I’m mindful that there’s an external investigation that is ongoing at present, but I had a few questions that I think would be useful transparency for the EA community, even if it may be detrimental to the CEA / the community health team. I’m sorry if this comes across as piling on in what I’m sure is a very stressful time for you and the team, and I want to emphasise and echo Kirsten’s comment above about this ultimately being a “lack of adequate systems” issue, and not a responsibility that should be fully borne by you as an individual.
Shortly after the article came out, Julia Wise (CEA’s community liaison) informed the EV UK board that this concerned behaviour of Owen Cotton-Barratt; the incident occurred more than 5 years ago and was reported to her in 2021. (Owen became a board member in 2020.)
From the EV UK board’s statement, it sounds like the board did not know about this until Feb this year. Can you clarify the extent to which not informing the EV UK board was a result of the victim explicitly requesting something along these lines, and if so, whether you spoke to the victim before informing the EV UK board when the article came out?
What actions did you take to reduce the risks associated with these events (whether to individual / potential victims in the EA community, to CEA, or the EA movement more broadly)? It sounds like the actions consisted of the following, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important:[1]
Conversations with Owen Cotton-Barratt (OCB) and his colleagues
Some clarity here would be useful also—what’s the role of OCB’s colleagues here? Were they complicit, or was this for harm-mitigating reasons?
A written post about power dynamics
An update to Nicole when she became your manager in 2021
Are you also happy to comment on whether your CoI with OCB was disclosed with Nicole when you informed her of this situation, or with anyone else in the CH team at any stage? What details did you share with Nicole in 2021, when she became your manager?
Given OCB’s status and position in the community, the seemingly direct access to potential victims via mentoring / “picking out promising students and funneling them towards highly coveted jobs” / his role as Director for FHI’s Research Scholars Programme, and your COIs with him (both from a friendship and EV / CEA organisational perspective), this seems to clearly tick many important boxes of where I’d expect to err on the side of full disclosure. Were there extenuating circumstances at the time that meant you didn’t feel comfortable sharing more than you did?
Did the complaints from the woman in the Time article come before or after other feedback you heard about OCB? The timeline sounds something like:
TIME magazine case, reported to you in 2021
Learnt about other situations (in the cases not from OCB, were these as a result of your investigation, or spontaneous reports by other community members?)
OCB raised concerns to you that he had made another woman uncomfortable—reported a few months ago.
Accordingly, I also just want to flag this set of questions as important, and has been raised in the past as a potential cause for insufficient action. When the TIME article came out, you clarified that one cause for confusion was that this consideration didn’t apply to sexual assault but to things like “someone has made some inappropriate comments and gotten feedback about it”. To what extent do you think these considerations played a role in the decisions you made around managing risk?
You mentioned that you had been “taking a renewed look at possible steps to take here”. When did this start? I’m mainly interested in clarifying whether this was something ongoing, (e.g., prompted by finding out about other situations or hearing from OCB himself about making another woman uncomfortable a few months ago), or was this prompted by knowledge of the existence (or possible existence) of the TIME article.
-notifying the EV board -a discussion with other CH colleagues around reducing his exposure to possible victims or level of risk, given his role as Director for FHI’s Research Scholars Programme, such as considering a temporary ban to EAGs (also seems like shared responsibility around the decision made would be appropriate, and not a burden that should fall solely on your shoulders)
The TIME article is what prompted me to realize I hadn’t properly dealt with everything here.
Can you clarify the extent to which not informing the EV UK board was a result of the victim explicitly requesting something along these lines
She did not request that I not tell the board—I don’t think we discussed that possibility.
What actions did you take to reduce the risks associated with these events
I had conversations with several of his colleagues alerting them to the situation so they could intervene if they thought something like this might be happening again.
An email was sent to researchers he mentored encouraging them to bring concerns to me if they had feedback about their experience in the program or how personal and professional relationships were intersecting in the workplace.
I talked with Owen about the problems I saw with his behavior, including the power dynamics.
what’s the role of OCB’s colleagues here? Were they complicit, or was this for harm-mitigating reasons?
As far as I know, they did not previously know about any of this. The goal was harm mitigation.
Are you also happy to comment on whether your CoI with OCB was disclosed with Nicole when you informed her of this situation, or with anyone else in the CH team at any stage? What details did you share with Nicole in 2021, when she became your manager?
We expect that we’ll be interviewed separately about what we recall of this conversation as part of the investigation, so I think it’s best if I don’t go into detail here.
Did the complaints from the woman in the Time article come before or after other feedback you heard about OCB?
The order was: I learned about one situation from a third party, then learned the situation described in TIME, then learned of another situation because I asked the woman on a hunch, then learned the last case from Owen.
I don’t have a clear answer about the ways various considerations played into my decisions. I expect this is the kind of thing we’ll be discussing as part of the investigation into our work here.
The order was: I learned about one situation from a third party, then learned the situation described in TIME, then learned of another situation because I asked the woman on a hunch, then learned the last case from Owen.
with
No other women raised complaints about him to me, but I learned (in some cases from him) of a couple of other situations where his interactions with women in EA were questionable.
Emphasis mine. (Highlighting your first statement implies he informed you of multiple cases and this statement implies he only informed you of one)
In the first case, I initially heard about the situation from a third party, but nearly all the information I knew came from Owen. (I asked the woman if she had concerns about the situation that she wanted to discuss, and I didn’t hear back.)
She did not request that I not tell the board—I don’t think we discussed that possibility.
To clarify—do you mean you didn’t tell them by because you hadn’t discussed the possibility that you would, or you did tell them because you didn’t discuss the possibility that you wouldn’t? That’s an important ambiguity!
Either way, for all my recent disillusionment with EVF, I feel like you’ve been the one constant I’ve continually heard good things about, so I hope you learn whatever lessons apply here and continue providing much needed support to the community :)
In 2021, the woman and I discussed who she wanted to know about the situation. Our focus was on his colleagues at that time and people he might have a mentorship relationship with. I’ve clarified here that this did include one person who was a board member of EV UK (then called CEA UK) at the time.
When the TIME piece publicly described the situation but not either of the people’s identities, Nicole and I decided that the board should know that the account was about Owen (but not the identity of the woman).
Based on this comment and this excerpt from the UK EV board above, my interpretation is that the board as a whole did not know about this until Feb 2023.
I do think the comment doesn’t fully clarify between whether she considered telling the board but opted against this versus this option did not cross her mind back in 2021, but I suspect this is something that will also be part of the investigation, which is why I didn’t follow up on this.
Thanks for the apology Julia.
I’m mindful that there’s an external investigation that is ongoing at present, but I had a few questions that I think would be useful transparency for the EA community, even if it may be detrimental to the CEA / the community health team. I’m sorry if this comes across as piling on in what I’m sure is a very stressful time for you and the team, and I want to emphasise and echo Kirsten’s comment above about this ultimately being a “lack of adequate systems” issue, and not a responsibility that should be fully borne by you as an individual.
From the EV UK board’s statement, it sounds like the board did not know about this until Feb this year. Can you clarify the extent to which not informing the EV UK board was a result of the victim explicitly requesting something along these lines, and if so, whether you spoke to the victim before informing the EV UK board when the article came out?
What actions did you take to reduce the risks associated with these events (whether to individual / potential victims in the EA community, to CEA, or the EA movement more broadly)? It sounds like the actions consisted of the following, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important:[1]
Conversations with Owen Cotton-Barratt (OCB) and his colleagues
Some clarity here would be useful also—what’s the role of OCB’s colleagues here? Were they complicit, or was this for harm-mitigating reasons?
A written post about power dynamics
An update to Nicole when she became your manager in 2021
Are you also happy to comment on whether your CoI with OCB was disclosed with Nicole when you informed her of this situation, or with anyone else in the CH team at any stage? What details did you share with Nicole in 2021, when she became your manager?
Given OCB’s status and position in the community, the seemingly direct access to potential victims via mentoring / “picking out promising students and funneling them towards highly coveted jobs” / his role as Director for FHI’s Research Scholars Programme, and your COIs with him (both from a friendship and EV / CEA organisational perspective), this seems to clearly tick many important boxes of where I’d expect to err on the side of full disclosure. Were there extenuating circumstances at the time that meant you didn’t feel comfortable sharing more than you did?
Did the complaints from the woman in the Time article come before or after other feedback you heard about OCB? The timeline sounds something like:
TIME magazine case, reported to you in 2021
Learnt about other situations (in the cases not from OCB, were these as a result of your investigation, or spontaneous reports by other community members?)
OCB raised concerns to you that he had made another woman uncomfortable—reported a few months ago.
Accordingly, I also just want to flag this set of questions as important, and has been raised in the past as a potential cause for insufficient action. When the TIME article came out, you clarified that one cause for confusion was that this consideration didn’t apply to sexual assault but to things like “someone has made some inappropriate comments and gotten feedback about it”. To what extent do you think these considerations played a role in the decisions you made around managing risk?
You mentioned that you had been “taking a renewed look at possible steps to take here”. When did this start? I’m mainly interested in clarifying whether this was something ongoing, (e.g., prompted by finding out about other situations or hearing from OCB himself about making another woman uncomfortable a few months ago), or was this prompted by knowledge of the existence (or possible existence) of the TIME article.
(commenting in personal capacity etc)
For example:
-notifying the EV board
-a discussion with other CH colleagues around reducing his exposure to possible victims or level of risk, given his role as Director for FHI’s Research Scholars Programme, such as considering a temporary ban to EAGs (also seems like shared responsibility around the decision made would be appropriate, and not a burden that should fall solely on your shoulders)
The TIME article is what prompted me to realize I hadn’t properly dealt with everything here.
She did not request that I not tell the board—I don’t think we discussed that possibility.
I had conversations with several of his colleagues alerting them to the situation so they could intervene if they thought something like this might be happening again.
An email was sent to researchers he mentored encouraging them to bring concerns to me if they had feedback about their experience in the program or how personal and professional relationships were intersecting in the workplace.
I talked with Owen about the problems I saw with his behavior, including the power dynamics.
As far as I know, they did not previously know about any of this. The goal was harm mitigation.
We expect that we’ll be interviewed separately about what we recall of this conversation as part of the investigation, so I think it’s best if I don’t go into detail here.
The order was: I learned about one situation from a third party, then learned the situation described in TIME, then learned of another situation because I asked the woman on a hunch, then learned the last case from Owen.
I don’t have a clear answer about the ways various considerations played into my decisions. I expect this is the kind of thing we’ll be discussing as part of the investigation into our work here.
How do you square:
with
Emphasis mine. (Highlighting your first statement implies he informed you of multiple cases and this statement implies he only informed you of one)
In the first case, I initially heard about the situation from a third party, but nearly all the information I knew came from Owen. (I asked the woman if she had concerns about the situation that she wanted to discuss, and I didn’t hear back.)
To clarify—do you mean you didn’t tell them by because you hadn’t discussed the possibility that you would, or you did tell them because you didn’t discuss the possibility that you wouldn’t? That’s an important ambiguity!
Either way, for all my recent disillusionment with EVF, I feel like you’ve been the one constant I’ve continually heard good things about, so I hope you learn whatever lessons apply here and continue providing much needed support to the community :)
In 2021, the woman and I discussed who she wanted to know about the situation. Our focus was on his colleagues at that time and people he might have a mentorship relationship with. I’ve clarified here that this did include one person who was a board member of EV UK (then called CEA UK) at the time.
When the TIME piece publicly described the situation but not either of the people’s identities, Nicole and I decided that the board should know that the account was about Owen (but not the identity of the woman).
Based on this comment and this excerpt from the UK EV board above, my interpretation is that the board as a whole did not know about this until Feb 2023.
I do think the comment doesn’t fully clarify between whether she considered telling the board but opted against this versus this option did not cross her mind back in 2021, but I suspect this is something that will also be part of the investigation, which is why I didn’t follow up on this.