You will remember that I posted the other day about accusations made against Mark Galli, the retired editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, who allegedly sexually harassed women on staff. Galli denied some of the allegations, and said the others were misunderstandings for which he would love to have the opportunity to apologize and ask forgiveness.

Since then, I am told that the publisher of Galli’s recent book about his conversion to Catholicism has withdrawn the book from the market — this, even though the accusations against Galli have not been proven, and Galli has had no formal way to challenge them. In the comments thread under that initial post, some people said that the allegations against Galli seemed fishy. Today I received communication from an Evangelical academic who wrote to say that Galli’s reputation has been destroyed, though he (Galli) has had no chance to defend himself. The academic wrote to say:

I don’t think it’s right to treat someone as guilty based on allegations that have not undergone the scrutiny of due process. Galli outright denies the worst of these allegations. Even though CT is acting sacrificially to publish these allegations, it’s not fair to anyone to treat the accused as guilty based on allegations alone. Especially since, as I read the story, some of the more serious ones do not seem to have other witnesses to the events alleged.

He may end up being proven guilty of all of it. I just feel like we don’t have enough to go on to definitively condemn the guy. Galli has been roundly and irreversibly condemned on the basis of these allegations alone. He is cancelled at this point, and it doesn’t matter whether the allegations are true or substantiated. That’s wrong.

And I’m saying that as someone who doesn’t know Galli and doesn’t appreciate his evangelical-lefty-friendly tenure at CT. I’m reserving judgment.

This statement from [CT CEO Tim] Dalrymple doesn’t fill me with confidence:

“In other words, as Guidepost expressed so well, we overemphasized the intent of the perpetrator and underemphasized the impact on the recipient. Divining intent is always a dubious enterprise, but sexual harassment is sexual harassment whether or not it is sexually motivated.”

CT brought in Guidepost, an outside consulting firm, to help it figure out how to deal with the matter. You can read the Guidepost report by following a link in this editorial by Tim Dalrymple.The academic continues:

Here is Guidepost’s sixth recommendation to CT. It doesn’t fill me with confidence either.

CT should develop an actionable plan for recruiting and retaining women and diverse candidates, with a goal of increasing the representation of women and diverse candidates at all levels of the company and communicate the plan to CT employees and the CT Board. This may include a refresh of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee or other group where CT employees can help strategize and assist in concrete steps to develop a diverse culture under the support of CT leadership.

One more thing from the Guidepost report. This is important:

We wish to make clear that in stating that we find the accounts of Female Employees A and B and others to be credible, we are not reaching any legal conclusions. Guidepost is not a law firm and did not undertake any legal analysis of whether Former Employee 1’s alleged conduct, if proved, would constitute harassment under any applicable local, state, or federal laws or regulations and we are not providing any legal opinion or legal conclusion about that alleged conduct.

In other words, even though Guidepost thinks the people making allegations are credible, they are not making the case that Galli is guilty. This report does not establish Galli’s guilt in any way. It merely analyzes whether CT’s procedures for handling accusations were sound.

This is what I don’t like. He’s being treated as guilty without due process. I’m sorry, but a Guidepost review is not a due process adjudication of his guilt or innocence. It’s just not. But he’s going to be cancelled and treated as guilty on the basis of allegations alone. It’s a done deal at this point. And it’s wrong.

And keep in mind, this can happen to any of us. If someone makes an allegation against you, it doesn’t matte what your intent is. The only thing that matters is how the accuser feels. Their allegation alone will ruin you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Guidepost’s own report to CT says that their investigation is not designed to determine Galli’s guilt of innocence. They are only looking at whether allegations are credible and whether CT handled them properly. That’s it.

Due process involves presumption of innocence, right to face your accuser, opportunity to mount a defense, rules of evidence, witnesses, etc. This Guidepost investigation is not doing any of that, nor are they claiming to do any of that. On the contrary, they state that they aren’t doing that.

In the court of public opinion, Galli is guilty. He will never escape that verdict because in our current climate, it only takes an accusation to destroy a person. If it’s an allegation of sexual abuse or harassment, the allegation alone is the end of the matter.

Okay, sorry. Another item from the Guidepost report. This sounds like a woke HR employee wrote it:

The culture of CT does not appear to be dominated by sexual harassment or abuse. However, according to several interviewees, sexism does exist at CT (as it does at many other workplaces, both religious and secular) and is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed. Female CT employees who we interviewed stated that they had been subjected to various unconsciously sexist behaviors by men in the CT workplace, including being patronized, belittled, interrupted, talked over, and micromanaged. Several women told us that they felt they were deliberately omitted from decision-making, with one woman stating that “men go to men all the time and women are told to do what the men decided.”

It is possible that CT’s flawed institutional response to harassment allegations could have been influenced, in part, by unconscious sexism.

UPDATE: A reader e-mails:

I don’t know anything about Galli apart from what you have written and quoted. And I don’t read CT, and am not really interested in their perspective. But about your academic friend’s final point and the Guidepost report of women employees alleging“systemic” and “unconscious” sexism etc…

Jordan Peterson talks about this from time to time. When men deal with men, there are rules governing that behavior that all understand. When conflict arises, at the final stretch, men fight with each other to resolve it. This is not permissible when men are dealing with women peers. Moreover, the possibility of career-ending allegations of sexism etc. are always latent in these interactions. So how is business supposed to get done now? This isn’t some arbitrary norm of the patriarchy, but rather rooted deeply in human evolutionary psychology. The genealogy of these phenomena go back probably hundreds of thousands of years. It is therefore safe to say that the deck is now stacked against men who have to work with women as peers. The only safe course of action is capitulation and deference in every instance. Which isn’t a good way to run anything.

Like everything else in the orbit of Western culture, this won’t end well.

UPDATE.2: Another reader, this one an academic, writes:

I am completely amazed that CT would release the findings of a human resources investigation. HR is not the FBI; they are not trained to sift through evidence, there was no opportunity for cross examination, and many of the allegations may be interpreted as the result of inculcating in employees a hypersensitivity about activities that in the past would’ve been seen as a minor annoyances but not sexual-harassment. If it were me, I would go balls to the wall lawsuit against Christianity Today, since they essentially have destroyed my career for the rest of my life.

UPDATE.3: Reader William Anderson comments:

Note that Galli already was trying to establish the DEI atmosphere at CT, not only in the workplace, but also in the pages of CT. It has been well-known in evangelical circles for many years that only leftist positions are acceptable for publication at CT, whether one writes of science, abortion, sexuality, etc. Conservatives have known for years that their submissions are unacceptable.

I point this out because we are seeing a larger pattern in evangelical organizations. First, the pressure to bow to the Left becomes stronger. Second, sooner or later, an “incident” or “series of incidents” allegedly will occur that “proves” the need for the organization to move even further to the left, which it usually does. What conservatives fail to understand is that the Left never is satisfied and will demand even more concessions. Having taught at Christian colleges, I am familiar with the pattern and the results.

Reader Muzan-e:

This is the sort of thing that chills me to the core:

Some years ago, we fired two female employees for sexual harassment. Their victim was a high-schooler, working for us over the summer as many local kids do. They were finding him in the kitchen or in stock and subjecting him to the sort of overtly, aggressively sexual questioning that wouldn’t be welcome at dinner parties, let alone the workplace. Obviously this cannot, must not, be allowed to continue. But this is what gets me —

As best we could determine, this had been happening for almost two weeks.
He was a very shy, quiet young man and he was afraid of telling management; of ‘making a fuss’.
If it had come down to testimonies, it would’ve been the word of two senior employees with established records vs one temporary hire.
And the stuff they were saying to him? You could repeat it in front of a jury of 12 and — keeping in mind their record, and that it is two of them against one of him — it would’ve sounded outrageous. Absolutely unbelievable.

We got extraordinarily lucky: another employee overheard it happening, peeked around the corner to see who on earth was talking like this, and phoned us immediately. We fired both women that day. Later, going through the camera footage, we could see it happening on other occasions — but it looked innocuous. If not for that one employee…

It chills me, man. That we might never have known; that if the circumstances were just slightly different, it would’ve been extraordinarily difficult for him to prove. I am a firm, lifelong believer in innocent until proven guilty — but when it’s a matter of words, when it’s a touch that will leave no physical mark… What then? We might hope for corroboration in the form of previous incidents, but when those are the same?

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