Others have touched on why this response feels unsatisfying, but on a meta level, I’m not sure responding in this level of detail was the right call. The additional context doesn’t really contradict Frances’s account and it mostly reframes things in ways that, intentionally or not, read as defensive. If CEA genuinely accepts that it made serious mistakes, I think the stronger move would have been a shorter, clearer apology without any explanatory scaffolding.
I also really hope Frances was informed that this response would be posted and, ideally, shown the specific contents beforehand. Based on her reply, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Publishing a detailed public explanation of your side of someone’s account of being sexually harassed at your organisation without any notification seems like a pretty significant misstep on its own.
Others have touched on why this response feels unsatisfying, but on a meta level, I’m not sure responding in this level of detail was the right call. The additional context doesn’t really contradict Frances’s account and it mostly reframes things in ways that, intentionally or not, read as defensive. If CEA genuinely accepts that it made serious mistakes, I think the stronger move would have been a shorter, clearer apology without any explanatory scaffolding.
I also really hope Frances was informed that this response would be posted and, ideally, shown the specific contents beforehand. Based on her reply, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Publishing a detailed public explanation of your side of someone’s account of being sexually harassed at your organisation without any notification seems like a pretty significant misstep on its own.