New APPS

Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Mostly Philosophy.

recent posts

about

    Leiter, Schliesser, and Feminist Philosophers on Protecting Lisbeth fundraising campaign

    Especially given the amount of sock-puppetry and trolling by anonymous internet voices prior to the point where most philosophy blogs started pre-moderating, I was extremely uncomfortable with anonymous people recently making public allegations against a semi-anonymous perpetrator, and then an anonymous person soliciting money.* I also know that I'm not the only person troubled by this.

    So I think it's worth publicizing a number of things have happened very recently:

    1. In the original fund-raising campaign, the accuser claimed that the bloggers at Feminist Philosophers would vouch for her identity. Given their recent posts on the issue, (e.g. here)I don't think I'm betraying confidences to share that I contacted them and they did (without in any way telling me the identities of the two people who have made public allegations).
    2. In this post, Brian Leiter (making clear not to endorse claims which he could not have the evidence to substantiate one way or the other) unequivocally states that he knows the identity of the accuser taking legal action and that her claims deserve to be formally adjudicated.
    3. A non-anonymous friend of the second accuser, Emma Sloan, has taken over the fundraising site.
    4. Eric Schliesser provides an argument for contributing here.

    I should note that nobody I've linked to here is trying to have a trial by public opinion about the veracity of these specific allegations against the person in question. In spite of this issue, I've left comments open (though premoderated to prevent public trial by commentor).


    There are broader substantive issues that are worth talking about, especially concerning the way universities deal with harrassment and assault. For example see a critical discussion at slate of the new White House guidelines about campus assault here, as well as a disturbing portrayal at atlanticmonthly of just how morally toxic fraternities are here. Both cases demonstrate systematic failures of universities to do the right thing. With respect to these problems as well as harassment and assault committed by faculty members, it seems to me that: (1) getting accusers to sign confidentiality agreements with respect to faculty malfeasance are one of the primary enablers of the behavior, and (2) dealing with illegal actions in-house and not through the criminal justice system is always going to be problematic. Maybe the problematic policies in (1) and (2) are inevitable for legal and other reasons? I don't know. I do know that the same policies have been key parts of the Roman Catholic church's child abuse debacle these past decades, and can't see how universities are any different.

    [*CF Nietzsche: "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." The biggest moral failing of people who use sock puppets and/or anonymously troll is that they force you to have this response to everyone else trying to post anonymously.]

    Posted in

    3 responses to “Leiter, Schliesser, and Feminist Philosophers on Protecting Lisbeth fundraising campaign”

    1. Jeff Heikkinen Avatar
      Jeff Heikkinen

      I agree that the “Case 2” claim deserves to be heard, as the accusations there easily rise to the level of professional malfeasance. In particular, the treatment she describes at the hands of the Yale bureaucracy – and if I’m not mistaken it’s Yale that’s under immediate legal threat here – is at once disturbing and all too believable. (This is not to prejudge the case, only to say that should her story prove to be 100% true, I’d be angry and disappointed, but not overly surprised; it’s within the range of things I already believe bureaucracies tend to do.)
      However, I have to question some of Sloan’s comments. Sloan keeps using extremely inflammatory language, referencing a “brutal, sadistic attempt at rape” among other extraordinarily serious accusations. There is, however, nothing in the “case 2” description at the source she cites, nor in either of the accounts of the accused’s behaviour on her blog, [1] that even begins to fit this description. Given this mismatch, this seems, at best, extremely irresponsible on Sloan’s part. I don’t pretend know all the legal nuances, but if not substantiated, is this not the sort of thing that could jeopardize “Lisbeth”‘s legal case? Even if not, I wonder how many of those who donated did so, in part, because this language created a false impression about exactly what was at issue.
      [1] One such description is found in the only substantive entry to date, the other in the comments.

      Like

      Reply
    2. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      I noticed that too.
      I worry about making too much of the inconsistency, because it is only with respect to implicatures, specifically the assumption that the newspaper article is following Grice’s maxim of quantity. But in general it is not correct to assume that newspaper articles follow that maxim. My wife is a reporter and has to leave information out of stories for all sorts of reasons. In particular she does sometimes have to take out more damning accusations and write more about accusations that are easy to substantiate, even in cases where she and the editors know the more damning information to be true.
      The newspaper article, if correct, does clearly demonstrate illegal quid pro quo sexual harassment.

      Like

      Reply
    3. Jeff Heikkinen Avatar
      Jeff Heikkinen

      I certainly agree that, assuming the accuracy of the “case 2” story, this is at minimum a paradigm case of sexual harassment. Even the narrowest definitions of SH with which I’m familiar include quid pro quo. That alone would be sufficient reason to want the case to be heard in court; I hope everyone agrees on that much, at least!

      Like

      Reply

    Leave a comment