I’m not sure if this is actually a point of disagreement, but just to be clear:
Next, the woman in question was staying at his house in a foreign country. And she knew that he had the ability to recommend her for jobs and (I sense) figured that he was important to have on her side. This seems to be why Owen thinks she went along with it. Owen was pretty well respected in EA even then, right?
If there was nothing else at play I guess I’m somewhere between a more than a bit bad and very bad.
I think the “if there was nothing else at play” is doing a lot of work here.
My view is that choosing to offer his room and confirming this with the hiring organization first, instead of checking in with the friend first about the situation and asking her what she options she would feel most comfortable with first, while this was being arranged on the day of her flight rings serious alarm bells to me, and suggests a significant lapse in professional judgement, awareness of power dynamics and a lack of empathy to his friend (or at least poorly communicated).
I’m not excluding the scenario that she in fact was given multiple options and had a fair chance to consider these options and the opportunity to say no, but this isn’t how I interpret Owen’s description of events.
If this interpretation is accurate, even one such event would be sufficient (for me) for a vote of no confidence in Owen’s ability to appreciate professional boundaries and the power he may wield. In this case, being a better established / more “central” EA, being older, being a man (possibly physically stronger), being in his home, being in his country, being partly responsible for her job interview (to whatever extent the recommendation played a role). There was also a lack of consideration for the context here, that this was done with such urgency, when she might be stressed about the flight, going to a different country, the interview itself, things she might have put aside at home for this trip.
Given someone acting in good faith has to be oblivious to all of these aspects in order to grossly misjudge the extent this would be accepted by the other party, it makes it difficult for me to rule out the possibility that he was acting opportunistically in his self-interest when offering the room. The masturbation comments in this light would be even worse.
While many have appreciated his apology and response, the fact that these actions were taken only in response to being found out/being outed as a result of the TIME article also does not inspire confidence in his claim that he wants to “never repeat these mistakes”. Nor do his four other potentially harmful incidents (in fairness, these were much less “egregious” than this one. This is welcome news, but a pretty low bar to clear). The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Similarly,
Again I’ll make decisions about when to resume these in consultation with my therapist.
Shows a continued lack of insight into the impacts of his actions to the community around him, and whether it’s appropriate for him to be the arbiter around continuing activities that gives him power and exposes him to potential victims.
A minor comment:
I have tried to be evenhanded but I imagine I’m prone to both avoiding supporting Owen and avoiding empathising enough with the accuser.
I don’t like how this is phrased, as it implies we should be optimizing to support Owen to the same extent as supporting the victim.
The only things I’d say is that I don’t personally think he needed to publicly apologise for this thing 5 years ago. But I want to know if there is stuff that’s much more recent and what he’s done to break the pattern. I think CH has done worse there for not reporting it to the board.
On supporting Owen Vs the accuser I think that there is some right amount to support each and I’m comparing to that. Though that said it’s not clear to me that I should support the accuser loads more because she’s the accuser. I guess I should a bit to account for bias, but mainly I should be supportive because she is mostly harmed and he has a pattern of this behaviour.
I’m not sure if this is actually a point of disagreement, but just to be clear:
I think the “if there was nothing else at play” is doing a lot of work here.
My view is that choosing to offer his room and confirming this with the hiring organization first, instead of checking in with the friend first about the situation and asking her what she options she would feel most comfortable with first, while this was being arranged on the day of her flight rings serious alarm bells to me, and suggests a significant lapse in professional judgement, awareness of power dynamics and a lack of empathy to his friend (or at least poorly communicated).
I’m not excluding the scenario that she in fact was given multiple options and had a fair chance to consider these options and the opportunity to say no, but this isn’t how I interpret Owen’s description of events.
If this interpretation is accurate, even one such event would be sufficient (for me) for a vote of no confidence in Owen’s ability to appreciate professional boundaries and the power he may wield. In this case, being a better established / more “central” EA, being older, being a man (possibly physically stronger), being in his home, being in his country, being partly responsible for her job interview (to whatever extent the recommendation played a role). There was also a lack of consideration for the context here, that this was done with such urgency, when she might be stressed about the flight, going to a different country, the interview itself, things she might have put aside at home for this trip.
Given someone acting in good faith has to be oblivious to all of these aspects in order to grossly misjudge the extent this would be accepted by the other party, it makes it difficult for me to rule out the possibility that he was acting opportunistically in his self-interest when offering the room. The masturbation comments in this light would be even worse.
While many have appreciated his apology and response, the fact that these actions were taken only in response to being found out/being outed as a result of the TIME article also does not inspire confidence in his claim that he wants to “never repeat these mistakes”. Nor do his four other potentially harmful incidents (in fairness, these were much less “egregious” than this one. This is welcome news, but a pretty low bar to clear). The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Similarly,
Shows a continued lack of insight into the impacts of his actions to the community around him, and whether it’s appropriate for him to be the arbiter around continuing activities that gives him power and exposes him to potential victims.
A minor comment:
I don’t like how this is phrased, as it implies we should be optimizing to support Owen to the same extent as supporting the victim.
Mostly seems fair.
The only things I’d say is that I don’t personally think he needed to publicly apologise for this thing 5 years ago. But I want to know if there is stuff that’s much more recent and what he’s done to break the pattern. I think CH has done worse there for not reporting it to the board.
On supporting Owen Vs the accuser I think that there is some right amount to support each and I’m comparing to that. Though that said it’s not clear to me that I should support the accuser loads more because she’s the accuser. I guess I should a bit to account for bias, but mainly I should be supportive because she is mostly harmed and he has a pattern of this behaviour.