Telling a victim that they should expect to be abused further (in the form of a negative review) does not minimize boat rocking or protect the interests of the organization. It leaves them open to lawsuits and antagonizes the victim into further action. And if it was true that they were protecting the manager because he was high-performing, why would you make this explicit. It just makes no sense and reeks of one side of a story.
I see you've never actually dealt with HR departments before.
I worked at a company where the director of IT/Dev hired his wife to the department; they were swingers and engaged in a variety of unethical and harassing behavior. If you got on his wife's bad side he would punish you by taking away bonuses. He was also regularly drunk at work (and later died of liver failure around age 45). They both propositioned women in the office.
Nothing was done. HR papered over any complaints and ensured anyone who did complain was given a bad performance review to ensure if a lawsuit were ever filed they could point to bad performance and claim it was just sour grapes. He was seen as critical to the success of the department and the company had grown quickly. The head of HR was old golfing buddies with the CEO and both were friends with the director in question.
He was only fired once he grabbed one of his manager's breasts while in a huge meeting with a bunch of people. This was not the first time he grabbed women around the office, but there were too many witnesses to punish the victim in this specific case.
I agree that HR should not behave in the ways it's claimed they did. However, based on my perception of Uber's willingness to ignore rules, I find it believable that they could have an HR department that thinks such actions are a good choice; I also wouldn't be surprised if they don't do any of the state mandated harassment training either for all employees or the addition training for managers.
I also believe the claims because they are very specific, egregious, and should be verifiable; and they were related in a simply facts manner: there were no questions of intent or what the other people were thinking, and only a limited amount of heresay. Additionally, it felt more like a "this kind of thing is happening, you should watch out for it" than a call for pitchforks and torches.
Willingness to ignore rules does not lead to these actions. It's nonsensical. There is no way you would tell a complainant that you were protecting a manager because they were high performing. You would be extremely secretive about that. There is no way you would tell a complainant that they should expect a negative review for reporting sexual harassment. You would placate them to make the problem go away.
