The Dereliction of Due Process

I was cancelled in April 2021 by two ex-partners and 23 professionals from the Scala community over allegations which were shocking to the people who read them. The allegations, in two blog posts and an “Open Letter”, were not true.

These publications had a devastating effect on me, on my career, and on my personal life, which I wrote about last week, and which I have barely started recovering from. There was probably lasting damage done to the Scala Community too.

Not one of the 23 authors of the Open Letter spoke to me about it, or the allegations within it, before or after publication. I neither saw nor heard the allegations until they were public.

Furthermore, of the hundreds of people who signed the letter after it was published, only one spoke to me before doing so. I mention this only for completeness: he did not wish to discuss it; he just told me he would sign.

Several other people contacted me at the time, who decided, either before or after we spoke, not to sign. Several contacted me only out of concern for my welfare. I am still grateful for their care at that moment. Not one of them was a signatory, though.

While the publication came as a complete surprise to me, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, I had been aware for some time that something was going on.

Context

In 2018, I had a short relationship with another Scala developer. I had met her in a professional context on 18 March 2018 and we gradually developed a friendship over the following two months. We started a sexual relationship on 14 May 2018. I decided on 16 May 2018 that I did not want to continue the relationship, and ended it one day later. We remained friends afterwards, though she became increasingly upset with me. I agreed to her request to stop talking to her after six months.

Conversation at Scala Days, June 2019

At the Scala Days conference in 2019, the largest regular Scala event, and the last one before the pandemic, I was a sponsor, promoting several Scala training courses I had developed.

A few weeks prior, the conference organizer had invited me to introduce the final session at the conference—something I had done at previous events—which I gladly agreed to.

However, after I arrived at the event, I was told that I “was no longer needed”. This was surprising, and no reason was given, but I had been so busy with my own preparations as a sponsor that I was grateful to have one less thing to do. I thought no more of it.

Then, on the last day of the event, I was approached by Adriaan Moors who—at the time—was a central figure in the community.

Dr Moors first asked me to “comment on the recent rumors about me”. When I misunderstood what he was talking about, he clarified that I should “comment on the rumors involving women”.

At this point, it became clear that he could only be speaking about one person: because she was a member of the Scala community, because she was evidently still upset about our brief relationship, and because she had already made angry comments towards me.

Dr Moors suggested we go somewhere quieter, and we did. At that point, he made a specific, but unusual, request that I should not mention anyone by name. I still have no idea why Dr Moors made this request, but the absence of names would have made it difficult to reconcile my story with any others with certainty.

He described himself as a concerned friend and said that the rumors he had heard were not consistent with what he knew of me. He made it clear, on two separate occasions, that he was acting on his own initiative and not on behalf of any other organization or group.

I had known Dr Moors professionally and as a friend for ten years. I had been a guest in his apartment in the past, and he had invited me to visit again. Naturally, I trusted him, and felt like this was an opportunity to tell him about everything I thought might be relevant to clear up whatever rumors he had heard.

At his request, I shared full details of my short relationship with the woman who would later become my first accuser (whom I shall refer to as Y). I also told him about my previous two-year relationship with the woman who became my second accuser. She was not a Scala developer, though Dr Moors and his wife had had dinner with us when we were dating, and for this reason, I mentioned her name.

Of my past relationships, only one had been both of a sexual nature and with another Scala developer: that was the short relationship with Y in May 2018. I told Dr Moors this.

I had, however, had a romantic relationship with a Scala developer in 2013, before I became a regular speaker. It lasted for around four dates spread over several weeks, which all took place in restaurants. It did not work out, though we stayed friends and met several times afterwards. I told Dr Moors this.

I continued to describe increasingly tenuous interactions with women that might satisfy Dr Moors’ persistence. I told him about two or three other dating experiences I had in the previous ten years, even though these took place outside the Scala community and the women had no association with Scala whatsoever. While these few relationships had unique details, and were significant to me, they would be considered unremarkable to anyone else. I told Dr Moors about them for completeness.

Throughout our discussion, which lasted over an hour, Dr Moors appeared interested, and encouraged me to keep talking. But at no point did he have any accusation or allegation to put to me, or explain the basis for his conversation—beyond what he told me at the start. He made no claim that I could respond to, or even learn what I was alleged to have done. I do not know if he knew any more than he told me.

I had given him my entire relationship and dating history for the previous decade. Towards the end of our conversation, Dr Moors repeatedly asked, “can you think of anyone else?”—as if he had expected to hear more—and all I had to do was think harder.

His insistence made me wonder whether I should tell him about my then-current relationship, which was complicated at that time, and which I didn’t want to talk about. I decided then that it was none of his business, so I told him that was all. This was a deliberate omission, but it’s very clear to me in hindsight that it was none of his business, and remains none of anyone else’s business.

He left me with words to the effect of, “I don’t think anything else will happen from this, so you can probably forget about it. But in future, I would recommend picking up girls in a bar or online, instead of Scala conferences.” While he said it with apparent sincerity, it irked me that his advice presumed that I had “picked up” one or more women at Scala conferences, which I had never done, and which contradicted the conversation we had just had.

I found the conversation emotionally draining, and was depleted for the rest of the conference.

Afterwards, I took a flight to a Scala conference in Japan during which the plane experienced a “malfunction”, forcing it to turn back to base. Although the situation never felt like an emergency, many people on the plane were evidently scared, particularly as the plane was dramatically dumping fuel from its wing tips to be light enough to make a safe landing.

Back on the ground, I declined the replacement flight, and abandoned my trip. I felt so fatigued by these two experiences, in quick succession, that I decided to reduce my travel workload. I announced this on Twitter soon afterwards.

Dr Moors did not sign the Open Letter, but he made public comments in support of it.

Investigation

Less than a year later, everyone was engulfed in the COVID pandemic. Unfortunately this began after I had started organizing my annual Scala conference for September 2020. Notably, I had made a firm booking for speaker accommodation at a castle in the Lake District, England.

Since my conference could not happen, to reduce my losses from this booking, I came up with the idea to run a hybrid conference with a company I was partnered with on a number of Scala projects, and who had also started discussions about employing me.

At that time, they were also beginning a new partnership with the Scala Center, and they proposed to invite (at their expense) members of the Scala Center, while I would invite several of my friends from the Scala community. There would be a handful of people on site, with others joining online.

We started preparations, announced the event, and I started personally inviting people.

However, I learned soon afterwards from my co-organizers that the Scala Center had declined to participate in a project with which I was also involved. By the account I heard, the reasons given were vague and were not specific, except that they were “relating to my behavior towards women”.

Once again, there was no clarity about what I was alleged to have done that should justify anyone’s refusal to work with me.

But to be clear about what I understood at this point, I knew that I had had a short relationship with a woman from the Scala community. I knew that she was hurt by the briefness and the abrupt end to the relationship, at my insistence. I knew that she had become angry about this, and had stopped talking to me. And I was in no doubt that it was this brief relationship that had led to Dr Moors’ inquiry the previous year, though he had never told me.

But I also believed that the Scala community had no cause to be intruding in a choice we had made in our private lives. And this was my private life and hers. While I had met Y at a Scala conference, our friendship had grown independently of the Scala community. We shared Scala as a common interest, but our relationship didn’t depend upon it.

However, this information raised enough concern that the process to hire me was suspended, and the company decided to conduct their own investigation, which took place between August and November 2020.

This investigation was treated seriously and sensitively by senior management, and I cooperated fully. I provided a short written summary and timeline of my interactions with Y, as well as my subsequent relationship which had, by that time, ended. I used aliases to refer to these women. I do not know, beyond my own speculation, who else participated in this investigation.

During this time, I spoke with a single contact involved in the investigation, who gave me brief updates on its progress every few weeks, without prejudice to the outcome. He asked me questions about some details that were not already covered by my summary.

I do not recall every detail that was discussed during these calls, but one of the most specific allegations I recall was that someone had seen me “driving away from a car park with a woman during a conference I had organized”. It was not clear who the woman was, which car park it was, which year it happened, or why anyone would consider it noteworthy, and I said as much.

A persistent problem that was expressed to me was that “people were reluctant to talk,” and it was very difficult for the investigator to discover any concrete information. Whatever accusations had been made against me were never revealed to me during this investigation.

Tweet by Raúl Raja Martínez

Around this time, Raúl Raja Martínez posted a tweet—which he has since deleted, and I’m unable to retrieve—that alluded to problematic behavior of an unnamed member of the Scala community, and that he was angry about it.

I did not capture the tweet at the time, and although the exact wording may have been more specific, this is the level of detail I can recall.

The description in the tweet was not an accurate description of me, by any stretch. But if this was the same “rumor” that Dr Moors had referred to, it would have justified his conversation with me. So I came to believe that the tweet was about me.

The tweet drew a lot of attention, and while Mr Raja Martínez refused to elaborate publicly, I do not know what private conversations it instigated. It surely added strength and innuendo to any pre-existing rumor, even if it was itself just a reprise of the same vague rumor.

I considered approaching Mr Raja Martínez about it, but I didn’t know how: Even though the conversation with Dr Moors was the basis for my suspicion it was about me, how could I possibly approach Mr Raja Martínez to refute it without the self-incrimination of recognizing myself as the likely subject?

I found the tweet chilling. And I felt helpless that I had no way to respond. So I did nothing.

Mr Raja Martínez signed the Open Letter after its publication.

Communication with Seth Tisue

I was still in the dark about what was going on. I also felt unable to approach the Scala Center directly while my investigation was ongoing. But I still wanted to find out what was happening, so I reached out to Seth Tisue to ask for his help in a video call.

I started by giving Mr Tisue some superficial details. I mentioned my conversation with Dr Moors, the tweet by Mr Raja Martínez, and an interaction with Y where Mr Tisue had also been present. (She later cited this same interaction in her publication.) I did not mention Y by name, but he said, “I think I know what this is about,” but he could not elaborate.

At this point I started to say something more specific, and Mr Tisue interrupted me, talked loudly over me, and forced me to stop. I understood clearly that he did not want to hear any explanation or rebuttal, and I did not continue. I tried to avoid any similar details for the rest of the call.

I explained what I wanted to know; in particular, what was I believed to have done that justified the Scala Center’s refusal to work with me?

For his part, Mr Tisue promised to look into it, and I was grateful that he was willing and supportive.

We had a follow-up call on 2 October 2020, and he told me that he had spoken to Darja Jovanović at the Scala Center and others, and that I had nothing to be concerned about. But he recommended that I should speak to Brian Clapper, who “seemed to know something”.

On 3 October 2020, Mr Tisue sent me an email to clarify our conversation:

Mr Tisue was an author of the Open Letter. It’s unclear what changed between this email and his decision to figuratively rake me over the coals seven months later.

He had given me the lead to approach Mr Clapper. But for the same reasons I found it hard to approach Mr Raja Martínez, I felt I couldn’t approach Mr Clapper to ask what he knew without adding credibility to the rumors. I still didn’t know what they were with any certainty, but I knew I didn’t want to encourage them.

I also trusted Mr Tisue’s assessment: that it was not something I should be concerned about; and it wouldn’t persist.

Perhaps my decision not to contact Mr Raja Martínez or Mr Clapper was perceived as evidence of my guilt. And it’s possible—far from resolving anything—that my inquiries with Mr Tisue and the investigation by my potential employer only drew more attention to me, and may have even looked like I was trying to “take control of” the situation.

I had no control of the situation; only the conflicting datapoints of the Scala Center’s snub and Mr Tisue’s reassurance. Scala 3 Release Nevertheless, I believed that having a company at the core of the Scala community investigate me was my best chance to draw a line under the rumors, whatever they were.

In November 2020, I was told that the investigation had concluded, and that despite months of investigation, no evidence of inappropriate behavior had been found, and I had nothing to answer for. I was offered a developer advocacy job, which I officially started in January 2021.

As the launch of a new version of Scala approached in April 2021, my employer was involved in the organization of an “online launch party”. Although I had been exonerated by an investigation, and although this was precisely the type of event I was hired to participate in, I was sidelined as four other Scala developers were chosen to speak instead.

Just a few days after that event I was cancelled.

Cancellation

Reflecting on the few months before my cancellation—they were quiet. I began my new job and had no further conversations about any allegations. I do not know when the decision was taken to stage a cancellation, nor can I be certain about exactly when the three publications were authored and edited, or who was involved.

Though I started to notice little details: a few people stopped following me on Twitter; some messages went unanswered; people became less communicative. These could all have been dismissed as circumstantial, if nothing further had happened.

But during that period, there was ample time for any of the authors of these publications to contact me to offer the pre-publication right to reply. This is common practice in journalism, and given the seriousness of the allegations, is the only ethical way to proceed to publication.

And if I had had foreknowledge of the publications, I would have immediately sought legal counsel to halt their publication, on grounds of their falsehood.

Due Process

The concept of due process is enshrined in national and supranational law. It’s foundational to ensure fairness, accountability and the rule of law in any liberal democracy.

A defendant subject to due process is entitled to the following ten principles:

1. The right to a fair and unbiased adjudicator

2. Advance notice of the proposed sanction and its basis

3. The right to present a defense

4. The right to present evidence, including witnesses

5. The right to know opposing evidence

6. The right to question opposing witnesses

7. A decision based only on the evidence presented

8. The right to representation by an advocate

9. A record of the evidence presented

10. Written findings of fact and reasons for the decision

These exist to facilitate the discovery of objective truth, which is an essential foundation for justice.

But I was not granted a single one of these provisions.

You can read the list again. Ask yourself how my cancellation could possibly represent justice, when each and every one of these fundamental rights was denied to me, and the means to discover the truth was blocked.

Although the proponents of my cancellation were not a nation state or a liberal democracy, nor a legislative or judicial organization, they still handed down their “justice” in the name of the Scala community, and drew upon their collective authority within it. Whether they realized it or not, they had the power to destroy an individual, and they used that power.

It bore no resemblance to justice.

For each right ask yourself who decided, “we don’t need to do that,” and why they came to that decision. Were the allegations so bad and so compelling that due process was deemed unnecessary? Or had they already decided upon my guilt, and concluded that due process would only delay the inevitable?

Or was it the case that most of the signatories of the Open Letter—and perhaps even its authors—were led to believe that due process was followed, and the claims they read were simply the outcome of that process?

When a user on GitHub raised questions about the claimed evidence, he was told by Mr Clapper that this would never be shared, even if it exists.

I know that this evidence does not exist. But I suspect that benign interactions could have been reported as “corroborating evidence” even though they are evidence of nothing of the sort.

Farce

It has been a century since Franz Kafka’s The Trial was published. He tells the story of a character accused of a crime, but who—for the entire story—is unable to find out what that crime is.

The story is a nightmarish example of farce. It’s fiction, and it’s absurd by design. It ridicules the authorities who claim to pursue justice, as well as the poor individual who naïvely tries to work within their system of justice.

Yet its similarity to my own experience is uncanny: Dr Moors’ friendly invitation to “comment on rumors” and his strange insistence that I don’t mention anyone’s name; the dilemma of whether to respond to Mr Raja Martínez’s tweet; Mr Tisue interrupting me as I tried to speak; and the wall of silence when my prospective employer tried to investigate.

And the culmination: where I finally discover the allegations only when the sentence is handed down, without any path to redemption.

There is no better word to describe the ordeal I was put through before my cancellation than Kafkaesque.

Overdue Process

And yet—far from being an orchestrated conspiracy played out over two years against me—Adriaan and Seth seemed almost as uninformed as I was. And although they later supported my cancellation, I have no reason to doubt that, at the time we spoke, they were also trying to get to the truth.

They have never told me what changed between those conversations and my cancellation, but something changed. I’ve always been open to listen to their concerns, and they should know that I am still willing to listen now.

In Y’s publication on 27 April 2021, she claimed that she had reported all her experience—which included serious and potentially criminal allegations—to the Scala Center in 2019.

But nothing about the way the Scala Center acted before 2021 is consistent with this. The Scala Center is a subsidiary of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and has ready access to legal counsel, who would have undoubtedly recommended a serious response to such a report. It is inconceivable that EPFL could have received such serious allegations, yet failed in their basic responsibility to treat them with commensurate diligence.

But I don’t believe the Scala Center failed; I don’t believe that what Y reported in 2019 was the same as she published in 2021; I don’t believe that her claim is true. So the question that remains is this: how did the allegations change over the course of two years? Why did they change?

It’s much too late to prevent the damage this has had on me. But it’s never too late to correct course. I am willing and ready to cooperate with the Scala Center, as I always have. I remain willing and ready to listen to any concerns the Scala Center has over my actions or alleged actions. And I remain willing and ready to address them. But I’m entitled to due process with the presumption of innocence, and anything less than that is unacceptable. Nobody in the Scala community should accept anything less.

If you read the three publications in April 2021 in the belief that they were the outcome of a thorough, fair and impartial investigation, you have been misled. Please know for certain that they were not. If you decided to sign the Open Letter on that basis, please reconsider that decision and remove your name.

If you have a colleague or friend who remains a signatory to the Open Letter, please make them aware of my experience and respectfully encourage them to remove their name.

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