A nearly year-long investigation into sexual harassment within Indianapolis city government concluded the city’s response was “legally sufficient.” However, the report fails to address the core problem: workers lack both the power and legal protections to stop abuse. While city-county councilor—Andy Nielsen—has demanded Mayor Joe Hogsett’s resignation for his role in overlooking allegations against his top aide, Thomas Cook, the people note his call comes a year too late. Councilor Jesse Brown was the first to call for Hogsett’s resignation when the allegations were first made public.
The Fisher Phillips LLP investigation into sexual harassment allegations within Hogsett’s administration presents itself as a neutral, thorough examination of workplace misconduct. Yet, from a worker’s perspective, the report is a textbook example of political elite crisis management—offering procedural tweaks and bureaucratic solutions while leaving the material power structures that enable harassment and exploitation completely intact within city government. The investigation cost the city $450,000.
The report’s conclusions—that the city’s response was “legally sufficient” and that future improvements should focus on training, anonymous reporting systems, and an Office of Inspector General (OIG)—reveal the inherent limitations of liberal reformism. Rather than confronting the class dynamics that allow workplace abuse to flourish, the investigation treats harassment as an issue of individual misconduct and policy gaps, ignoring the capitalist workplace’s fundamental role in reproducing oppression.
This critique will dissect the report’s failings through a working class lens, demonstrating how its recommendations serve to preserve existing hierarchies rather than dismantle them.
The illusion of neutrality
The Fisher Phillips report assumes that the state—and by extension, its HR apparatus—can be a neutral arbiter of justice. But as socialists understand, the state is not an impartial referee; it is an instrument of class rule, designed to maintain capitalist social relations. The report praises the city’s HR policies as “legally sufficient,” but this legality is rich elite legality—structured to protect institutional power, not workers. The fact that the respondent, high-ranking official Cook, was allowed to resign quietly (rather than face termination) and continued to work as an independent consultant underscores how class solidarity among elites overrides accountability. And the reliance on private law firms like Fisher Phillips for investigations further demonstrates how the state outsources its legitimacy to entities with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Fisher Phillips is a known anti-union law firm that fights against workers exercising their democratic powers within the work environment.
The report repeatedly emphasizes that investigations were conducted “properly,” but this ignores the structural bias of internal probes: Workers who report abuse risk retaliation, job loss, and blacklisting—especially in politically connected environments.
Fisher Phillips report protects client, blames victims
The Fisher Phillips report refers to Thomas Cook’s victims as “Complainant 1” and “Complainant 2″—a labeling meant to protect their anonymity. However, the report fails to fully safeguard their identities, accidentally revealing Complainant 1’s name in an unredacted email.
Lauren Roberts, a former Hogsett campaign employee, publicly identified herself as Complainant 1 on her blog after Fisher Phillips failed to ensure complete confidentiality. Roberts also revealed that she was denied an advance copy of the report, learning its contents only when the public did. According to Roberts, City-County Councilor Crista Carlino justified this by saying she didn’t want Republicans to access the report first and use it to attack Democrats in a press conference.
Roberts has criticized the report for numerous inaccuracies, including incorrect timelines and misrepresentations about what was disclosed and when. Most disturbingly, the report implies that Roberts’ mental health history and past relationships influenced her response to Cook’s abuse, stating: “Complainant 1 also noted a repeated pattern of abusive relationships and mental health diagnoses and treatments throughout her life, both before and after her campaign employment, which may have contributed to and predate various emotional and mental health concerns she now asserts.”
This framing has drawn backlash for victim-blaming, suggesting that Roberts’ trauma was shaped by preexisting conditions rather than Cook’s misconduct. The report recalls Mayor Hogsett asking for Cook’s resignation at the end of an investigation in 2020. Cook was given more than two months to resign from Hogsett’s team so that he could finish out his projects. Roberts stated, “IDP [Indiana Democratic Party] seems to be motivated only to protect their interests, despite their posturing as the party that respects and empowers women.”
Cook was able to continue to secure contracts with the city and then hired on to lead Hogsett’s re-election campaign demonstrating Hogsett gave Cook another chance to prey on more women.
The report acknowledges that Complainant 2 feared retaliation, yet frames her delayed reporting as a personal choice rather than a rational response to valid concerns. The proposed “anonymous reporting” system (Speakfully) is a technocratic fix that does nothing to address the power imbalance that silences workers in the first place. The state’s mechanisms for accountability are designed to manage dissent, not eliminate exploitation.
Workplace harassment as a feature of capitalism, not a bug
Workplace harassment is not an irregularity but a logical outcome of the capitalist workplace, where managers hold unchecked power over subordinates. The report treats Cook’s behavior as an individual moral failing, ignoring how his position of authority (as a campaign manager, then a city official) granted him impunity. Under capitalism, hierarchical workplaces incentivize abuse by concentrating power in the hands of a few. The report’s solution? More training—as if awareness alone can undo material domination. The fact that Complainant 1 was employed by the Indiana Democratic Party (not the city) highlights how precarious labor (campaign work, temporary contracts) exacerbates vulnerability. Yet the report dismisses her claims due to her mental health issues and other relationships.
The report notes that Cook violated the city’s Non-Fraternization Policy, but such policies are doomed to fail under capitalism because: They rely on self-policing by the same managers who benefit from workplace hierarchies. They ignore the economic coercion that pressures subordinates into compliance (e.g., career advancement, fear of termination). They frame harassment as a matter of personal boundaries rather than class power. Workplace abuse is not a policy failure—it is a necessary consequence of alienated labor under capitalism. In fact, 34% of women reported sexual harassment in the workplace by a colleague.
The Democrat solution: reformism as damage control
The report’s key recommendation—creating an OIG—is a classic do-nothing reform: It adds another unaccountable bureaucratic body, detached from worker control. It assumes that elite-appointed investigators (likely former prosecutors or corporate lawyers) will side with workers over management. It mirrors the failures of federal oversight bodies (e.g., EEOC), which are chronically underfunded, slow, and toothless.
The proposal to create an “independent” HR Board is equally hollow: It remains embedded in the capitalist state apparatus, still answering to political appointees. It does nothing to give workers direct control over hiring, firing, or investigations. It replicates the myth of neutral expertise, ignoring how HR’s primary function is to protect the employer, not the worker.
The report’s emphasis on training programs is particularly insidious: It shifts responsibility onto workers to recognize and report abuse, rather than dismantling the conditions that enable it. It reflects the neoliberal logic of self-management—workers must “empower themselves” while real power remains concentrated at the top. It ignores how fear of unemployment (especially in non-unionized sectors like politics) forces compliance. These “solutions” are palliative measures, designed to restore legitimacy to the Hogsett administration without threatening the capitalist order.
What a revolutionary alternative would look like
A socialist approach to workplace harassment would reject liberal proceduralism in favor of material transformations in power: Investigations should be conducted by elected worker committees, not management-friendly law firms. Complainants should have the right to union representation during proceedings.
- Replace top-down HR departments with worker councils that have real power over hiring, firing, and discipline.
- Implement recallable delegates for managerial positions to prevent abuse of power.
- Expand the rights of contracted employees
- Guarantee job security and living wages to reduce dependence on abusive bosses.
- Class struggle over legalism
Workers cannot rely on the state dictatorship of billionaires for justice. Unions, strikes, and mass organizing are the only real checks on employer power. The labor movement must fight harassment not as a HR issue, but as a class issue.
The capitalist state cannot solve what it upholds
The Fisher Phillips report is a masterclass in political theater—offering the illusion of accountability while ensuring no real threat to the ruling class. Its recommendations (more training, more bureaucracy, more “independent” oversight) are designed to fail, because their true function is to preserve the existing order.
Real justice requires not policy tweaks, but masses of people struggling for a more accountable government that truly protects women. As long as workplaces remain under the control of unaccountable leaders, harassment and abuse will persist. The only solution is workers’ power.
The choice is clear: Reform or revolution. The City-County Council has made its choice—will the workers of Indianapolis make theirs?
Featured image: Protestors at the May 29 meeting of the Indianapolis City-County Council’s Investigative Committee hold up signs calling out Joe Hogsett for the abuse he refused to stop. Credit: Indianapolis Liberation Center