EFTA00884016.pdf

From: "jeffrey E." <[email protected]> To: Lawrence Krauss Subject: Re: CLARIFICATION: response to your email Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:37:32 +0000 Inline-Images: DA866543-7401-4A5A-8E50-FD32E33A50EC.png; image002.png Did you call him On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 9:32 AM Lawrence Krauss < > wrote: So should I send this? Please let me know ASAP. Lawrence M. Krauss Director, The Origins Project at ASU Foundation Professor School of Earth & Space Ex loration and Physics Department Arizona State Universi . Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Research Office: Assistant (Jessica): Origins Office Cynthia): otigins.asu.edu I I krauss.facultv.asu.edu Sent from my iPhone On Feb 13, 2018, at 9:27 PM, Lawrence Krauss < wrote: JEE: HERE IS MY PROPOSED EMAIL.. GOING to NEIL TUROK. Comments welcome Dear Neil and Michael: Attached is a copy of some correspondence from Buzzfeed, which has followed on six months of correspondence, following on a claim that two universities I am affiliated with had previously shown to be false. Buzzfeed produced 5 false allegations off the web which I subsequently demonstrated to be false, in an attempt to suggest a history of sexual harassment by me. Following that Buzzfeed searched for other defamatory examples, and through someone at Perimeter received the following claim. EFTA00884016  —At the Perimeter Institute's "Quantum to Cosmos" Festival in October 2009, a woman made a formal complaint of sexual harassment against you. The institute immediately removed you from the premises and banned you from ever coming back. After I disputed this claim, they came back with the following claim, which they said was on the record by someone from Perimeter: • In October of 2009, you went to Waterloo, Ontario, to be a guest speaker at the Quantum to Cosmos Festival at the Perimeter Institute. • During the event, a sexual harassment complaint was filed against you. • You were immediately removed from the premises and banned from ever coming back. • The institute would not provide more details to respect the complainant's privacy. • I disputed this, and included an email from you, Neil as a demonstration that it was false (I redacted the information that was not relevant to them): Begin forwarded message: From: "Neil Turok" Subject: Holden XXX Date: March 31, 2011 at 9:30:26 AM MST To: <j Dear Larry, I hope you're doing very well. It was nice to have you at PI for the Q2C Festival and I do hope you'll be able to visit again soon. I'm writing in regard to Holden XXX, who I have been working with recently ... With my best wishes, Neil Subsequent to that, Buzzfeed came back with the following: Thank you for sending the email from Neil Turok. We have raised this with the Perimeter Institute, which has clarified its position, as follows: • During the event, a sexual harassment complaint was filed with the administration against you. • in 2012, as part of a formal review of its internal policies, the institute made a decision that you would not be invited to return. EFTA00884017 As you can see, the original claim by Buzzfeed, which they claimed was verified `on the record' by Perimeter, was false. I believe this final claim is false, and I would like confirmation from you.. It may be a fine point, but I believe it is important. Originally Michael informed me immediately after the event that there was a complaint of inappropriate communication with one of the staff, something I indicated then and reiterate now, I am not aware of at all, but be that as it may, he informed me at the time by email that with no further communication with that person, the matter was closed. Several years later I was invited to give another public lecture but your outreach coordinator later rescinded the invitation, although I was reimbursed for that. As you are aware, I subsequently discussed this with Neil in Vancouver in that year, and inquired about exactly what it was all about, and informed him that either a formal procedure to resolve any issue in which I could participate and respond might be appropriate, or the matter should be dropped. Neil said he would explore the matter, and neither he, nor anyone else, ever contacted me following that. I have never been informed of anything like Buzzfeed has claimed. Indeed I have been invited back to Perimeter for scientific meetings by various colleagues in the intervening years. I am very concerned by this claim below, for obvious reasons. First, the original Perimeter source provided false and defamatory information to Buzzfeed, changing a story only after I provided counter-evidence. Second, as you are aware Perimeter has never contacted me about any such proviso in the interim. The only document I ever received was in 2009 from michael assuring me the matter was closed, whatever it was. I would find it highly irregular if any formal procedure took place with such an outcome without my knowledge or without any due process, and without subsequently informing me. I expect the correct statement, if there is one, is that there was a complaint from someone at Perimeter about inappropriate communication at the final party or while being driven back to the hotel after it (for all I know it may have been about religious issues), and that 3 years later a decision was made by the outreach coordinator, perhaps in collaboration with others, not to invite me back at that time for a public lecture. Please confirm my understanding of this issue for me if you will. As you can imagine, making this public is embarrassing enough for me, especially since I personally maintain whatever I may have said wasn't inappropriate, and there was certainly no sexual harassment by any definition of that word.. indeed there was nothing sexual in any discussion I know of. Nevertheless, if something is to be reported, indicating that it was a communication issue, and there was no formal ban on my returning to Perimeter (especially as nothing along these lines was ever communicated to me and I have received invites since that time) is less damning than suggesting otherwise. As Buzzfeed has tried, at every turn, to misrepresent facts in the worst possible light, it is important for me to not allow them to continue to do this. For example, they contacted my university and asked if there any claims fo sexual harassment against me at the University, and though the University said there were not, but that there was an external allegation about a remote event that had been discredited (the one I mentioned above), Buzzfeed announced they would report that they contacted the University with a request for information about sexual harassment allegations and were not given any information in return.. Last, it could be of course that Buzzfeed has reiinterpeted statements from Perimeter staff, but if a member of your staff made the original false allegation to Buzzfeed (violating confidentiality in the process I expect) I would like you to at least be aware of this and act accordingly. Thanks very much for your prompt and immediate attention to this request. Lawrence Krauss Lawrence M. Krauss Director, The Origins Project at ASU Co-Director, Cosmology Initiative Foundation Professor School of Earth & Space Exploration and Physics Department EFTA00884018 Arizona State University, M. Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Research Office: I Assistant (Jessica): Origins Office (Cynthia): origilm.Jsu.edu I krauss.faculty.asu.edu Origins Project 10 Year Celebration Be a part of something 10 years in the making! April 5-9th 2018 - Visit for more info Begin forwarded message: From: Peter Aldhous Subject: Re: CLARIFICATION: response to your email Date: February 13, 2018 at 2:54:26 PM PST To: Lawrence Krauss < Dr. Krauss: Thank you for sending the email from Neil Turok. We have raised this with the Perimeter Institute, which has clarified its position, as follows: • During the event, a sexual harassment complaint was filed with the administration against you. • In 2012, as part of a formal review of its internal policies, the institute made a decision that you would not be invited to return. If you wish to further comment on or clarify any of these points, please get in touch with us by tomorrow (Weds). Thanks, Peter Aldhous On 2/12/18 8:20 AM, Lawrence Krauss wrote: Although I wasn't going to bother and shouldn't need to, just one example among many: in this case 17 months after Q2C, email from the Director of the Perimeter Institute. I don't know how it could be much clearer.. (I have redacted out the rest of the body of the letter because it refers to a hiring issue that is irrelevant to you).. EFTA00884019 Begin forwarded message: From: "Neil Turok" Subject: Holden XXX Date: March 31, 2011 at 9:30:26 AM MST To: •cl fr" Dear Larry, I hope you're doing very well. It was nice to have you at PI for the Q2C Festival and I do hope you'll be able to visit again soon. I'm writing in regard to Holden XXX, who I have been working with recently ... With my best wishes, Neil On Feb 9, 2018, at 3:04 PM, Lawrence Krauss < > wrote: Oh yes, definitely and demonstrably.. I dispute everything except the first bullet point, with substantial evidentiary email communication... so you had better alert whoever went on the record at the perimeter institute about the consequences of making false allegations. LMK Lawrence M. Krauss Director, The Origins Project at ASU Co-Director, Cosmology Initiative Foundation Professor School of Earth & Space Exploration and Physics Department Arizona State University, Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Research Office: I Assistant (Jessica): Origins Office (Cynthia): origins.asu.edu I krauss.faculty.asu.edu Origins Project 10 Year Celebration Be a part of something 10 years in the making! April 5-9th 2018 - Visit for more info <image002.png> On Feb 9, 2018, at 12:44 PM, Peter Aldhous < wrote: EFTA00884020 Dr. Krauss: To clarify, we plan to publish each of the following statements, which have all been confirmed on the record by the Perimeter Institute: • In October of 2009, you went to Waterloo, Ontario, to be a guest speaker at the Quantum to Cosmos Festival at the Perimeter Institute. • During the event, a sexual harassment complaint was filed against you. • You were immediately removed from the premises and banned from ever coming back. • The institute would not provide more details to respect the complainant's privacy. Do you dispute any of these statements? If like to further clarify your position on these statements, please contact me before 12 noon Pacific on Saturday, Feb 10. Peter Aldhous Peter Aldhous Science reporter BuzzFeed News tel: cell: PGP Fingerprint: 225F B2AF 488E 6E3D B1EA 7F9A B96E BF7D 9CB2 9816 Send secure tips On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 12:00 PM, Lawrence Krauss < > wrote: Peter: Clot your phone call yesterday shortly before I finished a lecture and then headed to the airport to return home late last night, as I had indicated in my last email. I am responding below to your issues, which are yet again false andlor misleading. I cannot keep doing this. I have told you repeatedly that there is no basis for a story here. I and others have responded to false allegations. but you and your colleagues have continued to barrage me, my family. and my colleagues with a series of false allegations and innuendo for the past 6 months. So it seems you have decided to produce sonic kind of defamatory story. independent of evidence to the contrary, and you are asking me to help you do your work to write it. I don't know what else to say. I ask you again to stop this harassment, and not write a story based on false and misleading defamatory allegations to justify some foregone conclusion that might defame me andlor other individuals or groups. and in the process can hurt genuine efforts by many of us to address important issues, from encouraging diversity in STEM education around the world, to fighting ideological efforts that endorse sexism. racism. homophobia or attempt to suppress free speech and free thought. LMK On Feb 5, 2018, at 9:48 AM, Peter Aldhous < > wrote: Dr. Krauss: Since our earlier correspondence, further incidents have come to our attention. I've outlined the details below and would very much like to include your response to each in our story. EFTA00884021  —At the Perimeter Institute's "Quantum to Cosmos* Festival in October 2009, a woman made a formal complaint of sexual harassment against you. The institute immediately removed you from the premises and banned you from ever coming back. I am not made aware of any formal complaint of sexual harassment against me at Perimeter, which would have resulted in either formal proceedings or letters or emails to me. I did attend the "Quantum to Cosmos" Festival for several days and was never 'removed from the premises'. After I left I received thanks and further assistance from the staff. Nor was I banned from returning to Perimeter. I have maintained a collegial relationship with various colleagues there who have invited me to return on several occasions. Peter Aldhous, PhD Science reporter I RuzzFeed News tel: cell: please note The information contained in this communication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. It is the property of JEE Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. 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