VSO violinist speaks out and sparks change in sexual misconduct cases
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) promised that it would no longer use confidentiality agreements (also known as non-disclosure agreements or NDAs) in sexual misconduct cases.
This comes weeks after a former violinist, Esther Hwang, went public saying she was sexually assaulted by an employee and later silenced by the VSO through the use of an NDA.
“Unfortunately, as a result of the confidentiality agreement, Ms. Hwang has felt silenced since that time. We acknowledge and regret the pain this has created,” the VSO wrote in a letter published on Jan. 6.
“It’s funny because they wrote that I felt silenced. Which is funny, because I was silenced from them. I was legally silenced from them,” Hwang said in an interview with Daily Hive.
Hwang, who worked as a violin extra with VSO, says that in 2017 she was sexually assaulted and raped by a fellow employee, who was also one of her former violin teachers.
After filing a complaint with VSO in 2019 and reaching a settlement of just over $7,100, Hwang signed the settlement and NDA due to financial stress and needing a job.
Before the settlement, Hwang said VSO called her in for every single concert for over two years, but afterwards, she was continuously offered less work.
Julie Macfarlane is a professor of law at the University of Windsor and the founder of Can’t Buy My Silence, an organization that advocates to change legislation across the country so that NDAs can no longer be used in sexual misconduct cases. She said the use of NDAs in sexual misconduct cases has become “normalized” in the past 15 years.
“The reason is that the employer does not want this staining their reputation, that this kind of thing happened in their institution or their workplace. And the perpetrator also wants to be protected, so the NDA protects — in Esther’s case — both the perpetrator and the orchestra as the employer from having anything said publicly or even just privately,” Macfarlane said.
After years of abiding by the NDA, Hwang said she decided to break it after she discovered there were rumours that she had an affair with the alleged perpetrator — and after asking the VSO to release her from the NDA, of which they declined.
She shared her story with The Globe and Mail and also sent a letter to VSO musicians.
Afterwards, the VSO sent her a cease-and-desist letter.
“Their letter made me realize how important it is to share this publicly. No organization should be allowed to silence a victim of sexual assault, retaliate against them, and then threaten to sue them for speaking out,” Hwang wrote in a Substack post (warning: this contains descriptions of rape and sexual assault), published on Dec. 19 of last year.
Since sharing her story, Hwang said she has received “an outpour of support.”
“I’ve been getting emails, DMs, text messages, people calling me. And it’s all been kindness and support, just an overwhelming amount. And it has been immensely healing to finally speak out,” she said.
“I am so grateful to the public. It was because of the public pressure that VSO has decided to not use NDAs to hide sexual misconduct,” Hwang said.
In VSO’s open letter, they committed to “not include confidentiality agreements in any future agreements involving sexual misconduct such as sexual assault and rape unless a one‑way confidentiality agreement is specifically requested by the complainant.”
Macfarlane said they have also been advocating for voluntary pledges and are pleased that VSO made the commitment to cease its use of NDAs.
“But what I’d also like them to do is to think about giving a full apology to Esther,” she said. “I think that they could be a lot more forthright and authentic.”
She also encourages VSO to release everyone who has signed NDAs.
While Hwang has not technically been released from her NDA, Macfarlane said that by saying they won’t continue legal action against her is “in practice, the same thing.”
Canada’s NDA legislation
“Canada is very behind on NDA legislation, and an institution shouldn’t make these changes because of public pressure, and that’s why it’s so important to pass the legislation,” said Hwang.
Macfarlane agrees.
The legislation that they are proposing is very simple, she said: “that non-disclosure agreements could not be used in cases involving sexual misconduct and discrimination.”
It has been brought forward in a number of provinces and by the federal government, but has only passed in Prince Edward Island.
Macfarlane says she hopes that this story will “light a fire under Niki Sharma,” B.C.’s attorney general.
“They are a government who seem, in principle, to be committed to this idea of transparency and protecting survivors, but they haven’t done anything.”
Daily Hive reached out to VSO for an interview and will update the story with their response.