You may have heard someone claim I've been accused of sexual harassment. That isn't exactly true. Some bloggers claimed I had engaged in "persistent, obnoxious sexual behavior in defiance of specific requests that [I] cease" with several women. But no woman has actually said that. What I have actually been accused of is much milder behavior, which also isn't true, though not that serious even if it was.
Nevertheless, I have evidence those claims are false, including verified documents and sworn eyewitness testimony. No investigation has found me in violation of any harassment policy. And even the false claims made about me are for rather trivial behavior. Nearly a dozen women have also testified to the fact that my actual behavior when asking people out does not align with what's been falsely claimed.
I hope you would only judge someone after reviewing the evidence of what they are really like and have actually done. Which is here provided.
-:-
You may know that the atheist celebrities Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, and David Silverman have all been accused of major consent violations in their treatment of women at events. I believe those are credible enough, because the preponderance of evidence supports them (you can read my full statement on that).
Unlike them, even at worst all that I am being accused of is asking for consent, and respecting the answer.
It would be unfair therefore to conflate my behavior with theirs. In contrast with them, in my case the evidence proves:
I never violated any sexual harassment policy.
Nor has any formal investigation found that I did.
I never assaulted or groped anyone.
Nor has anyone even claimed that I did.
I never put anyone in a coercive situation.
Nor was anyone involved my student or employee.
I was never impolite or disrespected any stated boundary.
And I never continued any behavior I was told was unwanted.
And yet various people continue to claim I’m a sexual harasser who engaged in "persistent, obnoxious sexual behavior in defiance of specific requests that he cease." That’s demonstrably false. And yet, those pushing this claim attempted to hide the evidence that it's false, so I had to engage the law to compel recovery of that evidence. I then dismissed my lawsuits upon obtaining it.
Please look at the evidence before deciding.
The Evidence in My Case
Most of the evidence referred to here you can verify yourself at Pacer.gov. Just look for Carrier v. FreethoughtBlogs Network et al, case number 16-cv-00906 (see also Carrier v. Frank, 19-cv-02719, and Carrier v. Myers, 19-cv-1152). The Defense submitted many documents through formal discovery, which are presented here.
In the following points, I summarize what the evidence we now have proves. Each point is followed by a link labeled [evidence] that will take you to a list and discussion of the evidence if you want to examine it.
The Alleged Six Accusers
The bloggers making these claims about me have alleged there are six accusers (per Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction 12-01-16, Exhibit 6, Declaration of Stephanie Zvan, Par. 17). That's actually not true. Here are the facts (with names redacted where appropriate):
O is a woman in Ohio who has never accused me of anything. Nor have the defendants ever spoken to her. [evidence]
C is a woman in California whom the defendants are counting as an accuser, who never accused me of violating any sexual harassment policy, or of continuing any behavior she said was unwanted, or of doing anything other than politely inquiring about her interest, and heeding her response; and not at any event, but at a private residence. [evidence]
M is a woman in Minnesota whom the defendants are counting as an accuser, who allegedly complained of some sort of unspecified behavior toward her in email and at a party in California. This claim is based on communications never produced, which either can't be telling the truth or are being misrepresented to the public. [evidence]
Heina Dadabhoy stated themselves, in emails submitted to the court, that I never behaved inappropriately with them. And Defendants presented no evidence to the court that I ever did. I sent Dadabhoy, at the time a peer and long time personal friend, a single polite loveletter. And I fully respected her wishes in response to it. Literally nothing else significant happened between us—as again their own emailed replies to me prove. [evidence]
Lauren Lane is not telling the truth. I never violated any harassment policy with her, or with anyone; at all, much less at Skepticon. Nor did I continue any behavior that she said was unwanted. The record shows she pursued me, we dated for a few months, I broke up with her, and she later insinuated a false narrative of events. [evidence]
Amy Frank is not telling the truth. She changed her story multiple times, every version of which is refuted by her own private messages to me, whose authenticity she verified upon legal discovery. I only told her that she was welcome to ask me out in future, for which she messaged her appreciation. I never engaged in any of the strange behavior she then claimed, as multiple witnesses can attest. [evidence]
And that's all there is. And this was all years ago, the first two years of my learning ethical nonmonogamy. It was a learning curve for me. And I learned and improved a lot. But even of my few missteps, none were of disrespecting anyone's consent, or any kind of harassment. At worst I was just not reading signals or circumstances well, or being too open or blunt. I'm much better at that now. And I've already personally apologized to anyone it offended at the time.
No Sexual Harassment Occurred
The linked evidence above demonstrates that I have never violated any sexual harassment policy I was working under, including at Skepticon; and that I never continued any behavior with anyone who told me to stop or that my behavior was disliked; and that I never sexually touched anyone without permission or violated anyone's consent. It demonstrates, to the contrary, that all I have ever done is ask for consent, and fully respected the response I was given.
Evidence shows:
I have violated no sexual harassment policy anywhere. [evidence]
I have never continued any behavior I was told was unwanted. [evidence]
And the Defendants received no evidence from anyone of my ever doing anything other than (1) asking for consent and (2) heeding their response. [evidence]
Essentially I've only been accused of the "crime" of asking and respecting consent. Certain parties are attempting to punish me for that. The very thing we feminists are supposed to be encouraging rather than punishing.
And lest you think I'm being coy:
None of these asks for consent involved anything coercive, nor anyone who was in any respect my student or employee, actual or prospective. [evidence]
None of these asks for consent occurred at any event or conference. They occurred only on informal occasions in pubs, private residences, or email or messaging; and never concurrently with any event or conference. [evidence]
None of these asks involved touching anyone without their consent. Not even the incident I myself discussed years ago as part of my learning experience, in which I regretted touching a woman's hair and shoulder without asking first. For she herself has never complained of that, and is not one of my accusers. [evidence]
That summarizes the truth of this case. If none of it sounds like what you thought the defendants were telling you, you now know they haven't been telling you the truth.
Conclusion
In my lawsuits for defamation the Defendants failed to present any evidence in court supporting any of their claims. They even attempted to keep evidence from the public. Compelling them to authenticate or turn over that evidence is what I sued for. I told them that several times during the legal process: if they could show any evidence corroborating their claims, I would desist from suing them. They presented none. The court even offered them state-mediated arbitration to end the case without further expense. And they refused. They refused. Instead they sought only to increase the cost of litigation. Eventually I was able to compel enough discovery to demonstrate they were not telling the truth, and stopped litigation to save us all further expense (because lawsuits are absurdly expensive). That's what happened.
It's not as if I haven't been very honest and forthcoming about my own failures and mistakes in human relations, all of which I have apologized for and taken successful steps not to repeat. I wrote about that myself long before this defamation occurred. And I took even further steps afterward, continuing my commitment to learning how to improve my interactions with people to ensure everyone can be as comfortable with me as possible. And still I am being defamed with false claims that I have violated sexual harassment policies and persisted in behaviors even after being told not to. How can we have a just or honest world, if you participate in allowing this? But that's what you do when you believe their claims without evaluating the evidence first.
Instead, throughout litigation, the Defense told even more outrageous lies about me and my friends and girlfriends. For example, through counsel, the Defense insinuated to our conservative judge that one of my girlfriends was cheating on her husband with me, that her husband avenged himself on me because I "cuckolded" him (their word), and that she left me because I pursued younger women (Defendants’ Brief, Dkt. 42, p. 10). In fact we were all polyamorous, she and I were still together, he and I remained close friends, and none of what they alleged happened. Which demonstrates they threw not just truth but even social justice itself under the bus to avoid a trial of the facts.
So please ask yourself why you should trust any of them, when they were willing to lie like this, even to a court of law? So check the facts. Test their honesty yourself. The links above will provide you with everything you need, even how to find their side of the story to compare it with mine.