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?

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.

Your author received immediate threats from a WorldCon member, Sheila Marie Connolly (archive). Sheila claimed to be deeply offended by my describing Marion Zimmer Bradley as a monstrous bisexual paedophile. But Bradley molested children of both sexes as Bradley’s own daughter revealed in her book, the Last Closet. My problem with Zimmer Bradley is the child molestation. The term bisexual simply referred to victims of both sexes. Why would my condemnation of a dead paedophile draw such an extreme reaction from Connolly? Connolly then appeared to publicly threaten my employment – claiming I was harassing Sanford by publishing emails to write to for making polite complaints and asking if I would like the same to happen to me –

WorldCon has failed to take action over clear breaches of their Code of Conduct (archive). The code states – “Everyone involved with DisCon III is expected to show respect towards the convention attendees, venue staff, the general public“. So for Sheila to threaten me for raising concerns about child torture material is unacceptable. Likewise Sanford’s targeting of a female guest of honour with semantically untrue allegations is clearly unacceptable.

WorldCon’s only response to mounting condemnation has been silence. They removed my post from their Facebook group and took no action. Jason Sanford mis-gendered Toni Weisskopf and posted untrue allegations against her. He has published child torture material. Sheila Marie Connolly, who I may cover in more detail in future articles all about her, clearly attempted to intimidate me. In due course this may be drawn to the attention of appropriate authorities. Urbanski is the, “Listeners Area Head” and, as far as I am aware, has done nothing to exclude Connolly or Sanford.

The stories that Sanford has produced are exactly the type of thing that are likely to be sexually arousing to paedophiles. What kind of story do paedophile sadists masturbate over? A paedophile (pedophile) is a person who is sexually attracted to and aroused by children. A sadist is someone aroused by causing pain. So the answer to the question is most likely, stories about children being hurt. As an Associate Professor of English at Fitchburg State University, Heather Urbanski should know the kind of pain this type of story is likely to cause abuse survivors.

Furthermore, since then Weisskopf has made damning allegations of ignoring due process by Worldcon, again which can only reflect on the team that manages alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct. In a video dated 8 March 2021, on the Keystroke Medium Channel, Weisskopf explained that shortly after Sanford’s allegations about the Baen Book’s forum came out, she took the forum down to investigate. That investigation was ongoing at the time of the video, although she stated that she had already established some of the allegations were untrue. One alleged victim of racism, for example, had chosen the supposedly offensive nickname used to describe him. WorldCon, alleges Weisskopf, demanded she take action after only four days – before finishing her investigation. This is clearly improper. Worldcon does not even have a confirmed date and venue for this year. There is no urgency. It means the convention was reckless as to the truth. In that light, the statement condemning Weisskopf was premature and may be maliciously defamatory.

This allegation of unjust behaviour finds an echo in the complaints of Urbanski’s students. It has been drawn to my attention that Urbanski has a page on ratemyprofessor.com (archive), in which nearly every student since 2013 rates her as “Awful” and many accuse her of improper behaviour, some of which if proven could amount to bullying and / or abuse. The first thing I did was look at how she compares to other faculty. At some institutions, the Rate my Professor site is used for venting or unfair denigration. However, other professors who teach English at FSU get very high grades. Katharine Covino-Poutasse (archive), Benjamin Railton (archive) and Elisabet Takehana (archive) all teach English at FSU and they get mostly “Awesome” grades. So students are not simply using it as a venue to attack staff.

The ratings for Associate Professor Heather Urbanski go back to 2013 and continue to 8 March 2021. All of the student ratings for this year are the lowest possible – quality 1.0, difficulty 5, “Awful”. However, these ratings are all from 8 March 2021 after the Sanford scandal broke so I exclude them. It is suspicious that there are 3 ratings on the same day, given only 34 in the preceding 8 years – they could be brigading. The remaining ratings are from 2020 or earlier. Of these 34 remaining ratings, 3 have a value other than “Awful”. ((31 / 34) * 100) = 91.18% of her students rate her as “Awful”, whilst the same student population rates other professors as, “Awesome”.

Furthermore, many of the students make allegations of improper behaviour. Of the 34 ratings before the Sanford scandal, more than half make allegations of inappropriate conduct, some of which seems to be bullying, condescending, or inappropriate communication with students. This conduct may meet some safeguarding definitions of abuse in some jurisdictions around bullying conduct. Each of the twenty (20) student quotes below is extracted from a different student rater –

“Has to be told by the head of the department to grade the assignments for her classes.”

“talks as if she is a higher up and lacks respect for the students”

“Sometimes I felt judged by her for not saying the right thing”

“She also took until early second semester to post our final grades”

“she does not explain her assignments well at all and expects you decipher what shes saying […] Nothing has been graded until near the end of the semester”

“vaguely explains assignments. Takes FOREVER to grade papers. Didn’t know my grade for the class until near the end of the semester. Take a different professor”

“Unless you want to feel undermined by a teacher I would not recommend this class”

“she talks to students as if she is on a pedestal”

“She does not clearly define her expectations and will argue against you about everything! She does not want to help you and she will make you feel stupid everyday”

“She is very stuck in her own mindset, and doesn’t take well to alternate views. She often goes on about privilege, and reminds you to check it. Loves Harry Potter and Star wars, so if you mention them, you’ll be all set”

“She talks down to you when asking for help. Very rude”

“aims to prove you wrong. gives poor feedback on papers. Uses some “nervous system condition” as an excuse for everything but is less than understanding when something happens to student(s). Puts herself on a pedestal”

“The thing that bothered me most about her is that she talks down to her students and hold herself up on a pedestal. Also, her essay prompts make no sense unless you ask her to explain 1 on 1, but be ready for some judgment from her”

“has truly made my freshmen second semester an awful .experience. She does not give good feedback at all and is terrible communicating and connecting with students. Even when grading you will not know your true grade in the class till the end of the year”

“Very disrespectful professor as she demonstrated it to me when I asked for help. Spoke down on me as if I am a child when I am a 47 year old man successful in life. No help at all, very confusing”

“What an Umbridge. Don’t take her ScifiFantasy Class. She will make you hate what you love”

“She’s not really helpful and has a tendency to blow your question out of proportion in front of the class”

“extremely rude. I have not learned anything and everything she teaches so confusing. when I ask questions, she makes me look stupid. she embarrasses me in front of everyone. the conferences were unacceptable. teaching is not for her”

“Extremely rude, doesn’t help at all, makes you feel like your stupid and her way is the only right way”

“She is is awful and she is rude . She doesn’t help at all”

The quotes above represent more than half Urbanski’s 37 student ratings. Other members of the same faculty get near perfect grades on the same site.

It is not just students that Heather Urbanski has caused distress to. Jason Sanford’s work has been specifically discussed on established child abuse forums, and users there have expressed distress at her failure to speak out or exclude Sanford. They consider her silence complicity –

Before publishing these remarks, I considered the appropriateness. These are opinions, of posters in a group who may have a history of trauma. They are emotive. The allegation is one of complicity through inaction, and it is shorn of context such as any pressure Urbanski may be under from superiors at WorldCon. However, on reflection I have decided the opinions of the survivor forum members should be set out for three simple reasons. Firstly, Urbanski’s day job is not WorldCon. She is not going to lose her income if she condemned them and resigned on principle. Secondly, the extremely dubious standard of “complicity through silence” is the one proferred by Sanford and his supporters in relation to Weisskopf and amplified by WorldCon. Thirdly, the opinion that Urbanski is unfit to teach is shared by many of her students.

“Some of the members in the child abuse forum feel Urbanski’s complicity is like a metaphorical rape. Like she is holding down a child to be raped.”

In terms of the survivor’s forum, I will not share the URL. I note that some of the posters criticising Urbanski are established, some are 1 use disposable accounts. That does not necessarily imply malice. Given many of Urbanski’s associates are avowed cancellers and indeed Weisskopf was removed from WorldCon after forum post mining, the individuals concerned quite clearly may have very legitimate fears.

So, we are left with the issue of race. Again, we are down to silence by complicity. The WorldCon scandal of Sanford’s behaviour towards Weisskopf is not the first time a figure from the industry has felt unfairly excluded. Jon Del Arroz, who bills himself as “the leading Hispanic voice in science fiction”. He was excluded from Worldcon 2018.

Del Arroz had publicly stated that he would wear a bodycam to the convention. It was his apparent intention to protect himself from, “hijinks”, meaning assault, harassment or false allegations. He claims that he had privately raised safety concerns with WorldCon after receiving threats but not received a reply. WorldCon has tried to claim that it believed he meant he would secretly record. This is self-evidently false – he announced it on his very publicly scrutinised Twitter account for the apparent purpose of deterring misconduct.

As a result of being excluded from WorldCon, Jon Del Arroz sued the organisers of WorldCon. So far, his lawsuit has survived a number of attempts to terminate it (for example, by filing motions for demurrer, which is the rough equivalent of an application to strike-out a case here in the UK).

A difficulty is that WorldCon, based on their court filings, were (they claim) concerned about his bombastic behaviour – juvenile insults like an exhortation to, “Troll The Shit Out of SJW Sci-Fi Authors On Twitter”. Such insults are common to those on both sides of the political divide. Larry Correia, for example, gives the example of left-wingers joking about drone strikes on right-wingers. There is an element of distaste towards Del Arroz for behaviour common to young-ish men, especially from some cultures. There is an alleged failure to deal with physical threats to a non-Caucasian man. In short, race is an issue. Heather Urbanski has taken no steps to resolve the issue and reach out with an olive branch now she is the Area Head of the, ‘Listeners’.

In summary, there is a weight of evidence that ought to give FSU reasonable grounds for concern about Urbanski’s fitness to be a professor, or employee of any kind. There are grounds to investigate her conduct as a teacher and treatment of her students. There are grounds to investigate her outside activities.

There are grounds for WorldCon to revisit the way it conducts its disciplinary activities and to review the actions and suitability of its key staff. If Urbanski mistreats – even abuses – her students in her day job teaching, how can she have such a responsible role at WorldCon? To what extent is she involved in WorldCon’s difficulties?

Finally, it should be remembered that Urbanski is not the boss of WorldCon 2021. The buck stops with William (Bill) Lawhorn. He has not been forgotten. Detailed scrutiny of Lawhorn is coming due course.

In the meantime, readers are invited to politely raise concerns about Sanford and Urbanski with WorldCon, and about Urbanski only with FSU.

WorldCon

Twitter @WorldCon2021

info@worldcon.org

coc@discon3.org

Fitchburg State University
Ms. Jessica Murdoch
Associate Vice President of Human Resources & Payroll Services/ Affirmative Action, Section 504 and Title II of the ADA
jmurdoch@fitchburgstate.edu

Ms. Kristin Murphy
Title IX Coordinator
kmurph72@fitchburgstate.edu

Richard Lapidus
President
rlapidus@fitchburgstate.edu

These allegations were put to the subjects – Associate Professor Heather Urbanski, WorldCon and FSU officials before publication. The inquiries were read many times.

Your author received an extension of time request from Fitchburg State University, which he granted. The response (from a lawyer) read –

“This firm represents Fitchburg State University and has been asked to review your recent correspondence, which contains allegations regarding “Heather Urbanski” and the University. At this time, the University has no information to provide to you regarding any matter referenced in your article. I add that the University stands ready to pursue legal action should any unfounded statements be made about it that would be considered defamatory. “

This is content free. It is not a denial. Aside from this comment, no replies nor denials were received from WorldCon or Urbanski herself. It is not denied that Urbanski has had a role in the Weisskopf and Sanford matters.