Right To Be

Right To Be offers workplace trainings, virtual and in-person trainings for individuals, and youth trainings. ³

Background

Right To Be began as a blog in 2005 to discuss sexual harassment against women. It was founded by Lauren Larken Scuderi, Kaja Trejak, Samuel Carter, Anna Weichselbraun, Colin Weatherby, Emily May, and Elan Abrell. ²

In 2010, Right To Be filed as a tax-exempt organization under the name “Hollaback!” before later returning to the name Right To Be. It is best known for its Bystander Intervention Trainings that it later changed from having a goal of ending “street harassment” to ending “harassment in all forms.” ²

Expert Voices Together

Expert Voices Together is a project of Right To Be that was created through a partnership with the International Women’s Media Foundation. ⁴ Expert Voices Together’s donation page reports that donations will be used to fund Right To Be’s entire organization instead of a specific campaign, claiming that all of its campaigns align with Expert Voices Together. ⁵

Expert Voices Together is organized by professors from George Washington University, Louisiana State University, Columbia University, the University of Georgia, and the University of South Carolina. It was cofounded by Rebekah Tromble and Kathleen Searles. ⁴

Expert Voices Together provides one-on-one training with journalists and researchers to overcome alleged harassment, intimidation, or hate that interferes with their ability to publish. ⁴ Under its resources, Expert Voices Together refers journalists and researchers to the Feminist Helplines Index. ⁶ The Feminist Helplines Index works with women and LGBT people on issues it calls Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) by providing “feminist helplines.” The helplines use the identity politics concept of intersectionality to collect data and respond to TFGBV and to provide strategies for individuals to respond to online harassment. ⁷

Trainings

In 2023, Right To Be reported $2.7 million in revenue associated with its “anti-harassment trainings,” according to its tax returns. This constituted 65.9 percent of its total revenue. ¹

Right To Be’s Bystander Intervention Training originated as a means to train individuals to support women facing sexual harassment or hate crimes and has since expanded to include hate, harassment, or discrimination towards any minority groups. ² Right To Be’s Bystander Intervention to Support Immigrant Communities Training instructs individuals on how they can use the Bystander Intervention’s “5 D’s” (Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct) to intervene in immigration enforcement or instances of alleged anti-immigration speech. The trainings claim to teach what can be considered as “anti-immigration hate and harassment.” ⁸

“Four Strategies to Mitigate Implicit Bias” is a training offered by Right To Be that argues there is a “brain science” that results in people holding implicit biases towards others. The training instructs individuals to alter their judgements and actions towards others based on the idea that their natural intentions are misinformed. ⁹

Activities

In March 2023, Right To Be partnered with Wells Fargo to host its “bystander intervention” workshops at AMC Theatres in New York City and San Francisco. The workshops were also funded by Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and AARP and trained people on ways to intervene and respond to alleged instances of hate, discrimination, or bias in the general public or at work. Right To Be Cofounder and Executive Director Emily May justified the workshops by arguing, “We can witness harassment in various forms, from covert racial microaggressions in everyday life to overt gender discrimination in the workplace.” ¹⁰

Partnerships

Right To Be partners with corporations and advocacy groups to receive sponsorship for its free trainings, collaborate on its offered trainings, and to provide the organization with trainings for its employees. Its corporate sponsors include L’Oréal Paris, the Jordan Brand, and Uber. Its partner organizations include Asian Americans Advancing Justice, PEN America, the Woori Show, and Eye to Eye. ¹¹

Leadership

Emily May is a cofounder and the executive director of Right To Be. She has also sat as co-chair of the board for Girls for Gender Equity, worked for Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, and organized job training programs for the New York City Employment and Training Coalition. ²

Financials

In 2023, Right To Be reported $4.1 million in total revenue, including $2.9 million derived from program fees. ¹² It also reported $3.4 million in total expenses and spent $723,846 on consultants categorized under its program service expenses, $103,209 for fundraising, and $34,363 for “management and general expenses.” ^{13 14}