Reports circulated Friday that Dave McCarty had been refused admission to the UK Eastercon being held this weekend. McCarty had posted a flight itinerary to the UK on his Facebook page on March 27.
File 770 contacted the Levitation (UK Eastercon 2024) committee asking if they could confirm the story or put it to rest. Today Farah Mendlesohn, Chair, Levitation 2024 issued the following statement:
On Thursday the Levitation (Eastercon 2024) executive committee was informed that a person, whose presence we believed would cause significant interference with the operations of the convention, was intending to join on the door.
The Levitation (Eastercon 2024) executive committee took the decision to refuse membership to this person.
An email was sent explaining our decision and referencing our code of conduct which states that we may revoke or refuse membership under these circumstances.
When this person then chose to enter the convention the next day, we told them that they would not be allowed to buy a membership and asked them to leave the site. They repeatedly refused to do so. We explained that if they did not leave we would ask site security to escort them out. They did not leave, and security did therefore escort them from the premises.
A second person of concern who purchased a membership in 2022 was permitted to remain under specified conditions, and has abided by those conditions.
Farah Mendlesohn
Chair, Levitation 2024
N.B. Levitation is an unincorporated members’ society under UK law, and may refuse membership for any reason other than a person belonging to a protected group.
The “second person of concern” is believed to be Ben Yalow, who is present at the convention.
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Hums “Nepal not Tibet”
Man, I’ve been as critical of McCarty as anyone, but this un-unpesoning is a bit much. Of course, I’m assuming this is related to the Chengu debacle. If there is something I missed, I apologize.
I’m not there. I’m glad he’s not either. I don’t think his presence is going to help anyone have a good time.
Put it down to regional cultural preferences. These are the rules that we must follow…
The schadenfreude is real.
Here I am at the Eastercon amd it is so far very successful. Hope stays that way.
@Jim J.: Majestic commentary.
Just a click to follow.
@Andrew: saying that someone isn’t welcome at a specific event isn’t “un-personing” them. It isn’t even casting them out of fandom as a whole.
Not mentioning names doesn’t force anonymity on them. But it lets them decide whether they want to identify themselves now, after the con, or never.
@Andrew Gillsmith
It may go beyond Chengdu. There were other reports of previous bad behavior on McCarty’s part. I have no idea if that was part of this decision though.
@Jim Janney
Oh, I really hope someone slipped in a “rules we must follow” comment. That is how I am going to imagine it.
I’d be curious to know what the reason is. However, it would be unwise of the con to say what it is.
It might be worth noting that he was verbally abusive to a lot of people, and depending on how much beyond what we saw online, it might be enough that they concluded he wouldn’t behave at Eastercon.
If anyone wants to check it, the EasterCon Code of Conduct is here: https://eastercon2024.co.uk/code-of-conduct/
Clickity
Sounds like he amply justified their decision right there on the spot.
Maybe he could’ve been told he wasn’t going to be allowed to enter before he left his home?
Even if it was nothing more than the con not wanting their event to descend into assorted fans pursuing Dave McCarty asking for answers about Chengdu2023, that would be sufficient reason. A more cynical con could have let him on condition that he sits in a room and for 5 quid fans get to shout at him, like an author signing but with the opposite affect.
“but this un-unpesoning is a bit much.”
Really? Come on. If it was McCarty, they were fully justified. As the Chair explained, if they thought his presence would constitute “significant interference with the operations of the convention,” they had every right to refuse him entry. (If nothing else, I’m sure everyone there would have been yelling at him, and that would indeed be ‘significant interference.’)
Otherwise, this falls under the purview of that old saying “you reap what you sow.” If McCarty didn’t want to be treated like a pariah, maybe he shouldn’t have done what he did.
Did he ask them before he left home?
@Karl-Johan Norén 🙂
@Robert Whitaker Sirignano:
That assumes that the person in question get in touch with the con before leaving.
ETA: Ninja-ed!
@Cam
“A more cynical con could have let him on condition that he sits in a room and for 5 quid fans get to shout at him, like an author signing but with the opposite affect.”
A really cynical con would have let him in, set up a “shouting room,” and used it to raise money to make up for the pass-along funds Glasgow turned down from Chengdu.
@Jim Janney:
::applause::
@Bonnie. Anticipating poor manners from other attendees is a poor justification for banning someone, imo.
There would be a number of people at Eastercon who have valid reasons to believe that their votes were not counted correctly by Dave McCarty in the 2023 Worldcon. Think of them as angry customers who still haven’t had a good explanation for faulty goods and poor service. It would not normally be seen as poor manners to ask officials, who oversaw a scandal and who have refused to give answers, for explanations that people are owed. It’s not nice behaviour, true, but given people tried the official channels and never got good answers (or worse directly rude answers) then it is reasonable behaviour. The convention also has substantial evidence of how Dave McCarty reacts in similar circumstances.
I wonder whether the “specified conditions” for the Second Person of Concern (aka rules they must follow?) have anything to do with sitting in a room.
Camestros Felapton et al.: The statement says
“On Thursday the … commitee was informed that a person …. was intending to join on the door.. …. An email was sent explaining our decision [i. e.. to That Person] … this person then chose to enter the convention the next day”[Friday]
File 770 adds he posted his itinerary on 27th, i. e. Wednesday, but this seems friendslocked and may well have been post factum. So I expect the concom was as swift as humanly possible.
(Still, let me just say for the record that banishment from a natcon is no trifling matter.)
@Andrew
Which is a hypothetical and minor side point. It probably could have happened, but that in no way addresses the main thrust of my comment.
It sounds like you fall into the tired old “free speech means freedom from consequences” argument. Given the reporting that’s come out about what he did, why should Eastercon (or any con, for that matter, if they choose not to) tolerate his presence?
Camestros Felapton on March 30, 2024 at 5:21 pm said:
If, having spent so much time complaining about how bad the Chinese are, one wished to demonstrate we’re not any better.
I haven’t spent any time complaining about how bad the Chinese are. I like people from China and, in general, they are really nice people. Most of the time I’ve been complaining about people from Illinois, or rather one specific person from Illinois.
I said “we”.
@Jim Janney: Chef’s kiss.
@Robert Whitaker Sirignano–
Apparently they did inform him at least before he arrived, and he proceeded to ignore that, and attempt to override the ban by bullying the registration staff.
We can’t be sure it was before he left home, because we don’t know when that was, and the committee likely wouldn’t have know, either, not with any certainty.
@Andrew Gillsmith–He hasn’t been “unpersoned.” He’s been banned from one convention, and proceeded to behave like the jerk those of us who asked him for genuine answers about the Hugos have come to expect. And free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences when that speech convinces people you’re an utter jerk.
@Brian Z–
This is feeble even for you. He hasn’t been arrested, beaten, killed, disappeared, or had his publications banned. All of which, perhaps you’re unaware, have happened to people who displease the Chinese government.
@Andrew Gillsmith
ISTR a fan posting beforehand that they were going to cause trouble at a Worldcon and being denied entrance for that. Possibly you don’t remember that incident.
Brian Z: Actions and bad faith call for consequences and accountability. What happened at Eastercon was the result of the convention committee taking a very prudent action to protect the attendees, the person involved involved in the controversy and the integrity of the convention.
If anything, this is a big wake up call for the person involved, that what happened last year has not been forgotten, much less resolved, to fandom’s satisfaction…
Now, now, are we sure the con wasn’t trying to protect someone?
They let McCarty board an airplane in Chicago and fly to Great Britain before they made the decision to bar him and then people wonder why he acted upset?
Like a lot of people in fandom I know McCarty. I worked with him and for him at Capricon in the Chicago area for 10 years and I can say that while he can occasionally be a pain in the a## (who isn”t) I have never, NEVER seen any behavior out of Dave that come even closes to rising to the level of “significant interference with the operations of the convention”.
Dave McCarty made some serious errors wjth this year’s Hugo Awards and he has paid the price with his position and reputation. He does NOT need to become an unperson.
I haven’t seen it mentioned that there were several accusations of sexual harassment (some in this very blog), and that those, if found to be true, would be (A) a perfectly reasonable reason to ban a person and (B) something you would not say in public for obvious reasons.
This is an alternative explanation. I’m not saying it is what Eastercon did. (Not being cagey here; I genuinely don’t know.)
He may very well have been told before he booked his flight (sheesh, I nearly typed “fight” there!) that he would not be allowed to come. It would be a good idea to make sure you can come before booking an international flight. Don’t people usually buy memberships ahead of time for cons? Maybe he persuaded himself that this was “some sort of misunderstanding” and came anyway.
It’s also possible he didn’t tell them he was coming and simply showed up, thinking he could buy a membership at the door. But it sounds as if there must have been communications ahead of time.
I don’t even drive to the closest Barnes & Noble before checking my schedule, making sure I have the right jacket, and arranging my bookbag. I can’t imagine booking a trip to the UK before making sure I have a spot reserved.
I just realized that one of the upcoming panels at Levitation is called “Sorry” is the hardest word.
Hmm…
To be honest I’m surprised he wasn’t prevented from entering the country, never mind Telford, by the Home Secretary on the grounds that his presence in the U.K. would not be conducive to the public good!
@RedWombat, good one!
Curious on what your opinions are on what happened at the 1939 Worldcon.
Now that this first (as far as I know) act of punishment has taken place, I have to ask what happens from now on.
Is fannish justice retributive? How does fandom keep from sliding from retribution into revenge. Or Is revenge OK?
Is fannish justice restorative? How are amends made? If fandom believes in rehabilitation, how is that handled?
The most obvious followup comments will be along the lines of, “There is no organized fandom. Fandom just a loose collection of clubs. There is no there, there. Each convention is its own thing. FIAGDH! We just want him to go away forever.”
Should conventions, especially major conventions, that consider themselves part of this nebulous, loosely affiliated, collection of fannish gatherings and clubs now, to avoid the situation of the unwelcome showing up at the door with cash in hand and having to turn them away, start sending out official preemptive ban notices, with specifics as to the reasons for the ban, the length of time of the ban, the and the restorative actions to be taken as evidence of rehabilitation.
This can of worms has become quite squiggly indeed.
Even if in the UK or US the banning might be more often delegated to non-governmental institutions, I don’t want to be that institution.
Chris M. Barkley on March 30, 2024 at 6:36 pm said:
I don’t know what can be done to restore integrity now other than acknowledging the error and inviting Dave back.
Eastercon did the right thing. How could anyone have fun at a con knowing this reprehensible scumbag was there?
I hope as many cons follow suit as are legally allowed to do so.
No one has banned Dave from that
…yet
Also, should conventions and similar ticketed fannish events search their pre-registrations for unwanted registrants, refund their $$ and notify them of their banning? Can registration systems be set to refuse registrations from specific persons based on name or email or c.c. number or address or, or, or?
I don’t know if I like where this is going.
They didn’t LET him do anything. It is very much not Eastercon’s job to monitor the movements of people who haven’t bought a membership on the off chance that they might plan to fly to the UK and buy one at the door. What a bizarre level of surveillance to ask of a con! McCarty got more grace than anyone could expect, in fact, that someone DID find out he was coming the day before, and informed the con so that they could make a decision in advance and inform him. That he didn’t listen…well, seems like they made the right call, no?
I can’t help but notice that some of you seem convinced that McCarty is being punished. I think it’s entirely likely that, earlier snark aside, they are genuinely trying to protect him (and by extension, the con) from walking into somebody’s fist. And no, you can’t just let him come in and throw out everyone who screams at him instead. That’s a great way to have your volunteer security suddenly in the middle of an escalating brawl that you KNEW was going to happen and which is gonna cause hella bad press.
They’d probably refuse membership to Taylor Swift, too. Not because she did anything wrong, but because the con is not equipped to handle the security situation she would create. It’s not unpersoning, it’s trying to head off a crisis that any sensible person could see coming a mile off.
Yes, they can. Yes, they do. Kinda surprised you didn’t know that, given this has been happening for literally over a decade? I know of at least two cons off the top of my head where if you have previously been removed from the con, you are automatically flagged in the database and you do not get to buy a membership next year. (One of them allows you to make your plea to the head of security as to why you are a changed person who has learned your lesson and will not projectile vomit on the hotel’s front desk again, the other, so far as I know, does not.) A lot more also do something similar, but I don’t know how automated it may be, and may involve manual review.
Conventions are in no way shape or form required to give offenders a chance to repeat their offense. That would be weird as hell.
(Sorry for rapid double post, just saw, couldn’t write fast enough.)
sad that Yalow didn’t get booted, too. To everyone clutching their pearls: these guys still haven’t told the truth. Ben Yalow hasn’t resigned.
@REdWombat It is to be noted that even at his home con in February [Capricon ] , they kept McCarty out of the line of possible hostile encounters. So I am not surprised Eastercon just didn’t want a nasty confrontation (which, all things considered, could be considered at least a significant probability).
@Brian Z–
The US government has never had any trouble banning the entry of people it deems undesirable. In real life, it doesn’t delegate that to non-governmental institutions. An unincorporated literary society, in particular, is an unbelievably unlikely choice. The UK also has a fully functional immigration authority fully capable of denying entry without the help of unincorporated literary societies.
The only people he offended or disturbed with his antics in the Chengdu Hugos were members of fandom. He damaged the reputation of one of fandom’s valued institutions, and that’s who he’s getting blowback from. Deal with it.
@Rich Lynch–
I’ve never heard it suggested that the decision of one group of fans to ban another group of fans based solely on their political opinions and not their actions was anything but a demonstration of how emotions (dare I say hormones?) can cause young men to be overly dramatic and kind of ridiculous. McCarty actually did things that seriously damaged the reputation of the Hugos, and then proceeded to insult and verbally abuse anyone who asked him for real answers, rather than the empty, meaningless direction to read the section of the WSFS constitution that deals with the Hugos, and which provided no clarification at all of his bizarre disqualification of clearly qualified works.