea.”
As the investigation into David and Kaplan’s actions continue, LGBTQ organizations worry what the connection between the two prominent figures and Cuomo could mean for queer advocacy. Already, there has been a resurgence of opposition to the Equality Act, currently stalled in the Senate, a landmark piece of legislation that would increase protections for LGBTQ Americans. Republicans are jumping at the opportunity to use David’s ties to Cuomo to discredit the bill, claiming it could threaten the safety of women.
The New York governor’s resignation also called into question who would fill the powerful seat. On Tuesday, New York Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul announced that she will step into the role, becoming the first female governor of the Empire State in the nation’s history.
