You Say You Want a Revolution...
It took a little while, but Readercon finally got it right. The Readercon con committee has overruled its board of directors (which is a small subset of the committee) and upheld the con's stated harassment policy in the Rene Walling situation. Walling is now permanently banned from the conference. The board is resigning and a new board will be elected.
The con committee's statement is excellent, and should be good news for the con and for fans in general. The fact that a con that had previously been considered to be doing things the right way got itself into so much trouble, and that the news of that trouble spread so far beyond the Readercon community*, should help push other cons into taking a firmer stance against harassment. At least, that's the theory. I hope it comes to pass. If nothing else, at least one injustice has been rectified.
* Even Jezebel took note of it.
Also worth reading is Genevieve Valentine's response to the news, especially the reaction of Kate Kligman, who also came forward and was totally ignored by the board of directors. Kligman had been harassed by Walling to where she had stopped attending conventions out of fear of seeing him.
Over the weekend, late at night, a message to me from Kate popped up.
"So if this works out, wanna go to Readercon?"
Makes the whole thing worth while, don't ya think.
We all want to change the world...
The con committee's statement is excellent, and should be good news for the con and for fans in general. The fact that a con that had previously been considered to be doing things the right way got itself into so much trouble, and that the news of that trouble spread so far beyond the Readercon community*, should help push other cons into taking a firmer stance against harassment. At least, that's the theory. I hope it comes to pass. If nothing else, at least one injustice has been rectified.
* Even Jezebel took note of it.
Also worth reading is Genevieve Valentine's response to the news, especially the reaction of Kate Kligman, who also came forward and was totally ignored by the board of directors. Kligman had been harassed by Walling to where she had stopped attending conventions out of fear of seeing him.
Over the weekend, late at night, a message to me from Kate popped up.
"So if this works out, wanna go to Readercon?"
Makes the whole thing worth while, don't ya think.
We all want to change the world...