Re: URGENT: BuzzFeed News inquiry re allegations of sexual harassment by Lawrence Krauss

Mr. Lindsay=

I'm a reporter for Buz=Feed News who has been investigating sexual misconduct allegations against=Lawrence Krauss.

The s=ory concerns Krauss's actions towards students while a professor o= physics at Case Western Reserve University, as well as his conduct in non=academic settings as a prominent figure in the skeptics movement. I am rep=rting this story along with two of my colleagues on the science desk, Azee= Ghorayshi and Virginia Hughes.

Our story is about several allegations of sexual misconduct dating from=2006 to 2016. Our reporting also goes into how the various institutions Kr=uss has been affiliated with — Case Western, Arizona State Univers=ty, the Australian National University, the New College of the Humanities =nd the Center for Inquiry, for which you formerly served as president .=804o have handled complaints and concerns about his behavior during this =ime.

Our story is corroborat=d by emails, university documents, official complaints, testimony from vic=ims and witnesses, and interviews with more than two dozen of KraussQ=99s current and former academic colleagues, students, and peers in the ske=tics movement.

I am writing t= you now because you are personally named in the story, and because you ha= executive responsibility for CH's actions during the time of som= of the alleged incidents.

l=wanted to offer you the opportunity to comment and/or respond to the main =acts we plan to publish regarding your involvement as the former head of C=1 during this time. If you wish to comment on any of these findings, we ne=d to hear from you as soon as possible. We are planning on publishing our story Tuesday morning US East=rn Time.

Based on our report=ng so far, this is what we plan to publish that concerns you: =br>

• CFI cruise<=pan style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;font-style:normal;font-varia=t-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal=font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:p=e-wrap;background-color:transparent">.

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Attendees had =/span>paid

https://web.archive.org/web/20100919014301/http://centerf=rinquiry.net/cruise2011/reservations several
thousand dollars to join a cul=ural tour of the Greek islands, featuring lectures from scientists and wri=ers, including
Krauss.
*
Krauss allegedly propositioned=a female cruise-goer, who rejected an
invitation to join him and his femal= companion for sex in their cabin.
*
No complaint was m=de, but the incident was reported to a CFI staffer
at the time.
*
CFI’s leadership continued to embrace Krauss, But at least two staffers
were sufficiently concer=ed about reports of Krauss’s behavior that they urged you not to i=vite him on a 2014 cruise
http://action.centerforinquiry.net/si=e/MessageViewer?em_id=49328.0 of the Galápagos Islands.
*
In June 2013, after you rejected their advice and invited him on=the
cruise, one of those staffers resigned.
*
At a conf=rence in March 2012, another woman, who at that point was
also an employee=of CFI, told you about an incident in 2006 in which Krauss forcibly kissed=and groped her in a hotel
room. According to this woman, after she told yo= about this in person, you responded to her with silence.
*
The woman later told two other employees in CFI’s management ab=ut
the incident, and expressed her discomfort at having Krauss continue to=speak at events.
*
<=pan style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;font-style:normal;font-
varia=t-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal=font-weight:400;text-
decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:p=e-wrap;background-color:transparent">CFI continued to book
Krauss as a spe=ker at its events.

Again, if you wish to comment on or clarify any of these points,

please=get in touch with us as soon as possible. If I do not respond immediately =t is because I am on another call, so please leave the best phone number t= reach you.

Thanks,
Peter Aldhous

, PhD
Science reporter | =A0BuzzFeed News

Dear Mr= Aldhous,

However, I am unavailable tomorrow (Monday) because of prior

comm=tments until approximately 7:45 PM.

Next, you should know that I'm not an em=loyee of CFI nor do I have any authority to speak on behalf of CFI. I40=804om writing to you from my personal email account in part to underscore=that point. I do retain a CFI email address in part as a courtesy to me an= in part because it serves a business purpose (for example, I still receiv= occasional emails addressed to the president of the organization).=/span>

Turning to the s=bstance of your allegations, first you should be aware that I in-house take the lawyer iss=e (a of position sexual harassment I held prior very to=becoming seriously. president This is confirmed and CEO) by I insisted the fact that that =fter the organization I was hired adopt by CFI a as its compr=hensive zero-tolerance harassment policy covering workplace harassment. Mo=eover, during the time I was president and CEO we had three separate state=trainings for the entire staff on sexual harassment issues. In addition, w=ere necessary, we did not hesitate to expend significant resources, includ=ng retaining outside investigators, to conduct serious, detailed inquiries=into harassment claims. One such inquiry cost the organization over $40,00=. Therefore, any suggestion that I do not personally take harassment claim= seriously is amply disconfirmed by my record.

Regarding the alleged incident on t=e 2011 cruise, the first I became aware of it was when Pat Beauchamp, CFI=E2.4>s business manager and the employee responsible for cruise logisti=s, wrote to me in 2013 indicating she objected to inviting Lawrence Krauss=on our upcoming Galapagos cruise. I found this strange, and I responded to=her almost immediately asking the reasons for her objection. She gave two =easons. The first was that Krauss did not pay sufficient attention to the =uests on the 2011 cruise. I had heard this concern from one guest myself; =n the other hand, I also heard from several guests that they thought Kraus='s presentations were excellent and a highlight of the cruise. Acc=rdingly, I did not give this concern much weight.

<=ont>The second reason was that Krauss had allegedly asked a female guest o= the cruise to join him and his partner, apparently for some sort of sexua= activity (I cannot recall whether Krauss was engaged or married or just s=riously involved with his female companion at the time, although they were=clearly romantically involved and seemed very much in love). This is the f=rst I had heard of this proposition. No complaint by the guest or anyone e=se had been made to me at the time of the cruise, although I was on the cr=ise and clearly visible throughout the cruise.

I asked Ms. Beauchamp for contact i=formation for this guest. I did call the guest and she substantially confi=med what Ms. Beauchamp had said. I apologized on behalf of the organizatio=. The guest indicated although she was taken aback by Krauss's pro=osition at the time, she did not want to pursue the matter further. I then=got in contact with Krauss. Krauss denied the allegation. In light of the =uest's reluctance to pursue the matter and Krauss's own de=ial and, importantly, because between the time of the 2011 cruise and the =alapagos cruise we had instituted a policy regarding harassment at any </=pan>CFI event, which covers not just employees, but speakers and attendees= I decided to go ahead with my plan and have Krauss as a speaker on the Ga=apagos cruise. Krauss was fully aware of our harassment policy regarding C=I events because we had had a discussion about it. Therefore, I expected h=m to comply with that policy on the Galapagos cruise. As far as I know he =id, because we received no complaints about his conduct. Nor have we recei=ed any complaints about his conduct at other events.

Let me just take a moment to hi=hlight the 2012 policy, which you can find in

full here,

http://www.centerforinqui=y.net/blogs/entry/cfis_new_policy_on_hostile_conduct_harassment<=br>at_conferences/=span class="m_142987154871091546m-6189807211976031442m_-277658877943275=76Apple-converted-space"> along with the announcement I made e=plaining the rationale for the policy. This policy was, certainly at its t=me, arguably the strongest any nonprofit organization had regarding conduc= at its events. Again, this policy shows that any

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suggestion that CFI, as =n organization, or that I personally took a lax attitude regarding harassm=nt is completely without factual foundation.

In your email you mentioned that one st=ffer resigned after I invited Krauss on the Galapagos cruise. I'm =ot aware of any staffer resigning because of that. If you give me a name l=could comment on the reasons for the staffer leaving. Ms. Beauchamp remain=d an employee of CFI (and went on the Galapagos cruise with Krauss).

You mentioned a=so the comments that were made to me in March 2012 by Melody Hensley. Let =e give you the background for that. CFI was holding an event prior to the =012 Reason Rally in DC. Richard Dawkins, Jessica Alquist, Jamie Raskin, an= Lawrence Krauss were scheduled to speak at the event. Melody Hensley was =eavily involved in the planning for the event and in fact was tapped to ma=e introductions for the speakers, including Krauss. (At the time she was i= charge of the DC local branch.) During the planning for the event she gav= no indication whatsoever that she had any hesitation about introducing or=dealing with Krauss. (I will forward you some email correspondence confirm=ng this.)

As I recall, Krauss's sched=le resulted in his planned arrival being a little later than the others. A= it turned out, he was even further delayed. At some point when it became =tear that Krauss was going to be late, Hensley turned to me and said, 4,=B04,I know why Krauss isn't coming; he's embarrassed to s=e me." I asked Hensley what she meant by this. She said Krauss had=made a pass at her several years earlier and she had rebuffed him. I asked=for some details. She said she was in a hotel room with him (I can*=99t recall whether she said it was Krauss's hotel room, but I thin= it was), and that Krauss tried to kiss her. She pushed him away and said =he wasn't interested. I asked if Krauss persisted; she said he did=not. Thinking out loud, I believe I said something to the effect of 40=98well, if you want to make a complaint you probably can, although l0=99m not sure our policy at that time would cover that.' Ms. Hensle= said she was not interested in making a formal complaint.</=

Ms. Hensley's sta=ement that I "responded to her with silence" is absolutely=false and I categorically and unqualifiedly deny it. We talked about her c=ncern, as indicated. Ms. Hensley's recall must be failing her.

Given the pas=age of time (six years), the fact that Hensley did not want to pursue the =atter, the fact that Krauss desisted when Hensley indicated she wasn4k=99t interested, the fact that Hensley didn't even seem very bother=d by the incident (as indicated, she had expressed no hesitation in zero-tolerance seeing=Krauss), policy and covering the fact empl=yees that we had themselves no policy was covering not implemented conduct by until nonemploye=s 2007, I believe back -- in I 2006 was just (in fact, hi=ed CFI's as the attorney in July 2006), I decided not to do any further about th=s particular incident. However, the incident, along with observations I he=rd at the Women in Secularism conference which we held later in the spring=of 2012 (observations which did n=t mention Krauss, but rather som= speakers at non-CFI events), was a factor in my thinking about the need f=r a policy covering conduct by invited speakers and guests at CFI conferen=es.

Ms. H=nsley made no other complaint to me about Krauss, nor did she ever express=to me her belief that we should not invite Krauss to events.=/p>

In closing, let me scat= that any accusations stating that I neglected to take harassment complain=s seriously are false. Furthermore, I would regard them as a malicious att=ck on my character and my professional reputation.

Dear Mr. Lindsay,

Thank you for your response, which we will consider in detail. Shall we speak at Eastern tomorrow? Do let me know what number to call.

To answer your question, the CFI employee who resigned was Adam Isaak. He told us that he helped Patricia Beauchamp draft an email to you outlining their concerns about inviting Lawrence Krauss on the 2014 cruise.

He explained that his resignation had a broader context, relating to his concerns about sexism and online harassment in the skeptical movement. But he said that CFI's continued embrace of Krauss, in the face of concerns expressed by staff, was what "pushed me over the edge."

Sincerely,

Peter Aldhous

Dear Mr. Aldhous,

Adam Isaak resigned because I had a public spat with his girlfriend, Rebecca Watson, who had issued a public call for CFI employees to quit. (That dispute is a whole other story, tangential to your Krauss piece, so I will not get into it here.)

Timing is important here. The email from Pat was in March. The dispute with Watson started in mid-May, after which Adam stopped showing up for work. (He said he was sick & then went on vacation, or vice versa). He then then left some time in June. If the Krauss matter "pushed [him] over the edge," then he was tenaciously hanging on to the ledge for a few months.

The email from Pat Beauchamp was in the first person and Pat indicated she was speaking for herself. (I found the email exchange last night; I will forward it to you.) Adam had never been shy about expressing his concerns to me -- he asked for raises, complained about the hosts on the podcast he was producing etc. The notion that he and Pat were working together but that he decided he could not reveal his participation is difficult to credit.

I will be traveling to my home this evening. Plan to reach my home by 7:45, but if I don't answer right away, please try a bit later. My number is: ████████████████.

Sincerely,
R. Lindsay

My correspondence with Aldhous. As usual, read from the bottom up.

LAWRENCE !!
secondary Twitter account

https://twitter.com/NancyMDahlPhD/with_replies to engage people on the issue. The arguments are almost uniformly illogical and disingenuous.

I propose you write an article debunking alien abductions using the same argument. these people didnt know one abother. there are 100 of them. why should they lie. . etc. 40 TELL nancy to stop. you are getting into dangerous territory.4> . this is not a court of law. . facts DO NOT make a difference. . as you can see there are now some others who have been too afraid to come forward in the article. . * you are self inflicting

LAWRENCE, Im not sure if you have decided to commit reputational hari kari. its ok with me. but these consequences were discussed ad nauseum with you. if four or five ASU students decide together to complain, all bets off. and you are egging them on.

Melody ensley
"A" (who wishes to remain anonymous, though I'm almost positive I know who it is)
Nora (a student at Case Wester)
Melanie Thomson (who witnessed him grab another woman's breast at a skeptic's conference in Australia, along with Michael Marshall and Jo Alabaster.
Four former employees of Arizona State's Origins Project (anonymously). They include a 19 year old undergrad with two witnesses confirming her story of his creepy behavior.

That's 13 separate people who either were the victims or the witnesses of their victimization. They come from multiple universities, three different countries, at a variety of events over a long period of time. As a result of some of those investigations, two institutions — Case Western Reserve University and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics — banned him from their campuses. And both Arizona State University and Australia National University said on the record that he lied about what their investigation of those complaints concluded.

This is not a he said/she said. It's a he said/13 other people said and three major educational institutions said. And those aren't the only ones. I know of several other people with similar stories who are afraid to talk about them in public for fear of being attacked just like the accusers are now being attacked.

you should wish in retrospect not t= have responded at all.

and i was right. in all instancees as=if you in your nuttiness decide to file this lawsuit you keep bangin= on about, that sentence will carry the day

The correspondence from Ron Lindsey to Peter Aldhous.

thanks.. I don't know about others I will relay this to Nancy.

Thanks... I am not replying or =gging them on.. I will speak to Nancy.. I wish in retrospect I had n=t sent him a note using the words "false with malicious intent*=861, as you recommended.. I had a piece about that in my long respo=se, explaining that I explained to him it was my language not the Unversit='s, because their investigations showed the claim was false, and I=argued that was malicious..

thank =ou. And of course I was never banned from those institutions=. I should make that clear in my long response as well..

I believe what you are seeing is from the usual suspec=s, but indeed, probably not best to confront them any more directly.

yes

but you did tell me to write him those words.. but you are co=rect about many things..

ok.. I unders=and. My lawyer Adam said he would look over this stuff.. Here =s what he said:

"Your instincts are right. Let me =tudy all the things you sent me.

A lawsuit, which=should not be entered into lightly, has three special advantages which are=1. It is the reaction someone who is truly innocent would do; 2. It =tops behavior in its tracks under advice of counsel; and 3. The fact=al background section can be viewed as a backgrounder for the media. 0=8040

thoughts?

they are unchanged. you are drivin= yourself crazy. the lawyer is right if it were 40=years ago. there is no stopping twitter .4>=AO others. pile ons brought on by what appears to be powerful =en filign lawsuits. IT DOENST fucking work. what i= it you have yet to understand this is not in a vacuum=C2* it is you and your reputation as a powerful figure in three communit=es. you seem to take pride in saying my lawy=r says. . think of alien abductions.=C2* and suing them .