It’s bad enough that unpaid interns can’t earn wages — but now a federal judge has ruled they’re not even protected from being groped by their bosses.
Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel determined that Lihuan Wang, a former intern at Phoenix Satellite Television US, couldn’t bring a sex-harassment claim against the Chinese-language broadcasting company and her former supervisor there because unpaid interns aren’t employees — so they’re not covered by the city’s Human Rights Law.
Castel also pointed out that the City Council has had various opportunities to amend the law to protect interns, but has failed to do so.
His ruling came even as there’s been a groundswell of interns nationwide suing employers, such as Condé Nast and online gossip site Gawker, to be paid for their work.
Wang, who filed the lawsuit in January, started interning at Phoenix’s New York office in 2010 when she was 22. She alleges that only two weeks into the internship, a company supervisor, Zhengzhu Liu, lured her to his room at the Hilton in Midtown by claiming the meeting would be to discuss her job performance and potential employment.
Instead, she alleges he tried to kiss her “by force” and squeeze her butt, the suit claims.
Wang says she shoved Liu away and fled. When she tried months later to ask him about job opportunities, Liu instead invited her to stay with him at a hotel in Atlantic City — an offer she rejected, the suit alleges.
Wang has since move back to China. Liu was fired from Phoenix in 2012 after the company investigated the allegations.
Despite Castel’s ruling, the case wasn’t entirely tossed.
Wang is still suing Phoenix for failing to hire her. The company claims she never applied for a job.
Wang’s lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, said she plans to file a motion to move the suit to federal court in Washington, DC, where other current and former Phoenix staffers have brought similar sexual- harassment suits against Liu and the company.
“We’re disappointed, because we believe the New York law is more protective to interns than what the judge found, but this case is part of a much broader set of lawsuits,” Bernabei said. “[Liu] either molested or almost raped a number of woman [he supervised] over a seven- to 10-year period, and the company did nothing.”
Phoenix’s lawyers did not return messages, and Liu could not be reached for comment.