"In 2010, Lihuan Wang was a 22-year-old journalism graduate student and unpaid intern working in the New York offices of Phoenix Satellite Television, a major Chinese-language broadcaster. So when the company’s D.C. bureau chief, Zhengzhu Liu, asked Wang to stay and speak privately after a professional lunch in New York City, she was thrilled at the opportunity to pitch herself for a permanent job. Instead, she found herself trapped in a cab and then a hotel room with Liu as he became increasingly inappropriate and sexually aggressive. When his advances got physical, Wang fled the room. Many victims of such incidents never report the perpetrator or even talk about what happened, for fear of negative judgment or professional repercussions. But, Wang chose to stand up for her rights, and convinced several coworkers to stand with her. That’s when she found out that she didn’t have the right to seek legal recourse—as an unpaid intern, Wang wasn’t protected by federal, state, or local laws covering sexual harassment."
Read this article Eric Elder and I wrote for Medium about a new law to protect interns in New York City -- and how it skirts the bigger issue of illegal, unpaid internships.