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Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

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Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#11

Post by giraffe_lady »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #3

One thing I'm really struggling with for all these kind of issues is do we really want to create another legal system? That's basically what every organization is being pushed into at this rate. From Universities to chess Leagues they are assembling what amounts to their own judges, juries, and prosecutors. If someone is committing sexual assault why does their seem to be this avoidance of the existing legal system a…

If that's the way you want to approach it, which does have some value, the starting question is "why isn't the legal system sufficient or able to address this?" Which is a many-layered question but let's go.

The needs of a small organization are different from an entire state. Transgressions can be disruptive or destructive to organization-scale relationships without rising to criminality.

And the the traditional feminist answer of "why can't the legal system address sexual assault" is "it wasn't meant to." A famous quote on this is that from a woman's perspective rape isn't illegal it's regulated. The definitions of it and the standards to be met for deciding it has taken place were decided by men, to enforce against other men. The way women feel about their interactions with men has not traditionally been a prioritized factor in the legal system.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#12

Post by hgsgm »

duxup wrote: post #4

I want to address this more generally. I'm not taking issue with any of the claims, I don't know what is true or isn't. The thing I wonder after reading this is how many organizations struggle to deal with these types of situations. Employers, schools, universities, clubs all seem to now have to have a process to address these things. And yet they seem to fumble it regularly, in every direction. The results are all o…

Conflict is fundamentally intractable. If it were so easy to avoid conflict, we wouldn't need to address it!

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#13

Post by paulddraper »

duxup wrote: post #4

I want to address this more generally. I'm not taking issue with any of the claims, I don't know what is true or isn't. The thing I wonder after reading this is how many organizations struggle to deal with these types of situations. Employers, schools, universities, clubs all seem to now have to have a process to address these things. And yet they seem to fumble it regularly, in every direction. The results are all o…

I mean, we have such organizations...they are called courts.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#14

Post by lettergram »

duxup wrote: post #6
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #3

One thing I'm really struggling with for all these kind of issues is do we really want to create another legal system? That's basically what every organization is being pushed into at this rate. From Universities to chess Leagues they are assembling what amounts to their own judges, juries, and prosecutors. If someone is committing sexual assault why does their seem to be this avoidance of the existing legal system a…

Generally the existing legal system is a very difficult path. Having said that I do agree with you (and thus my other comment) that these informal efforts by people who understandably are not qualified to deal with these things, are a mess too, and I'm not at all sure how they could possibly get it right often enough. US Universities in their effort to make the path less difficult have demonstrated that just pressing…

> Generally the existing legal system is a very difficult path

And for good reason, the current legal system assumes innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt (for criminal cases). Civil cases have a lower burden of proof.

These protections are there for a reason. Everyone has likely been accused of things they didn’t do. We shouldn’t assume anyone’s word without a decent amount of certainty.

sexual “misconduct” is even more insidious, because most people making the accusations are doing so long-after the fact, often have outside motivation for making claims AND likely have too low of a burden for a civil or criminal case… In other words, feel free to make claims, but without proof it’s hard to justify ruining someone’s life.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#15

Post by duxup »

glenda wrote: post #10
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #3

One thing I'm really struggling with for all these kind of issues is do we really want to create another legal system? That's basically what every organization is being pushed into at this rate. From Universities to chess Leagues they are assembling what amounts to their own judges, juries, and prosecutors. If someone is committing sexual assault why does their seem to be this avoidance of the existing legal system a…

I don't believe anyone wants to create a new legal system, but the reality is the vast majority of sexual assault cases aren't resolved in court due to existing social issues. These "judges, jurries and prosecutors" are just people who don't want to associate with potentially dangerous people regardless of the legal outcome. Beyond legal consequences to crime there have always been social consequences too - I think t…

I agree that often that's not the goal, but if you have multiple parties making different claims ... all of a sudden you have to determine facts to make a decision based on and suddenly you've got a sort of mini justice system and you're learning all the ins and outs of such a system, making the same historical mistakes and so on.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#17

Post by altairprime »

COGlory wrote: post #5

I'm confused what Lichess wanted here. One woman complained. USCF assigned her an escort. More women complained. USCF banned the guy. This sounds completely reasonable, unless the first woman provided proof, you can't just ban someone because of an allegation. But they took steps to ensure her safety at future events. What does Lichess want here? They say it's insufficient, but they never really say what should have…

They want each organization to publicly state (“acknowledge”) that they acted and communicated inappropriately in the past regarding these events. In their exact words from the post:

> However, in our opinion, both US Chess and STLCC have failed to demonstrate an important aspect of accountability – a willingness to acknowledge and address past shortcomings. We do not think that reconciliation will be possible without this acknowledgement.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#18

Post by paulddraper »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #3

One thing I'm really struggling with for all these kind of issues is do we really want to create another legal system? That's basically what every organization is being pushed into at this rate. From Universities to chess Leagues they are assembling what amounts to their own judges, juries, and prosecutors. If someone is committing sexual assault why does their seem to be this avoidance of the existing legal system a…

100%

I expect a "chess federation" to be good at.....federating chess.

Why do we expect a chess federation to be good at policing, investigating claims, collecting evidence, following precedent, passing judgments, and balancing collective and individual interests?

We have actual, legitimate justice systems that do this. Are they perfect? No. But why do you expect a bunch of chess nerds/experts to be any better at it?

---

You're complaining that a plumber did a crap job fixing your car. I 100% believe you that they did a crappy job, but also maybe you should have hired someone else?

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#19

Post by glenda »

paulddraper wrote: post #13
duxup wrote: post #4

I want to address this more generally. I'm not taking issue with any of the claims, I don't know what is true or isn't. The thing I wonder after reading this is how many organizations struggle to deal with these types of situations. Employers, schools, universities, clubs all seem to now have to have a process to address these things. And yet they seem to fumble it regularly, in every direction. The results are all o…

I mean, we have such organizations...they are called courts.

And from what I can see those courts have shown to be pretty ineffective against crimes like sexual assault.

Re: Lichess will no longer cooperate with the USCF and the Saint Louis Chess Club

#20

Post by hedora »

duxup wrote: post #4

I want to address this more generally. I'm not taking issue with any of the claims, I don't know what is true or isn't. The thing I wonder after reading this is how many organizations struggle to deal with these types of situations. Employers, schools, universities, clubs all seem to now have to have a process to address these things. And yet they seem to fumble it regularly, in every direction. The results are all o…

I'd suggest lobbying congress to reform the US courts. A few things come to mind:

- ban binding arbitration and all other extrajudicial legal proceedings

- strengthen whistleblower laws so that NDAs against people with whistleblower protection are non-enforceable

- train a subset of police to properly investigate sexual assault / harassment allegations

- provide a low cost alternative to civil court similar to small claims court for situations where there is a large asymmetry in the financial resources of the two sides of the proceeding.

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