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agonyaunt2025-07-07 03:14 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2025-07-07 03:14 pm
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: how do I tell an organization that their volunteer is banned from our facility?
CW" sexual harassment, soft bans, conflict avoidance, and religion.
For the purposes of anonymity, let’s say I work at a penguin sanctuary. It is primarily a research facility, people love penguins, and we love teaching people about them, so we do tours. Generally, we only do tours for school groups or other educational groups. Tours also take a back seat to the actual research and the welfare of the penguins. Part of my job is to coordinate the tours and decide for any tour request if we can accommodate the group or not based on the availability and needs of the researchers and penguins.
About four years ago, a senior researcher, Wakeen, was fired for, among other things, sexual harassment. He is not allowed to visit our facility without express permission from our executive director. He does try to visit semi-regularly or otherwise stay involved in our work, annoyingly. (It’s been four years, dude, find another hobby.)
Recently, Wakeen requested tours on behalf of an organization that provides outdoor recreation opportunities for disadvantaged urban kids. Let’s call the organization OutdoorKidz. Wakeen does not work for OutdoorKidz, but I don’t know what his relationship with them is exactly. Normally, we would be delighted to try and accommodate tours for a group like this. However, we had to turn the group down for this summer. I didn’t want to tell Wakeen that I was denying his request because I’m not willing to subject my staff to him, so I told him that we could not accommodate his request on the dates he wanted. Which was true! He sent his request two weeks before the requested dates during a time of year that we get the most requests and can do the least amount of tours due to nesting season.
My boss would like me to reach out to OutdoorKidz directly and let them know that, basically, we will have a much easier time accommodating their requests if Wakeen is not involved. I am struggling to figure out the best way to do that. Part of me thinks I should be straight up with them that Wakeen is banned from our facility, so they should not ask him to book their tours or have him accompany them on the tours. Part of me thinks I should leave Wakeen out of it entirely. If I tell them that we need dates farther in advance and that they can just coordinate with me directly, maybe they’ll cut out Wakeen on their own. Since I don’t know what Wakeen’s relationship is to this group, I’m not sure how direct I can be. What’s my best option here?
Piece that I am not sure is relevant or not: OutdoorKidz is a religious organization. I hate to prejudge people I don’t know, but I know there is a tendency within some in this religion to “forgive” sexual harassers who have “repented.” I’m afraid that they won’t take that piece seriously. I, personally, don’t care if Wakeen has repented or changed or not. His past actions traumatized women here and I will not subject them to his presence.
My first thought was for you to simply tell Wakeen that due to his history with the facility, you can’t accommodate tour requests from him and someone else from OutdoorKidz will need to coordinate the visit … but I’m worried that that will just lead to the group never visiting, because Wakeen won’t want to admit the situation to them.
My second thought was whether you could tell him the visit request needs to be submitted by an official employee of OutdoorKidz, since he doesn’t appear to be one … but that’s just skirting the issue.
My third thought is that you should reach out to OutdoorKidz directly, say you weren’t able to accommodate Wakeen’s request because it was so last-minute but that you’d love to host the group in the future, and would they like to coordinate directly with you to arrange it? But that risks them saying yes and then kicking it back to Wakeen to coordinate.
Given all that, if you want to host this group and you want to leave Wakeen out of it, I think your boss is right. Contact OutdoorKidz and say Wakeen contacted you about arranging a visit and you’d love to host their group but Wakeen is a former employee of the sanctuary who unfortunately is no longer permitted at the facility, so is there someone else there you can coordinate with? You don’t need to explain why he’s no longer permitted there; they can draw whatever conclusions they want, and you’ll have gotten the essential info to them (would love to host them, needs to be coordinated by someone else).
For the purposes of anonymity, let’s say I work at a penguin sanctuary. It is primarily a research facility, people love penguins, and we love teaching people about them, so we do tours. Generally, we only do tours for school groups or other educational groups. Tours also take a back seat to the actual research and the welfare of the penguins. Part of my job is to coordinate the tours and decide for any tour request if we can accommodate the group or not based on the availability and needs of the researchers and penguins.
About four years ago, a senior researcher, Wakeen, was fired for, among other things, sexual harassment. He is not allowed to visit our facility without express permission from our executive director. He does try to visit semi-regularly or otherwise stay involved in our work, annoyingly. (It’s been four years, dude, find another hobby.)
Recently, Wakeen requested tours on behalf of an organization that provides outdoor recreation opportunities for disadvantaged urban kids. Let’s call the organization OutdoorKidz. Wakeen does not work for OutdoorKidz, but I don’t know what his relationship with them is exactly. Normally, we would be delighted to try and accommodate tours for a group like this. However, we had to turn the group down for this summer. I didn’t want to tell Wakeen that I was denying his request because I’m not willing to subject my staff to him, so I told him that we could not accommodate his request on the dates he wanted. Which was true! He sent his request two weeks before the requested dates during a time of year that we get the most requests and can do the least amount of tours due to nesting season.
My boss would like me to reach out to OutdoorKidz directly and let them know that, basically, we will have a much easier time accommodating their requests if Wakeen is not involved. I am struggling to figure out the best way to do that. Part of me thinks I should be straight up with them that Wakeen is banned from our facility, so they should not ask him to book their tours or have him accompany them on the tours. Part of me thinks I should leave Wakeen out of it entirely. If I tell them that we need dates farther in advance and that they can just coordinate with me directly, maybe they’ll cut out Wakeen on their own. Since I don’t know what Wakeen’s relationship is to this group, I’m not sure how direct I can be. What’s my best option here?
Piece that I am not sure is relevant or not: OutdoorKidz is a religious organization. I hate to prejudge people I don’t know, but I know there is a tendency within some in this religion to “forgive” sexual harassers who have “repented.” I’m afraid that they won’t take that piece seriously. I, personally, don’t care if Wakeen has repented or changed or not. His past actions traumatized women here and I will not subject them to his presence.
My first thought was for you to simply tell Wakeen that due to his history with the facility, you can’t accommodate tour requests from him and someone else from OutdoorKidz will need to coordinate the visit … but I’m worried that that will just lead to the group never visiting, because Wakeen won’t want to admit the situation to them.
My second thought was whether you could tell him the visit request needs to be submitted by an official employee of OutdoorKidz, since he doesn’t appear to be one … but that’s just skirting the issue.
My third thought is that you should reach out to OutdoorKidz directly, say you weren’t able to accommodate Wakeen’s request because it was so last-minute but that you’d love to host the group in the future, and would they like to coordinate directly with you to arrange it? But that risks them saying yes and then kicking it back to Wakeen to coordinate.
Given all that, if you want to host this group and you want to leave Wakeen out of it, I think your boss is right. Contact OutdoorKidz and say Wakeen contacted you about arranging a visit and you’d love to host their group but Wakeen is a former employee of the sanctuary who unfortunately is no longer permitted at the facility, so is there someone else there you can coordinate with? You don’t need to explain why he’s no longer permitted there; they can draw whatever conclusions they want, and you’ll have gotten the essential info to them (would love to host them, needs to be coordinated by someone else).
additional info
1) this is in a conservative area where Wakeen is popularly seen as having been "unfairly fired by that feminist from out of town" and where he has a lot of contacts in the local nonprofit scene, all of which factors into the ED's soft ban.
2) LW was avoiding conflict with him right then due to being really busy
3) LW is more looking for advise for how to do as her boss instructsl.
Also interesting side discussions include:
1) is this solely LW's responsibility?
2) Why is Wakeen doing this?
3) is it unfair to think that a religious organization might shield or defend a sexual harasser?
Re: additional info
Re: additional info
no subject
Imho this situation really needs to be handled by the executive director of the facility, not LW, because of the seriousness of what happened before. Without knowing Wakeen's actual relationship with the OutdoorKidz group, there's a non-zero chance that Wakeen is looking for adverse publicity against LW's workplace.
Edit to add: OutdoorKidz has probably already been told Wakeen's side of the story, which is why I think the executive director should be talking to them, not LW.
no subject