Ex-FTC Commissioner Faces Storm of Sexual Harassment Claims
- Joshua Wright resigned from George Mason law school amid probe
- Wright says relationships were consensual, sues for defamation
In antitrust circles, Joshua Wright was a star. A former Federal Trade Commission member, he consulted for Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. and worked with prominent law firms, the Federalist Society and GOP donors like Peter Thiel. From 2015 until last year, Wright directed faculty hiring at George Mason University’s law school, which has positioned itself at the center of the conservative legal universe.
But eight women told Bloomberg News that, over nearly two decades, Wright used his positions and influence to proposition female students, staffers and job applicants. Promising career help, he sent some of them flirtatious texts, invited others on trips where he would book only one hotel room and engaged in sexual relationships with three of them. Several of them said they feared losing opportunities if they turned him down.