I recently had the pleasure of hearing Angela Cornell give a Rose Cafe concerning the Google sexual harassment walkout and the issues it raises. In particular, I was fascinated by the revelation that it is possible (common, even!) for companies to require employees to forgo the typical (public) legal process for resolving complaints in favor of in-house (private) arbitration. I am not familiar with how such arbitration works, so I assume (and can only hope – yet still doubt) that it is as fair to the plaintiff as possible, possibly even more generous than the typical legal route, yet even under such an unlikely assumption it is clear there are significant issues with such an arrangement. One issue Professor Cornell raised is that this prevents numbers of plaintiffs from grouping their claims together in a class action suit, which (if nothing else) would enable the fielding of more evidence from different sources to support their claims, as well as ensure the company cannot claim things to be “isolated incidents.” In short, while I doubt much can be done on a national scale, I applaud the Google employees for making a stand and affecting significant change to this problematic policy.