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“When you reduce the power imbalance by giving women … the full minimum wage … a woman has greater power, greater agency, and doesn’t have to put up with everything.” Jenna Watanabe earned $2.13 an hour when she worked as a restaurant server in Utah. That’s perfectly legal because she made tips—and federal law says tipped workers can be paid a lower wage so long as their tips add up to the minimum wage for everyone else, or $7.25 an hour. But that meant Watanabe relied heavily on those tips to make a living. “My income was totally reliant on the approval of strangers,” she said Tuesday during...

A number of high-profile men have recently lost powerful positions over their alleged sexual misconduct. But for female victims of harassment, speaking up often is just as career damaging. Managerial women who report such abuse can struggle to regain their professional momentum. To escape toxic work environments, they frequently quit or exit entire industries, and some choose different professions, according to interviews with lawyers and women who have experienced sexual harassment at work. When women resign due to sexual harassment, their earnings tend to stall or decline, an academic study...

For 20 years, I’ve felt it was too early to speak up about Judge Alex Kozinski. Now I fear it’s too late. The first time I met Alex Kozinski was in 1996. I was clerking for the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and there was an orientation for new clerks in San Francisco. One of my co-clerks and I were introduced to the already legendary, lifetime-tenured young judge at a reception, and we talked for a while. I cannot recall what we talked about. I remember only feeling quite small and very dirty. Without my prompting, my former co-clerk described this interaction in an...