It is the recommendation of this committee of the REACH Panel that Brent not be admitted to REACH.
We were chosen from the community-nominated pool of REACH panelists because we weren’t close enough to the situation to need to self-recuse, and the principal parties all declined to request that we be replaced, when given the option.
Our process involved:
- Emailing and interviewing the obvious parties, and asking them who else we should be talking to, doing our best to follow up with them.
- Giving each interviewee a choice about which panelist(s) to speak to.
- Recording or taking transcript-level notes of all conversations.
We could reasonably have spoken to dozens of people, but scheduling collisions drew things out, which meant that we ultimately called a halt when we found ourselves converging on a statement and the investigation was running long.
We are not and cannot be the judges of Brent’s soul; the purpose of this panel is to make the decision which most benefits the community overall. We also want to make a decision using a process that we believe is a healthy one for the community, if applied more broadly. The evidence we collected has convinced the members of this committee that interactions with Brent pose credible emotional risks to current and future community members.
This statement originally contained a more detailed explanation of our investigation’s findings and reasoning, and we wish that, as a group, we all felt comfortable sharing that more detailed statement publicly. However, legal advice cautioned us against publishing it. Choosing not to was a difficult decision, and a painful one, since we really wanted to bring a reasoned, researched viewpoint to the community on this case. We wish there was some way to serve the goal of more public transparency without all of us having to take on this personal risk. But we did not see a clear pathway to do so for this case.
If you would like a more detailed understanding of our reasoning behind banning Brent, you can reach out to Sarah Stardust, and she can give you more information, on a case by case basis.
- Hannah "Alicorn" Blume, Cody Wild, & Paul Crowley