I am an attorney in a public-sector position not associated with EA, although I cannot provide legal advice to anyone. My involvement with EA so far has been mostly limited so far to writing checks to GiveWell and other effective charities in the Global Health space, as well as some independent reading. I have occasionally read the forum and was looking for ideas for year-end giving when the whole FTX business exploded . . .
Jason
Karma: 19,418
On the legal findings: I’m not an expert in UK employment law [. . . .]
Under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010, harassment occurs when “the conduct has the purpose or effect of—(i) violating B’s dignity, or (ii) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.” In considering whether the conduct has such an effect, “each of the following must be taken into account—(a) the perception of B; (b) the other circumstances of the case; (c) whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have that effect.”
See also section 1.28 of this guidance. So there is an objective element to the test, and relevant circumstances must be considered. So I think it is fair to infer that the external reviewer concluded that it was reasonable for Frances to conclude that the conduct violated her dignity or created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. I also think it is fair to infer that the external reviewer concluded that the other circumstances of the case were not inconsistent with a finding of harassment. That would be easy; there is no legitimate reason for a co-worker to be circulating a memo about another co-worker’s rape or mental health.
Your post implies that CEA leadership is cowardly, indifferent, and complicit. But an organization that waived confidentiality, paid for your lawyer, never attempted to silence you, and whose CEO gave you what you yourself describe as a genuine apology is not staffed by monsters.
I submit that there is a sliding scale of moral credit for acceptance of responsibility based on timeliness (also true in the UK criminal justice system). These actions came awfully late for me to give too much credit here, especially to the extent that they came after Frances expressed that she would be going public. They could be construed as damage control—the reputational risk of litigation in which documents would come out and those involved would have to testify under oath would dwarf the risk of an EA Forum post. Even without a confidentiality agreement, a settlement is much quieter than the alternative.
Most of what Frances characterizes as institutional failure, not telling her and not acting against Riley, is actually consistent with proper HR handling. You don’t tip off the subject of a complaint and you don’t retaliate against the person who filed it.
To begin with, it has not been established that Frances was the subject of the complaint. Two, raising a complaint does not give someone the right to comment on a colleague’s rape or on her mental health. If Riley had concerns about Frances, those concerns were potentially valid only to the extent they related to specific work-related behaviors.
So, for instance, it would be relevant for one employee to write that another employee was producing only 50 widgets an hour instead of 60. Speculating that the employee’s reduced performance was due to age, tendonitis, or sadness that they lost their dog would be unwarranted.[1] None of those things are the co-worker’s business.
Employees are not entitled to write whatever they want about their co-workers and get protected status as “complainants.” Especially when they have asked said co-worker out multiple times and been turned down; that raises the specter of a “complaint” as payback.[2]
Proper HR handling would have been for the first person to see the document to rip it up, tell Riley that his comments related to rape and mental health were wildly inappropriate, and tell him that if he wanted to raise concerns they needed to be strictly related to work-related behaviors.
The unanimous 500+ karma response with little critical engagement on a forum that prides itself on epistemics tells us more about this community’s appetite for moral drama than about the severity of what actually occurred.
This strikes me as an unwarranted demand for rigor. We have to make decisions based on the evidence that is available. This forum does not have power to subpoena documents or depose witnesses. Here, for instance, we do have the following considerations:
Frances’ narrative is quite specific (and acknowledges when she doesn’t have information, such as because CEA has so far refused to turn it over).
There are individuals and an organization who would have an incentive to controvert Frances’ statements if they were misleading—including CEA and its allies.
CEA has had an opportunity to respond, has done so, and hasn’t to my ears controverted the core elements of Frances’ statement. It apparently spent significant amounts of time and its donors money on investigation, so should be in a position to correct material misstatements. It already settled with Frances, so should be in a position to correct most misstatements she might have made without compromising any litigating position.
Frances has engaged with comments and skeptics, while CEA has stated that it is unable to do so.[3]
Frances left a post at CEA—one of the marquee jobs in the EA world—which is consistent with her characterization that something went very, very wrong here. I am not aware of any evidence that she did so for any other reason.
There is no dispute that independent investigations found in Frances’ favor here.
Several of Frances’ former colleagues at CEA have written supportive messages; those individuals are arguably in a better position to discern the truth than we are (and are unlikely to be biased against their current employer).
What additional evidence do you think is required and reasonably attainable here?
- ^
I’m deliberately picking an example that is clearly unrelated to Frances’ work tasks or Riley’s statements.
- ^
I decline to speculate on Riley’s motivation for writing, but I think it’s fair to assert that treating all complaints as privileged from disciplinary action facilitates payback for those who would like to obtain it.
- ^
CEA may have valid reasons for not doing so, and so I don’t want to score this too heavily. Yet there is no actual evidence that those reasons exist and are substantial, and I don’t think blind and total deference to an organization’s claim of inability is appropriate. So I am going to adjust slightly in favor of the reliability of Frances’ narrative based on her willingness to engage here.
[This is more from a US perspective.]
If anyone else has experienced or is experiencing sexual harassment, disability harassment,[1] or other discriminatory harassment, I’d strongly encourage consulting an attorney early in the response process. At least in the US, many attorneys offer free consultations in this area because they can get their fees paid by the employer if they prevail in litigation or settle. Doing a consultation does not oblige the victim to pursue formal legal remedies or do anything else.
The employer’s largest financial exposure is often to the victim’s attorney fees, so a rational employer with a losing case has a strong incentive to provide the employee with appropriate relief early rather than drag the process out.
Also, at least in the US, there is a limited amount of time for filing equal-employment claims (often 180 days).
HR works for the company and is not neutral. The company’s attorneys are obliged by the rules of professional conduct to zealously “represent[] the organization acting through its duly authorized constituents” with limited exceptions.
Of course, I understand why some victims choose not to involve legal processes, or choose to defer those processes for a while. I support whatever decision they make on this point. But I thought the comment was worth writing to ensure people knew about their options, to normalize that pursuing legal remedies early is an appropriate option, and to explain why bringing in counsel may lead to a quicker resolution.
- ^
I didn’t search, and don’t know UK law, but I would be very surprised if the conduct in question were not also harassment on the basis of disability (or perceived disability).
- ^
Thanks for writing.
I’m having a hard time understanding the mutual aid example, but maybe that stems from my relative lack of knowledge in that area. Wikipedia tells me that “[m]utual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten the hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision-making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team.” But I expect that one of the effects of such strong decentralized/diffused governance and structure is that it would be very hard for a small group of people to have great leverage. Stated differently, I sense some tension between a focus on “scalable” and “repeatable” operations and being controlled by / responsive to the local community. I’m not suggesting that there is no value there, but I would associate scalable, repeatable operations more with top-down governance.
Against that, I think we have to weigh that the appearance and/or reality of increasing politicization would make it harder for other EA cause areas to achieve their objectives.
Another problematic element of Riley’s behavior here is that he asked multiple times.
Conditional on asking out a colleague being otherwise acceptable, I submit that it is acceptable exactly once. The best potential argument against a broadly applicable no-asking norm—that it constitutes employer interference in the highly personal decisions of two people who may both want to pursue something—is significantly attenuated when Person B is already aware of Person A’s interest and can follow up if they change their mind.
An opt-in solution might be preferable here—such as a norm or policy against asking out colleagues with whom you have more-than-superficial contact at work [1] unless they have (e.g.) opted in on a third-party website (either generally or specifically with respect to you).
- ^
I mean to exclude cases like: there are 1,000 employees and you may see this person across the cafeteria once or twice a month.
- ^
I agree that this situation raises some serious questions about the suitability of one or more people at CEA to continue in certain roles, but …
I suspect any response would need multiple layers of review within CEA and possibly by external legal counsel. Depending on the content, they probably should offer to run a response by Fran first. And there are likely to be some constraints on what the response can say in light of legal obligations to current and/or past employees. I think we need to consider that before drawing any adverse inferences from silence after a few days.
It’s also likely that there is a tension between individual CEA leadership employees/leaders’ interest in convincing the community that they are fit to serve in their roles and the institutional interests of CEA itself and/or the employee/leader’s obligations to CEA. The lawyers are certainly bound by attorney-client privilege. So I’d exercise caution in drawing negative inferences against an individual employee or leader without considering that their ability to defend themselves may be compromised.
While you avoid capital gains tax when donating appreciated stock to a 501(c)(4), you will want to confirm with the organization that it will be able to avoid taxation on the capital gain as well. The 501(c)(4) takes the donor’s basis in the donated stock under the general rule for gifts at I.R.C. 1015(a).
A 501(c)(4) is subject to tax under I.R.C. 527(f) on the lesser of its net investment income or
certain political activity. My understanding is that tax usually hits at 35%, and so paying it is worse than the donor paying at 15-23.8% and then donating the balance. On the other hand, I believe that organizations can get around this if they can avoid having net investment income and certain political expenditures in the same year. The org should know if it is going to have the specified type of expenditures in a year it may sell the donated, appreciated stock.
I believe this applies only to stock that has appreciated in value, right? If you have losers, you want to take the capital loss (either to offset your capital gains, or to reduce your other income by up to $3,000 with carryover available).
There’s an argument for some people to buy stock to donate. Those of us who bunch their donations to maximize deductibility should probably be buying a variety of somewhat volatile stocks during our off years, donating the winners either directly or through a DAF during our giving years, and selling the losers to harvest the losses whenever appropriate. (Just remember to avoid creating a wash sale!)
If you’re in the US and dropping checks in the mail today, I would not rely on the assumption that they would be postmarked today. Effective December 24, the postmark date is no longer the date on which mail is deposited with USPS (although it sounds like postmark date may not have been fully reliable even before this policy change).
Under Treasury Regulation 1.170A-1, “[t]he unconditional delivery or mailing of a check which subsequently clears in due course will constitute an effective contribution on the date of delivery or
mailing.” I have usually filmed myself dropping checks into the USPS mailbox for this reason, and will do so with my wife’s charitable contributions this year (mine are already done). The safer alternative, especially if large sums are involved, would be to take the mailpiece to a post office and have a manual postmark applied by the person behind the counter (or send via certified mail).
I’m initially skeptical on tractability—at least of an outright ban, although maybe I am applying too much of a US perspective. Presumably most adults who indulge in indoor tanning know that it’s bad for you. There’s no clear addictive process (e.g., smoking), third-party harms (e.g., alcohol), or difficulty avoiding the harm—factors which mitigate the paternalism objection when bans or restrictions on other dangerous activities are proposed.
Moreover, slightly less than half of US states even ban all minors from using tanning beds, and society is more willing to support paternalistic bans for minors. That makes me question how politically viable a ban for adults would be. “[T]he indoor tanning lobby” may not be very powerful, but it would be fighting for its very existence, and it would have the support of its consumers.
On the other side of the equation, the benefits don’t strike me as obviously large in size. Most skin-cancer mortality comes from melanomas (8,430/year in the US), but if I am reading this correctly then only 6,200 of the 212,200 melanomas in the US each year are attributed to indoor tanning. The average five-year survival for melanoma in the US is 94%. So the number of lives saved may not be particularly high here.
If you’re taking the standard deduction (ie donating <~$15k)
The i.e. here is too narrow—the criterion is whether the person will have enough itemized deductions of any sort to make itemizing worthwhile vs. the standard deduction of $15,750 (for a single person). Almost everyone will have state and local taxes to count; many of us have mortgage interest to potentially itemize as well.
If the reader knows they are going to take the standard deduction this year, I would consider not donating until at least January 1 at this point. Maybe something will change for them in 2026 (e.g., a better-paying job triggering more state/local taxes and allowing more donations) that could make the donations useful for tax purposes in that year.
Veganuary seeming against it is part of the bit.
So this is . . . . ~EA kayfabe? (That term refers to “the portrayal of staged elements within professional wrestling . . . . as legitimate or real.”).
How are you doing on your target funding?
In particular, I genuinely feel like EA would have more traction if it distanced itself from the concept of pledging 10% because most people I feel like donate between $30-50$ per month not like thousands of dollars in a year.
For the population that is interested in giving a few hundred dollars a year, I suspect that individual-charity efforts without the EA branding or intellectual/other overhead are going to be more effective. So I don’t think there is an either/or here; one can run both sorts of asks without too much interference between the two.
Although that’s an estimate of how much counterfactual value “GWWC generates” from each pledge, which is less than the full value of the pledge. Elsewhere, it is called GWWC-attributable value. The full value is more like $47-60K on best guess.
Therefore I don’t fundamentally think that donor orgs need to pay more to attract similar level of talent as NGOs.
Additional reasons this might be true, at least in the EA space:
GiveWell, CG, etc. may be (or may be perceived as) more stable employers than many potential grantees. I’m pretty confident that they will be around in ten years, that the risk of budget-motivated layoffs is modest, and so on. This may be a particular advantage for mid-career folks with kids and mortgages who are less risk tolerant than their younger peers.
It may be easier—or at least perceived as easier—to jump from a more prestigious role at a funder to another job in the social sector than it would be from a non-funder role. So someone in the private sector could think it less risky to leave a high-paying private sector job to work at GiveWell than to work at one of its grantees, even if the salaries were the same.
My—purely anecdotal—sense is that GiveWell pays more than many of its social sector peers.
To put some numbers on this, here is the data from GiveWell’s 990 in 2023 -- these do appear to be the highest-paid eleven employees (which is not always the case on the 990)
I can count at least three types of public participation here --
Talking to your friends and family (both in person and through one’s own personal social media).
Discussing things in a community of like-minded people (e.g., here).
Discussing things in broader public spaces (e.g., most of Reddit).
(3) is the easiest to dispose of in my view. Although surely people have changed their minds about things on Reddit and in similar places given their massive size, I get the impression that debate subreddits and the like accomplish very little for the amount of effort people pour into them. People generally aren’t going into these kinds of spaces with open minds. And the anecdotal poll you mentioned was conducted on Reddit; a truly random poll would presumably find online debate / discussion spaces to be even less important.
In contrast, people do make progress in like-minded spaces (2). But given that you find these spaces draining, the risk of them burning you out and distracting you from more effective activity presumably exceeds any sort of marginal benefit from active participation. No one can do everything. Each person has different aptitudes, passions, and limitations that influence what actions are best suited to them. It sounds like yours are not well aligned to active participation in discussions, and that’s fine. It’s important that someone conduct in-depth research, communicate it, and discuss it, but it’s not important that any given person does so (especially if it doesn’t align with their aptitudes, passions, and limitations).
As far as being up to date, I think it’s fine to find someone you trust and defer to their judgment as to donation targets. There are respectable reasons to think the end results would be better than trying to do your own research—especially if you’re not feeling motivated to do in-depth research and analysis.
That leaves (1), which is neither of limited utility like in (3) nor can others clearly substitute as in (2). It would be ideal if you could briefly mention certain things without feeling preachy, moralizing, or cringe. And it might make you feel better in the long run to take small steps to be publicly living in accordance with your values—not trying to “convert” other people, but not hiding those values in shame either. Maybe a post on your social media linking to (e.g.) GiveWell and identifying yourself as a donor could be a step in that direction?[1] if anyone thinks that “overly self-identified,” that’s a them problem, not a you problem! But I wouldn’t say it is ethically insufficient to be quiet.
- ^
Others may have more helpful things to say about how to identify as a vegan in ways that you’d find not too uncomfortable. Whether justified or not, vegans do have a reputation in some circles as being “preachy, moralizing, or overly self-identified by” their veganism. As far as I know, effective givers do not have that kind of general reputation, and posting about a charity to which you donate is a normal thing for people to do at least in my non-EA social circles.
Thanks for the clarification; I struck that bullet point from my comment. Sorry that my phrasing didn’t accomplish what I meant to say—that a non-funding decision would be consistent with anything between the funder being strongly opposed to the organization and the funder concluding that it was just under their bar. I’m glad to hear PauseAI is doing better with fundraising than I thought.
There would be some legal risk for rejecting certain kinds of complaints without any action—such as a legally protected complaint that an employee was being subjected to harassment themselves. But there is no evidence that Riley’s complaint about one or more of his co-workers fell into any legally protected category, and it is difficult for me to envision how it would be.
And even if it were necessary to maintain the original complaint on file, you redact the material that constitutes sexual and disability harassment of another employee before broader circulation. It is not “messy” to figure out what portions relate to a legally protected grounds for complaint somewhere before you expose 11 people (over 20% of the company) to the harassing content.