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One woman described receiving an image of Kenny Parcell’s crotch in a text message. Another recalled the National Association of Realtors’ president asking for help tucking in his shirt in a way that felt “sexually suggestive.”
And a third former NAR employee, Janelle Brevard, signaled through a lawyer that the harassment suit against the organization she withdrew in July was “settled” only as a result of “feeling intimidated by such a powerful adversary.”
In interviews with 29 current and former NAR employees and former leaders, including 19 who claimed to have endured sexual harassment on the job, a long-anticipated exposé released Saturday in The New York Times described a culture of harassment, retaliation and evasion running through not only the 1.56 million-member group but subsidiaries and boards of companies its executives sit on.
“I’m scared every day coming to work,” said Amy Swida, a director of business meetings and events at the organization who, along with four other current employees, filed an internal complaint against Parcell.
The jaw-dropping report rolled out under a steady drumbeat of anticipation over the past month as a whisper network of Realtors exchanged stories online and at real estate conferences. At Connect Las Vegas earlier this month, Brad Inman publicly referred to an upcoming story in the publication, while others have suggested a wide-reaching fallout inside the 115-year-old institution.
“There is the sexual harassment, and then woven into it, this culture of fear,” Stephanie Quinn, a former director of business meetings and events, told The Times.
In a statement to…