The #TimesUp initiative has been around for a little over a month, but that’s been enough time to receive over a thousand requests for legal assistance and raise $20 million for its legal defense fund.
Tina Tchen, Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, revealed the progress that the group — which was founded by 300 women in Hollywood to rid industries across the board of sexual harassment — has made since launching on Jan. 1 at the 2018 Makers Conference in Los Angeles on Monday.
“Equity and safety in the workplace,” is the group’s mission, Time’s Up member and entertainment attorney Nina Shaw said during a panel moderated by director Ava DuVernay, which included other leaders from the initiative: Rashida Jones, Natalie Portman, Katie McGrath, Melina Matsoukas, Jill Soloway and Maha Dakhil.
The Time’s Up fund has received more than a thousand requests for legal aid from employees alleging abuse in the workplace, who lack the means to defend themselves.
“There is no change unless you bring every single person along who has spent time being marginalized, harassed [or] assaulted,” Jones added.
Over 20,000 donors have contributed to the fund and 200 lawyers have offered their services to the organization in connection with the National Women’s Law Center.