A MESSAGE from BethAnn McLaughlin, PhD
Buzzfeed had a story about me last night. I wanted to provide my perspective. First, I want to thank everyone who spoke. In reporter Peter Aldhous’ initial call, he said he had disappointing news for me. He raised allegations MeTooSTEM hadn't provided resources to train folks on sexual assault. Allegations that we were not actively pursuing nonprofit status. There were concerns about money management. I had heard these things before and, frankly, knew they weren't true, so I ignored them. Having a Buzzfeed reporter suddenly saying he was doing a story on it that week was terrifying.
Some really hard working (and currently exhausted) volunteers got him the information to disprove claims, but it was a scary week. We have jobs in real life and disproving serious allegations to a journalists standards was overwhelming. Our non profit lawyer, business manager and the always amazing Ann Olivarius had to scramble over a holiday weekend and I’m so sorry to all of you.
We all worked really hard to set the record straight with Mr Aldhous. We shared presentations, documents and witnesses who talked about money, training, outreach, nonprofit filing. He didn’t report what we shared. He just left these serious allegations out there. We were all stunned. So I’ll share what he didn’t.
FINANCES:
There are four women currently in volunteer leadership roles. I’m one of them. I don’t get paid. I get reimbursed for travel. Our mostly trainee volunteer leadership team members get <$600/year as a stipend.
SAFE SPACES AND TRAINING
Peter Aldhous shared a resignation letter he also posted in which individuals stated concerns that MeTooSTEM didn’t have enough trained individuals in offering support to victims of sexual assault.
Safe spaces always provided clinical psychologists, psychiatrists or, in my case, people who were trained in working with sexual assault survivors. The claim we aren’t trained or didn’t offer training is untrue. We offered to pay for this training for anyone on leadership team as well as for other community activists. We got this information to Mr. Aldhous, and he didn’t cover it.
For the folks who have used these MeTooSTEM safe spaces for community/safety/information, I know you appreciate their value. I have been there and appreciate you and seen you turn out in droves for quiet, for community and for each other. Thank you. I'm sorry this is happening.
I invited Mr. Aldhous to come to our first safe space at Society for Neuroscience in November of 2018. I frankly was a bit of a pest because I wanted him to see the overwhelming need and pain. I wanted more coverage of the horrible abuses that were happening in academia. He declined repeatedly.
We had over 700 people show up in the first safe space. With three weeks to organize, we were open 30 hours, had a 250 person launch event. We connected folks with lawyers. We found each other. I filed 37 FOIAs that week in the hopes of getting information public about findings of sexual misconduct covered up by universities. We had fiesty women joining a silent stand-in at the Women’s Lunch to honor those who had left science because of sexual misconduct. It was the first time anyone publicly honored those we lost in this space. It is not enough.
I had just started a GoFundMe to make a non-profit the month before. I didn’t have bandwidth for the traditional organization hierarchy or administration people wanted, but saying I wasn’t welcoming of other people who identified as leaders doing it and trying to empower them to take that mantle is not my recollection.
NON PROFIT STATUS
For the concern that the move to non-profit status was slow, I agree. I want things done fast and this is exhausting. I'm sorry. It took us until December to get any money from GoFundMe and that only happened after our lawyer intervened.
Peter Aldhous reported that we had a $200,000 fundraising goal. This isn’t our goal. GoFundMe automatically increases your goal when you hit a milestone. I hoped to raise a few thousand dollars when we launched to get a non-profit so we could do something. My goal was to center survivors in discussions that too often included himpathy and pictures of ‘great men’ rather than the bravery and loss of whistleblowers.
Even when we were turning around legal documents in days, it still took from October to May to become a non-profit (we are a 5013c non profit as of two days ago – yay!). Mr Aldhous got all this information and didn’t report it either. It was a lot of work and I’m really proud of the people that helped us.
MINORITY VOICES
Mr Aldhous coverage raised the concerns from resignation letters that I wasn't listening to minority voices. That white women were centered. He raised concerns that I ignored early advice to and be more inclusive. Those are concerns I take seriously as do the folks on Leadership Team and our newly 5013c Board of Directors.
Early voices in MeTooSTEM convinced me to move beyond women in thinking about MeTooSTEM advocacy. I said we finally had the National Academy data on women, so we could leverage this to help ‘other’ people later. People I respect said there were people who would never have enough representation to convince people of their pain. I said they were right and I’ve tried to align this truth with my actions.
My time on campuses reflects this commitment. Most of my time in visits is with students - specifically with gender, racial, religious and ethnic minorities. Those who have MeToo experiences. Those who are struggling. It's not my 'job'. It's my pleasure.
I was, and remain, shocked that NASEM panels come to campuses talking about sexual misconduct and don't meet with victims. NASEM asked me to speak at their meeting at UCI, one of the most hurting communities in science. I flew out there with little notice and, after I talked to them, I invited myself into that community. I gave a talk. I had lunch with them. I had a safe space. It was the least I could do.
The response was crushing. There were hundreds of people who came. There were so many people crying I had to stop and restart. The hurt of this community, where dreamers visas are threatened by reporting, is real. I asked administration in the room to have MeTooSTEM back. I asked them to look around the room and see this pain and let us talk more. They never did. It’s been five months and I think about them every day.
As for the concerns of volunteers who left, I now realize that starting MeTooSTEM meetings ask 'what are the things you want to talk about?' seemed to me like an opportunity for minority voices to vocalize their concerns. That's not true. Even when there are only 5 or 6 people, and 1/3 of them are minorities, it’s not enough for everyone to feel empowered to speak. I need to do a better job then just opening the floor to ideas or having an ‘idea chat function' in these meetings. I need better tools and better questions. We have all sat in too many spaces already and smiled and said we are okay. MeTooSTEM shouldn't be that for anyone. It's not okay.
I’ve now give dozens of talks. Been to campuses around the country and am so grateful I had an opportunity to craft these early ideas before any events were held. I don’t know how we can help, but I know not talking about trauma is toxic. I know a room full of crying people is awful and I would do anything to help them. I know you probably would too, if you were there. I also know hoping administrations do the right thing won’t help. It hasn’t for the 47 years we have had Title IX protections.
ADVOCACY IS NOT RESEARCH: Don’t ask us to form a consensus for you.
To people who study sexual harassment, thank you for your work. We need that information. But you are not my people. Advocates have our own set of needs, pain, skills and our own agenda. I haven’t had anything bad to say about you in public or private. I still don’t, but I don’t I agree in prioritizing more studies.
I don’t support a NASEM Action Collaborative. It ignores victims and lets universities like Dartmouth claim to be ‘leaders’. This is a school whose lawyers are actively trying to doxx rape victims who identify with MeTooSTEM.
This hypocrisy should cause outrage in the good schools who want to do the actual work. It outrages me. It outrages me that every Dartmouth student and faculty member isn’t sitting on The Green in protest. The pain there is too deep to be ignored.
I will keep asking people who challenge me to speak in leadership positions. I will speak frankly about the wrong-headedness of failing to center victims. I hope others join in punching up at institutions that are harming us. No one in these conversations is misinformed. No one who has MeTooSTEM truth is wrong. More people should be uncomfortable. My advice comes from my experience. More researchers, more funders, more people who thought they were doing this well and more people like me should be uncomfortable. It’s okay.
I believe that institutions realizing they can save money by doing better early is the answer. I believe institutions will take sexual misconduct seriously when agencies like NIH start caring about what a training ‘environment’ means. You can ask other MeTooSTEM aligned individuals what they believe about these opinions. I speak for myself. When MeTooSTEM wants to announce something, the volunteers who staff that Twitter account will do so. I am not that voice. I haven’t been for a long time.
MOVING FORWARD:
At every talk I give, I apologize immediately and publicly. I apologize because I mean it. I apologize I was in science for so long and saw so much and only recently spoke loud enough to be heard. I thought being a witness would be easy. I thought Title IX would help the students I sent there. I was wrong. I apologize that I thought I was brave and it didn’t protect people. My pain and frustration are real and I’ve earned them. There is something worse than pain I have yet to find words for that comes with filing all these FOIAs, to listening to thousands of people at events in the past five months and to spending so many nights talking to victims.
If you ask for my advice, I’ll tell you Title IX comes with retaliation for almost everyone. I will tell you that the police helped me more than any university office did. If you search my twitter account, for ‘police’ you’ll see my views.
I'm visibly annoyed when people ask what we need. We need everyone and everything. No one else is doing the work we are.
If you tell a room of students to confront harassers to 'work it out', it will go poorly. If you come to a microphone and ask about redemption for harassholes, it will go poorly. I will tell you to your face it’s not okay. If you show up uninvited and unwelcome at an event where people are talking about their trauma, it will go poorly. I will write you privately and tell you that. I will work harder to protect those spaces. If you get elected into a society that keeps harasshole members, I won't celebrate.
I will keep raising up voices that resonate with me. I’ll keep ignoring rumors or subtweeting or whatever people do when they are trying to find courage to speak. I’ll keep centering survivors. I’ll keep answering every request for the resources we have.
If you have questions, I invite you to join us on Thursday nights with #MTSTalk. We talk practical advice on filing, peer network monitoring, anxiety, and thank you to those who are building safe communities everywhere.
We may not be your people, but I sincerely hope you find them.
Be well,
BethAnn
@mclneuro
This message was edited to include links and remove type-os on June 3rd 10:33pm.