Geoff Kruth is an American wine professional. He founded and was president of GuildSomm, a nonprofit that helps prepare candidates for the Master Sommelier exam, and was featured in the 2012 documentary SOMM as an expert on the process of becoming certified as a Master Sommelier. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Kruth resigned his position [5] as Master Sommelier from the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2020 after being caught up in an organization-wide sexual harassment scandal during the Me Too movement; according to the New York Times, almost a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct over a period of many years. [1] [2] [6] Some of the accusations involved coercive pressure to exchange sex for professional favors. [6]
After the sexual misconduct accusations he resigned his position at GuildSomm. [1] [7]
Lisa Read Bloom is an American attorney known for advising Harvey Weinstein amid various sexual abuse allegations, and for representing women whose sexual harassment claims precipitated the firing of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News.
James David Christie is an American classical organist and teacher. Until accusations of sexual misconduct emerged in August 2018, he was Chair and Professor of Organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Distinguished Artist in Residence at the College of the Holy Cross, and College Organist at Wellesley College. He has been a frequent organist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1978, and has made several commercial recordings. Former employers include Boston Conservatory of Music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Boston University.
Michael Joseph Bransfield is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Bransfield served as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia from 2005 to 2018.
Henri Grissino-Mayer was a tenured faculty member in the department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who resigned in lieu of termination on Oct. 1st, 2018 due to his own admission of sexual misconduct at the school.
The Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) is an educational organisation established in 1977 to encourage improved standards of beverage service by sommeliers, particularly in wine and food pairing. From the court's inception through 2018, a worldwide total of 274 people have earned its Master Sommelier diploma, the highest level.
Mathew Shon Manweller is an American political scientist and politician who served as a member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing the 13th Legislative District, from 2012 to 2019.
Somm is a 2012 American documentary following the attempts of four candidates to pass the extremely difficult Master Sommelier examination, a test with one of the lowest pass rates in the world. Directed by Jason Wise, a sequel, Somm: Into the Bottle, was released in 2015 and a third film, Somm 3, came out in October 2018. A TV series based on the movie launched on the Esquire Network in November 2015. In 2019, SOMM TV was launched by creator Jason Wise with original shows.
Peter Neptune is an American wine expert and educator as well as a former television and NY stage actor. He is one of only 147 Master Sommeliers in North America, as of June 2015, and is the founder of the Orange County, CA-based Neptune School of Wine. He appeared on and off Broadway in 1984 and 1985, appeared in numerous television movies and series from 1988 through 1990, and appeared as himself in the 2013 wine documentary SOMM.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. Harvard University published a case study on Burke, called "Leading with Empathy: Tarana Burke and the Making of the Me Too Movement" (2020). The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem.
The 2017–18 United States political sexual scandals saw a heightened period of allegations of sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment and sexual assault, and resulted in the subsequent firings and resignations of American politicians. Some of these allegations are linked to the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases starting in October 2017 amid the wider MeToo movement.
Debra S. Katz is an American civil rights and employment lawyer and a founding partner of Katz Banks Kumin in Washington, D.C. She is best known for representing alleged victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment, notably Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Vanessa Tyson, Chloe Caras, and accusers of Congressmen Pat Meehan and Eric Massa, and whistleblowers facing retaliation, including most recently Dr. Rick Bright. Katz's primary practice areas at her firm are employment and whistleblower law, where she represents victims of workplace discrimination and retaliation.
William Preucil is an American violinist. During a musical career spanning several decades, he served as concertmaster for four major American orchestras, most notably the Cleveland Orchestra from 1995, until he was dismissed in 2018. He also played with the Cleveland Quartet, which won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 1997. He was a longtime member of the faculty at Cleveland Institute of Music until his resignation in 2018, following allegations of sexual misconduct.
The international #MeToo movement began in late 2018 to manifest in areas of the Indian society including the government, the media, and the Bollywood film industry. In India, the Me Too movement is seen as either an independent outgrowth influenced by the international campaign against sexual harassment of women in the workplace, or an offshoot of the American "Me Too" social movement. Me Too began gaining prominence in India with the increasing popularity of the international movement, and later gathered sharp momentum in October 2018 in the entertainment industry of Bollywood, centered in Mumbai, when actress Tanushree Dutta accused Nana Patekar of sexual harassment. This led to many women in the news media, Indian films, and even within the government to speak out and bring allegations of sexual harassment against a number of perpetrators.
Michael Balter is an American science journalist. His writings primarily cover anthropology, archaeology, mental health and sexual harassment in science.
The Alex Salmond scandal was a political scandal in Scotland concerning the conduct of former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond while in office.
The 2018 Master Sommelier exam cheating scandal was disclosed in early October when the board of the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas (CMSA) voted unanimously to suspend indefinitely the Master Sommelier credential awarded to all but one of an unprecedented 24 candidates who had passed its stringent annual membership exam a month previously at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. The decision was taken after the CMSA's board learned that one of its own members, Reggie Narito, had passed advance information about two of the six wines candidates had to identify during the blind tasting section, considered the most challenging of the three portions of the exam. Two of the successful candidates, to whom the information was known to have been passed, unsolicited, were barred from retaking the exam for three years. All the others were allowed to make up the exam in December at no charge; six passed. Narito was expelled from the organization and lost his Master Sommelier title.
Dominic Foppoli, is an American politician, accused serial rapist, and businessperson. He is the former Mayor of Windsor, California, a position he held from December 2018 until May 2021. Between April and May 2021, numerous women made sexual abuse and assault allegations against Foppoli dating back to 2002. Foppoli, who denies wrongdoing, is currently under investigation by the Attorney General of California. He is also under investigation for possible campaign finance violations by the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Foppoli refused to resign from office, causing a recall campaign to be launched in April 2021. Foppoli resigned from office on May 21, 2021. In August 2021, Foppoli filed paperwork with intent to run for Mayor of Windsor for the November 2022 election.
Fred Dame is an American wine professional.
Emily Wines is an American wine professional and as of December of 2020 board chair of the Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) of the United States.