Most notably, Meg Frank, Events Deputy Division Head and the Co-Director of the Hugo Ceremony at Sasquan, posts that she reported that she felt harassed by Antonelli's actions. However, the Con committee was not supportive of her request, responding with "guilt trips, denial, victim blaming, sarcasm and dismissal." As a result, she resigned her position.
The Con committee apparently felt that Frank had not been harassed.
One of the vice-chairs, Glenn Glazer, attempted to guilt me into not pursuing the complaint, and one of the Operations Division Heads, Robbie Bourget told me flat out that I hadn’t been harassed.Frank deserves credit for providing a pdf file of all of her correspondence documenting this event.
Natalie Luhrs, who I have mostly found to hold reasonable opinions, has opined that this is unacceptable behavior and that the community needs to remember these events and hold the Con committee accountable. She is specifically incensed by statements made by the Con head of operations, Robbie Bourget, including:
The first step in change is realising you were wrong. The second is public apology. Mr Antonelli has started on the road, who wants to tell him to piss off because we don't want him on our road? Remind me to probably de-friend you in that case. And, no, I am not a supporter of Lou's, the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies or the rapidly becoming extremely rabid Anti-Puppies.Likewise, one of the vice chairs, Glenn Glazer, in response to a complaint on facebook, wrote:
I know Robbie quite well. She's being running Operations for cons for over thirty years (I was her second at ConFrancisco in '93) and in real life is a probation officer. You are fully entitled to have an opinion, but the objective truth is that she is highly qualified, IMHO more highly qualified than anyone in fandom, to make this kind of decision. What I really think is the problem is that many people can't separate "I decision I don't agree with." from "A bad decision." Those *are* different things.Glazer's response has drawn particular censure:
@eilatan Wow, the flat-out credentialist put-down. Haven't seen such a shameless example in a while. @michaeldthomas
— P Nielsen Hayden (@pnh) August 29, 2015
Luhrs also links disapprovingly to an email by Bourget further detailing her qualifications and views:
As for my take, this entire exchange has deepened my respect for the people who run cons. They are faced with some very difficult problems. Sasquan elected to interpret their anti-harassment policy in a narrow legal sense as regards prohibiting attendance of the con; without evidence of harassment, a person will not be banned. Bourget makes clear in her email that allegations of harassment without enough evidence can be dealt with in other ways, such as by providing support on the ground to ensure that an accuser is protected from an alleged stalker. This seems reasonable, and the outcome at Sasquan seems to have been acceptable.
Throughout, the Sasquan committee was transparent about their decision making and responsive to questions about their reasoning. I think this is about as much as we can expect from a Con, and I am appreciative of the job that the committee does.
While I understand and respect the views of Luhrs and others, I think the Committee is correct in taking a narrow legal definition of harassment. A wider definition applied strictly is too open to abuse, and to apply it less strictly requires someone to make judgments as to which claims of harassment are to be actionable and which are not. What if someone complained that they felt unsafe around George R. R. Martin because his books, and their television adaptation, contained violent rape? Or if someone (not naming any names) reported that they felt harassed by the depictions of homosexuality depicted in The Legend of Korra?
And as for PNHs complaint of credentialism, I am, with some reservations, a big fan of credentials. And Bourget's seem to be perfect for this job given her work with the perpetrators of domestic violence (DV):
Kat, my work in UK Probation is with perpetrators of DV. I do assessments for Court every Thursday on just those offences. Harassment, Breach of Restraining Order, Breach of Non-Molestation Order, Assault, Criminal Damage. Seriously, I have been thanked by victims, white, black and asian, for the work I do with their abusive partners and ex-partners. I am more than slightly offended that you have assumed that I a) know nothing on the subject and b) do not have respect for the issues of minority groups. UK Probation, so far, is not at all like US Probation. And here's one very important point that I have learned. DV affects absolutely everyone. Statistically more women than men and more black women than white women and, in the UK, more asian women than black women. But, there are male on male DV cases, female on female, black on white, female on male, the full gamut. Each one has to be assessed on its own merits. On evidence specific to the incidents and the individuals, not on hearsay, not on what others think is happening but what both parties tell you balanced against likelihood of falsehoods and evidence gathered from written material by both parties (in this case).Meanwhile, Lou Antonelli has published a blog post where he complains about not receiving an invitation to George R. R. Martin's Hugo Losers Party. As Martin noted in his report on the party, some people were not invited because he was not able to get an invitation to them. But Antonelli makes clear he talked with Martin at Sasquan, so he was evidently explicitly not invited. As George says, he had an explicit "no assholes" policy.
Antonelli then sends Martin a few choice words. But seriously, Lou: after what happened, what did you expect?
(In yet another post, Antonelli comes across as more reasonable, thanking the committee for allowing him to attend).
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