Though Lively’s claims were dismissed on procedural grounds, her case exposes how federal law leaves many women without legal protection against workplace sexual harassment.
As a sexual harassment attorney, I consistently hear stories from women describing exactly what Blake Lively described: A male colleague who can’t stop talking about his sex life; a supervisor who makes repeated comments about a subordinate’s body; and unwanted physical contact that gets brushed off as spontaneous or playful. In New York, much of this conduct is actionable. In many other places in the U.S., it is not.
That’s because there is a massive gap between federal and state law in this country. Only some states, like New York, have laws on the books that go beyond federal law to protect victims of sexual harassment.
What Lively Actually Alleged
Lively’s claims are markedly different from the cases that defined the height of the #MeToo movement. She was not raped or propositioned for sex.
According to her allegations, Justin Baldoni repeatedly discussed his porn addiction and personal sex life, made comments about her body and improvised physical intimacy that had not been choreographed. Importantly, her claims were dismissed, not because a judge found them lacking in merit but for procedural reasons tied to her independent contractor status under California law.
The harassment itself was never adjudicated.
The Law Is Failing Most Women
The numbers confirm what I see in my office every day. A 2025 HR Acuity survey of 2,043 U.S. employees found that 55 percent experienced or witnessed workplace misconduct in 2025, up 14 points from 2024 and hitting a near seven-year high.
What makes that number even more alarming is that it reflects a reversal of five years of steadily declining reports that followed the #MeToo movement. The progress women fought so hard for is backsliding. And the federal legal standard for what counts as actionable sexual harassment isn’t strong enough to protect many women.
Under federal law, and therefore the law in any state without stricter protections, harassment must meet a “severe or pervasive” standard to be actionable. In practice, this means women must endure a workplace made deeply uncomfortable by a colleague’s or supervisor’s behavior and still have no legal remedy.
The result is that women are putting up with these behaviors until they cannot handle them anymore. Then they jump from the job—not because they don’t like the work or aren’t good at their job, but to avoid harassers. The men who push the boundaries and make women feel uncomfortable at work are not held accountable for their actions. The cycle continues.
New York Changed the Standard. Federal Law Must Catch Up
In 2019, in direct response to the #MeToo movement, New York state lowered the bar for what constitutes sexual harassment. Under current New York law, a worker cannot be subjected to inferior terms or conditions of employment because of their sex. Behavior that rises above a petty slight or trivial inconvenience is now actionable.
Baldoni’s alleged conduct may not have cleared the federal “severe or pervasive” threshold. Under New York’s standard, it almost certainly would have.
That gap between what New York and other states like it recognize as harm, and what federal law ignores, means many women in this country are not adequately protected from sexual harassment.
What Ongoing Harassment Actually Does to Women
In my practice, I see the real effects of sexual harassment on women every day.
Once a boundary has been crossed and a woman realizes she is being sexualized by a colleague or supervisor, it is nearly impossible for her to return to business as usual. She becomes hyperaware every time she needs to be alone with that person, which, in most jobs, is unavoidable. She becomes uncomfortable collaborating on a project, traveling for a client meeting or attending a work dinner. She starts second-guessing her self-worth, wondering if she earned this role because of her skills or just got the job because her boss thinks she’s attractive.
That psychological weight is real and costly. Not only are women jumping from job to job to avoid harassers, but companies are also losing talented employees.
Why Lively’s Response Still Matters
The fact that Lively pushed back at all—that she was willing to risk her reputation and her career over behavior that previous generations of women were simply expected to absorb—represents something significant: It reflects a generation of women who have internalized a different standard for what they are owed in the workplace. Women shouldn’t have to be assaulted before the law will protect them.
While Lively’s case didn’t end in a verdict, it brought to light the ordinary workplace harassment women face every day. By taking a stand, she shared with women across this country that they shouldn’t have to put up with sexual harassment in the workplace, even if it isn’t severe or pervasive.
It is time for federal law to catch up, lowering the standard so that harassment that subjects women to inferior terms and conditions of employment is actionable, regardless of which state they work in.
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