Dear friends and supporters, On June 14, 2016 Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Education Agency published their joint plan for pursuing outside investigation into “the Hartman situation.” On first glance, it might read as a reasonable and unremarkable update, but Our Stories Untold cannot stress enough that this plan, as it is written, will undermine all current efforts to address sexual abuse in Mennonite institutions and have a devastating impact on current and future survivors of abuse and their communities. It reveals that such undermining action is already underway. People concerned about sexual abuse in Mennonite contexts need to send a strong and clear message, right away, that we will not stand for it. (We’re serious. Pick up the phone. Make a racket. Your voice IS powerful and it matters right now.) In short: 1. The article in which the plan is described reveals that leaders of the institutions being investigated met together to privately set, or in the language of the article “come to consensus” upon, the terms of the plan put forth. It is unacceptable for the organizations under investigation to set the terms of their own investigation. It is sneaky and dishonest and wrong for leaders of […]
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