Director of a group of activists against sexual abuse, in the midst of a scandal

“I am particularly aware that my position at the helm of Time’s Up has become a point of painful attention and division, in which precisely those women and other activists who should work together to fight for change, rather fight between yes and no. nefarious way, ” he wrote.

Monifa Bandele, who left MomsRising to become COO of Time’s Up in October, will assume the role of interim CEO.

Tchen’s resignation follows the departure of Roberta Kaplan, who stepped down as chair of the organization’s board on August 9. Cuomo, for his part, stepped down as governor this week after months of resistance to calls for his resignation.

An independent investigation, overseen by the New York attorney general, found in a report that Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women. The report states that one of Cuomo’s top advisers, Melissa DeRosa, sent Kaplan a letter seeking to discredit Cuomo’s first public prosecutor, Lindsey Boylan, for his consideration.

‘Ms Kaplan read the letter to the director of the militant group Times Up, and the two allegedly suggested that, without statements about Ms Boylan’s interaction with male colleagues, the letter was fine,’ the report noted, without explicitly name Tchen.

Chen had resisted calls for his resignation for weeks, but said Thursday it was time to “step down and continue working for change in other ways.”

Boylan criticized Tchen’s way of describing the reasons for her resignation, accusing her of “failing to take responsibility for the damage she caused.”

“ We are not fighting. We’re not confused, ” Boylan tweeted.

Another Cuomo accuser, Charlotte Bennett, echoed Boylan’s comments by comparing Tchen to the former Democratic governor.

She “ starts off in the same way as our former governor, mentioning her accomplishments, pointing fingers at others and trying to justify her inexcusable behavior, ” she tweeted.

Carrie Goldberg, who represented one of the accusers of former film producer Harvey Weinstein, also criticized Tchen’s statement.

“ It goes without saying that activists / women are ‘fighting each other,’ she tweeted. “ Instead, it’s survivors in the trenches, fed up with the powerful who are secretly doing business and taking control. ”

Weinstein’s downfall, fueled by explosive revelations published in the New York Times and The New Yorker in October 2017, directly led to the founding of Time’s Up in January 2018. More than 300 women on shows, from the powerful society of TV production Shonda Rhimes to actresses Reese Witherspoon and Eva Longoria _ signed an open letter listing themselves as founders.

Those dazzling debuts followed with that month’s Golden Globes, in which attendees wore black dresses and Time’s Up pins to draw attention to the gender equality movement.

Tchen, who is a lawyer, has worked as an assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls. She co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund in 2017, along with Kaplan and two other women. The fund was created to help survivors cover their legal fees, and it has raised nearly $ 22 million in less than a year since its inception.

This is not the first time that the militant group has been touched by his leadership. Tchen took the helm in 2019 after former WNBA president Lisa Borders resigned as chief executive officer when her own son was accused of sexual misconduct.