That happened

So that happened. And it happened at a conference where I was listed as a co-chair on the conference committee. It was every bit as awful as it sounds. If it had happened to me personally, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to write about it. But I’m a middle-aged white man; there are almost never consequences for my cowardice.

When the conference was over, and there was no longer any possibility of resolving the situation in any other way, I was left with several lingering thoughts. There were two, in particular, that I attempted to address.

The first was a sense of anxiety about my personal and professional reputation. Any message sent by the conference necessarily reflects on the conference committee as a whole. The recipient must believe that the message reflects the consensus of the committee, if not its unanimous opinion.

If Bethan could be sent a rebuke without the explicit consent of the committee, then so could anyone. And if that was done, it would reflect on me even if it was sent without my knowledge. I think it unlikely, but it could have happened.

The second was that even if nothing could be done about this event, I could take steps to assure that it would not happen again. I could try to make things better.

I proposed some guidelines to assure that in the future, there would be some sort of attempt at impartial review and at making sure that any messages sent did reflect the consensus of the committee. I attempted to draft guidelines that encouraged a focus on the facts, attempted to counter the effects of bias, and gave an opportunity for all the parties involved to explain their side of the story.

That proposal was met with an emphatic “no” and it became clear that the co-chairs have no real say in how the conference is run.

So I resigned. I don’t think there were any other options. I’m a little hurt and a lot sad and I expect that will be true for a long while.

Stein’s law applies to everything.