| TRIGGER WARNING This article or section, or pages it links to, contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors. |
In August 2013, several women in the atheism and skepticism communities documented their experiences of harassment and assault:
On 6th August, Karen Stollznow wrote a blog entry for Scientific American, documenting her harassment and sexual assault by a Committee For Inquiry (CFI) staff member, named by others as Ben Radford. (Scientific American subsequently removed the blog entry.)
On 7th August, PZ Myers published an entry from Carry Poppy, a former staff member of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) documenting how JREF, particularly its President D.J. Grothe, failed to support Stollznow and otherwise behaved unethically.
On 7th August. Jen McCreight quoted additional accounts of Grothe's misogyny, and redacted part of her entry that others report referred to astronomer Lawrence Krauss.
On 8th August, PZ Myers published an account from a then unnamed source of rape by The Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer.
Ben Radford raised a federal lawsuit against Karen Stollznow for defamation, fraud, and tortious interference. The lawsuit was settled (in June 2015?) with a joint statement that the parties had shared an "intimate, personal relationship that ended with acrimony and misunderstanding". The statement does not explicitly repeal Stollznow's original accusations, and is instead worded "it would be wrong for anyone to believe that Ben Radford stalked, sexually harassed, or physically or sexually assaulted Karen Stollznow".[1] Following the settlement, Radford published an appeal to anyone who has repeated the original claims to remove them.[2]
Documentation
- Jason Thibeault has a more complete timeline of events
- Nathan Hevenstone reposted Stollznow's entire blog post on August 12.
- PZ Myers names Ben Radford as Stollznow's assailant, based on multiple reports.
- PZ Myers publishes Carry Poppy's account of D.J. Grothe’s behaviour.
- Jen McCreight blogs about the revelations concerning Radford and Grothe, including substantial quotes from Stollznow's now removed blog entry.
- Jen McCreight blogs again about Grothe, and reports later that part of the entry has been redacted due to legal threats. willradik reports that the redacted allegations concerned Lawrence Krauss.
- CFI tweets about the takedown of Stollznow's blog entry: they report that they requested amendments, not a takedown.
- PZ Myers publishes an account from an unnamed source of Michael Shermer raping a conference attendee.
