Associate Professor of English Heather Urbanski of Fitch State University (FSU) is also the Area Head of Listening at the World Science Fiction Convention 2021. This Orwellian title means she is in charge of the department that handle complaints about breaches of the code of conduct, including sexual harassment and suchlike. It is a title roughly equivalent to, “Head of Safeguarding”. Yet, MHN can exclusively reveal that in her work as a Professor at Fitchburg State University she has, according to RateMyProfessor.com, been accused of of improper behaviour by at least 20 of her students. If true, some of these allegations would appear to meet some definitions of abuse such as bullying or demeaning behaviour. 91% of her students on the site rate her as “Awful”. At the same time this week, she has been condemned by members of an abuse survivor group this week for failing to deal with complaints about distribution of child torture material by reviled z-list author Jason Sanford. Will FSU and WorldCon officials investigate?
Associate Professor Heather Urbanski of Fitchburg State University gets a grade of 1.4/5 (28%) on ratemyprofessors.com. On the site, students have accused her of improper conduct towards them that the university does not appear to have investigated. She has also attracted controversy in her role as, “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon2021. Members of a group for child abuse survivors have criticised her for failing to take robust action against Jason Sanford, “I don’t think she is a fit person to work in any kind of school […] metaphorically, it [is] like they are holding down a child to be raped and tortured.”, said one.
The current controversy over WorldCon has been brewing for years. There have always been disagreements and kerfuffles in fandom. It is an arena defined by poor social skills combined with extremely passionate interest. In recent years however, vicious political division has erupted throughout fandom such as with the 2014 #GamerGate controversy. Similar concerns have hit WorldCon, with right-wingers feeling they had to organise a slate of candidates for awards to overcome systemic discriminatory bias (archive). Concerns about inappropriate attitudes to paedophilia and child protection have also been an issue for decades and have been well-documented, for example in, “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon” by Moira Greyland and Vox Day.
The most recent scandal to hit WorldCon is its disgraceful conduct towards respected female publisher Toni Weisskopf. Weisskopf is the publisher of Baen Books, and last month was the subject of a deeply unethical and misleading hit-piece by Jason Sanford, a bad-to-awful amateur science fiction author. In response, WorldCon removed Weisskopf as a Guest of Honour, making a public statement condemning her (archive). The unjust response of WorldCon to the obviously inaccurate and misleading article led to public criticism of WorldCon and withdrawal of top science fiction authors including David Weber (archive). Weber’s withdrawal is a huge blow to Worldcon. He is vastly more famous than nearly everyone else involved. Not only is he one of the few people involved whose name I recognised, I actually own some of his books. Like, actual paper copies.
Investigation by MHN revealed that Sanford had been openly distributing and selling stories involving harm to minors and minor-bodied fictional creatures. One of these, “The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round” involved child torture and what could appear to be grooming. Some of Sanford’s supporters have been trying to minimise the stories, but complaints were made to WorldCon. Heather Urbanski is the “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon (staff list / archive), the department in charge of dealing with Code of Conduct complaints. As some feared retaliation, I posted my article and the complaint in their Facebook group on the basis that as I am not an attendee, I cannot be banned. I also emailed the official CoC contact email.
