Patricia's Personal Statement
CppCon's Failure to Protect the Community
Patricia Aas, 08 March 2022
Content Warning
This document contains material on rape and child sexual exploitation that may be harmful or traumatic to some audiences.
TL;DR
CppCon leadership and the C++ Foundation board have worked in secret to protect a person convicted of rape and possession of Child Sexual Abuse Imagery. They have refused any transparency into a process where they have decided to allow this person full access to CppCon as an attendee, speaker and trainer. This person is well-known and trusted in the C++ community.
Personal Statement
I never wanted to write this. I am heartbroken that I have to.
I wanted this to come from #include <C++> an organization I was one of the founding members of and have been an admin for since the beginning, but it is clear that we do not have the same objectives here, so I will do this as me, Patricia, not as an admin for #include <C++>, a position I might very well lose as a result of this.
Over the past 4 months we, representatives for #include <C++>, have edited various versions of the following documents.
Maybe #include <C++> will commit to them, maybe they won’t. I will, however, not wait any longer. I first said we had to publish this 4 months ago, but some people felt that we should give CppCon and the C++ Foundation board time to come to the right conclusions. 4 months have come and gone, and nothing has happened. Some people are still holding out hope for change on the part of CppCon and the C++ Foundation board, but publishing these documents is not a threat, it is a step towards transparency and a commitment to actual inclusion. I hope that they can form a basis for future transparent action. However, even if they don’t, people have a right to know so that they make the decisions that are right for them.
This is absolutely not the right time, and I probably should have done this sooner, but we’ve been in a global pandemic for years now, and there never was a right time. Unfortunately time is running out, people are making plans for their year, they need to be able to make informed decisions. I hope those decisions involve not supporting CppCon in any way, to signal clearly that we need change. This plea goes out to sponsors, trainers, speakers and attendees.
Documents proposed and developed with #include <C++>
Proposed: Transparency Report on CppCon Safety