The reason why I was being pressured to sign a letter (which is another seperate document then the agreements) so that “everyone can relax and feel safe” was in the context of that the organization was afraid I might attempt to sue them or speak up publicly.
That makes sense as a motivation, but to me, it seems clearly unethical without further justification of why you owe them signing such a letter.
I would like to see from MA either a statement of why they believe, pressuring you into signing the letter was justified or a statement that they believe it wasn’t justified.
Note: While I’m a resident at the Vermont branch of Monastic Academy, I’m not representing them here, nor am I stating a final position as obviously there’s ongoing sensemaking and investigating going on.
My understanding of this was that after they found out that a relationship had started between two participants in the training (which is explicitly against the agreement one of the participants signed, although not the OP), they wanted to make sure that the relationship was indeed ethical and consensual (which involved two people getting into a relationship that was against the organizational rules, AND a significant power differential. Obviously it’s possible for such a relationship to be coercive so it’s good to be incredibly clear that it is indeed consensual)
Given these unusual circumstances, they wanted to make sure the organization and everyone involved was clear up front that both people had entered into the relationship consensually.
My understanding is that from the CEDAR side (leadership based in Vermont), there wasn’t intended to be any pressure to sign the document—more like double checking, crossing i’s, dotting t’s - I’m unsure of how that got communicated on the OAK side.
I can tell you how it played out from my perspective. The man I was in love with came to me and said Soryu asked me to do write this letter stating that this was loving and consensual and we are abiding by the rules of the Monastic container ( all of which was true except for the consent piece) because the board of directors is worried you might sue the organization or speak up publicly (something I had no intention of at the time); he then repeatedly brought this up to me despite my hesitancy and tried to get me to sign this letter. Finally I was told not asked told we would sign this in front of the whole community. I felt extremely pressured both by him and by the community and other leaders to do so. It seems pretty messed up to me that Soryu personally asked the man I was in love with and whom had sexually assaulted me to write this letter and get me to sign it—followed by immediately instructing OAKs leadership to send me away with 24 hrs notice while this man resumed leadership. All of these to my knowledge were decisions made by Soryu and MAPLE leadership NOT OAK’s leadership though they are certainly responsible for their participation. Sending this person was problematic for many reasons not only was I more vulnerable to this person because we had fallen in love; already feeling confused about my experience because nobody was talking to me about what happened or available to walk through the incident with me; but this person had more power in the community as the recently removed ED, had been in the community far longer, and as a donor who had pledged 200,000 to the organization which still hadn’t been received and whose personal and professional ties were key in the organization receiving a 300,000 grant from BERI that they were being considered for—all of these are power dynamics; and ultimately he stood the most to gain from securing a letter that stated consent. If there is a question about whether an interaction was consensual or not you don’t send the involved party to secure a letter that state consent—that’s messed up. That’s a great way to end up with coercion. The idea that they didn’t know is also bullshit—their leadership should have spoken directly to me about what happened. There should have been a third party investigation then but instead Soryu sent his girlfriend to sort it out during which she spoke to me only only and then only to briefly acknowledge my presence. According to this man—he told me that after we signed this letter the Acting Director who had orders from Soryu told him what was going to happen with me; he objected and said this is unethical and was told that he didn’t have a choice about sending me away and resuming his position as director that was also messed up. It would have been messed up even if the sexual interaction had been consensual given that I had not broken any agreements. So yeah I am hella critical of Soryu—because what kind of trustworthy teacher would ask his students to do something like that. what kind of teacher instructs a student/an executive director to cover up his sexual misconduct and get rid of the woman without ever speaking to her? What kind of person tells a man to betray the woman he loves? The man in question never should have participated in those actions but he did—and it broke him, and it broke us completely. I doubt you or very few others will ever understand the depths of betrayal and heartache between myself and this man, myself and this organization. What happened at OAK destroyed any trust between us and we never recovered. The initial incident was not ok and it never should have happened for many different reasons; but the sense of betrayal, being coerced and silenced, and then being kicked out of and basically ignored by a whole community and it’s leadership over the next year that was really fucked up.
I think they are trying to spin it like they didn’t know and it maybe that they intentionally did not speak to me because they were already afraid it might not be consensual. There is no excuse for this organizations board, OAK and MAPLEs leaders to not speak to me directly about the incident—which frankly I need support to even process it. Which btw many people would say consent isn’t possible within a power dynamic. I simply would have liked to be treated with some basic respect and compassion—instead of being mistreated by an entire community for an incident that I did not choose. I loved this man; but I should have had a choice about when, how, where, and under what circumstances I wanted to engage in a sexual relationship. Ultimately, the response of OAK AND MAPLEs leaders and this man’s participation in covering this up caused far greater suffering and harm to me personally than even the original incident did. I would like for the person whom directed these actions to be responsible and accountabile.
So yeah, I think the response of this organization is bullshit and I do not trust this organizations leaders whom have failed to make an repairs with me in over a year since all this occured. I doubt that is just a big “mistake”. An internal investigation into these events is a massive conflict of interest, it was a year ago and still is today. The fact that Soryu hasn’t stepped down while a third party investigation takes places is telling and could have serious consequences for the organization. If there legitimately was a misconception or breakdown in communication or legitimate error made by leadership then that further points to the fact that there are serious error in the program design and model that needs to be corrected. These are not the kinds of actions or “mistakes” that should be happening in ANY organization; they cause real damage and if incidents continue to be mishandled causing serious harm to others it will likely lead to the organization losing credibility, donors, and collapsing.
The organization should not be putting this responsibility on to residents but should be enlisting support from experienced third parties about how to address past reports of abuse and harm from multiple parties and how to navigate crisis.
I would like to see them take responsibility for their organizational negligence and/or ethical misconduct of it’s leaders—and be honest about knowing about these allegations in their public statement. Their public statement is appalling for many reasons—but their lying about not knowing about these allegations is especially upsetting when I shared my grievances in an email exchange in May. I would also like to see 3rd party investigation and a 3rd party nonprofit evaluation of their systems and program—if they are serious about integrating feedback and transparency these are obvious next steps for any organization with a headteacher facing multiple reports and allegations of harm and abuse (many of which are not public.)
Further justification would just be adding insult to injury. I get that you are just a skeptical stranger on the internet whom isn’t personally affected by this situation (unless you have an undisclosed affiliation.) But there have been serious abuses of power and breeches of ethics here that are seriously fucked up and have caused deep suffering and heartache that still affects me personally. So at this point in time I’m done sharing information. I’m done engaging. This is too complex of a situation to address in this forum. 🙏
That makes sense as a motivation, but to me, it seems clearly unethical without further justification of why you owe them signing such a letter.
I would like to see from MA either a statement of why they believe, pressuring you into signing the letter was justified or a statement that they believe it wasn’t justified.
Note: While I’m a resident at the Vermont branch of Monastic Academy, I’m not representing them here, nor am I stating a final position as obviously there’s ongoing sensemaking and investigating going on.
My understanding of this was that after they found out that a relationship had started between two participants in the training (which is explicitly against the agreement one of the participants signed, although not the OP), they wanted to make sure that the relationship was indeed ethical and consensual (which involved two people getting into a relationship that was against the organizational rules, AND a significant power differential. Obviously it’s possible for such a relationship to be coercive so it’s good to be incredibly clear that it is indeed consensual)
Given these unusual circumstances, they wanted to make sure the organization and everyone involved was clear up front that both people had entered into the relationship consensually.
My understanding is that from the CEDAR side (leadership based in Vermont), there wasn’t intended to be any pressure to sign the document—more like double checking, crossing i’s, dotting t’s - I’m unsure of how that got communicated on the OAK side.
I can tell you how it played out from my perspective. The man I was in love with came to me and said Soryu asked me to do write this letter stating that this was loving and consensual and we are abiding by the rules of the Monastic container ( all of which was true except for the consent piece) because the board of directors is worried you might sue the organization or speak up publicly (something I had no intention of at the time); he then repeatedly brought this up to me despite my hesitancy and tried to get me to sign this letter. Finally I was told not asked told we would sign this in front of the whole community. I felt extremely pressured both by him and by the community and other leaders to do so. It seems pretty messed up to me that Soryu personally asked the man I was in love with and whom had sexually assaulted me to write this letter and get me to sign it—followed by immediately instructing OAKs leadership to send me away with 24 hrs notice while this man resumed leadership. All of these to my knowledge were decisions made by Soryu and MAPLE leadership NOT OAK’s leadership though they are certainly responsible for their participation. Sending this person was problematic for many reasons not only was I more vulnerable to this person because we had fallen in love; already feeling confused about my experience because nobody was talking to me about what happened or available to walk through the incident with me; but this person had more power in the community as the recently removed ED, had been in the community far longer, and as a donor who had pledged 200,000 to the organization which still hadn’t been received and whose personal and professional ties were key in the organization receiving a 300,000 grant from BERI that they were being considered for—all of these are power dynamics; and ultimately he stood the most to gain from securing a letter that stated consent. If there is a question about whether an interaction was consensual or not you don’t send the involved party to secure a letter that state consent—that’s messed up. That’s a great way to end up with coercion. The idea that they didn’t know is also bullshit—their leadership should have spoken directly to me about what happened. There should have been a third party investigation then but instead Soryu sent his girlfriend to sort it out during which she spoke to me only only and then only to briefly acknowledge my presence. According to this man—he told me that after we signed this letter the Acting Director who had orders from Soryu told him what was going to happen with me; he objected and said this is unethical and was told that he didn’t have a choice about sending me away and resuming his position as director that was also messed up. It would have been messed up even if the sexual interaction had been consensual given that I had not broken any agreements. So yeah I am hella critical of Soryu—because what kind of trustworthy teacher would ask his students to do something like that. what kind of teacher instructs a student/an executive director to cover up his sexual misconduct and get rid of the woman without ever speaking to her? What kind of person tells a man to betray the woman he loves? The man in question never should have participated in those actions but he did—and it broke him, and it broke us completely. I doubt you or very few others will ever understand the depths of betrayal and heartache between myself and this man, myself and this organization. What happened at OAK destroyed any trust between us and we never recovered. The initial incident was not ok and it never should have happened for many different reasons; but the sense of betrayal, being coerced and silenced, and then being kicked out of and basically ignored by a whole community and it’s leadership over the next year that was really fucked up.
I think they are trying to spin it like they didn’t know and it maybe that they intentionally did not speak to me because they were already afraid it might not be consensual. There is no excuse for this organizations board, OAK and MAPLEs leaders to not speak to me directly about the incident—which frankly I need support to even process it. Which btw many people would say consent isn’t possible within a power dynamic. I simply would have liked to be treated with some basic respect and compassion—instead of being mistreated by an entire community for an incident that I did not choose. I loved this man; but I should have had a choice about when, how, where, and under what circumstances I wanted to engage in a sexual relationship. Ultimately, the response of OAK AND MAPLEs leaders and this man’s participation in covering this up caused far greater suffering and harm to me personally than even the original incident did. I would like for the person whom directed these actions to be responsible and accountabile.
So yeah, I think the response of this organization is bullshit and I do not trust this organizations leaders whom have failed to make an repairs with me in over a year since all this occured. I doubt that is just a big “mistake”. An internal investigation into these events is a massive conflict of interest, it was a year ago and still is today. The fact that Soryu hasn’t stepped down while a third party investigation takes places is telling and could have serious consequences for the organization. If there legitimately was a misconception or breakdown in communication or legitimate error made by leadership then that further points to the fact that there are serious error in the program design and model that needs to be corrected. These are not the kinds of actions or “mistakes” that should be happening in ANY organization; they cause real damage and if incidents continue to be mishandled causing serious harm to others it will likely lead to the organization losing credibility, donors, and collapsing.
The organization should not be putting this responsibility on to residents but should be enlisting support from experienced third parties about how to address past reports of abuse and harm from multiple parties and how to navigate crisis.
That maybe your understanding. But that’s actually bullshit on so many levels.
I would like to see them take responsibility for their organizational negligence and/or ethical misconduct of it’s leaders—and be honest about knowing about these allegations in their public statement. Their public statement is appalling for many reasons—but their lying about not knowing about these allegations is especially upsetting when I shared my grievances in an email exchange in May. I would also like to see 3rd party investigation and a 3rd party nonprofit evaluation of their systems and program—if they are serious about integrating feedback and transparency these are obvious next steps for any organization with a headteacher facing multiple reports and allegations of harm and abuse (many of which are not public.)
Further justification would just be adding insult to injury. I get that you are just a skeptical stranger on the internet whom isn’t personally affected by this situation (unless you have an undisclosed affiliation.) But there have been serious abuses of power and breeches of ethics here that are seriously fucked up and have caused deep suffering and heartache that still affects me personally. So at this point in time I’m done sharing information. I’m done engaging. This is too complex of a situation to address in this forum. 🙏