Why might a company not take sexual assault in the work place seriously?

Question

I’m wiring an essay on an experience I had with it and my professor wants me to also explain things from the companies perspective and why a business may not take action when an employee is sexually assaulted. 
They choose not to fire him due to lack of evidence.  But I want to dig deeper as to why they didn’t believe me

Answer

From a companies perspective, it can be very expensive in litigation not just from the person who was assaulted but it may encourage more people to come forward creating more cost and disruption, or if they don’t have hard evidence and fire the assaulter they may sue for wrongful termination, it can tarnish the companies reputation, the assaulter may be valuable from a company perspective (top salesman, someone with hard to find skills).  There’s lots of reasons, which are all crap - you protect your employees.

Answer

they don’t want to get sued so they brush it under the rug

Answer

Lack of evidence seems pretty explanatory to me. It’s not necessarily sexism at play, though I can’t say as I don’t know the decision makers personally, could be. 
How can they take action when it’s one employees word against another? It’s not ok to let assault go un dealt with, but you also don’t want a loophole where any woman with ill intent can get a guy in trouble just by telling a story if she wants to. I can see how it would be a difficult situation as a company.

Answer

Because they’re fucking idiots and only run on money instead of humanity

Answer

No one here is going to be able to answer that for you. Your HR representative should have given you an explanation as to what the course of action was or wasn’t and why. 
I’m not saying it didn’t happen to you. But if there’s no evidence or proof throughout the investigation there’s not a lot that can be done. I know for a fact my company investigates all sexual harassment or assault cases. Some have turned out to be false claims and you can’t just let a person go because someone made an accusation. Others have had merit and there are various courses of action from harassment training to being let go. 
Just be aware HR is not going to divulge specific employee information and actions taken  to you especially regarding other people’s complaints.

Why might a company not take sexual assault in the work place seriously?

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