DataCamp (sorry, I won't link them, Google them while they still exist), an online platform for teaching programming and analysis, announced today in a vain, rambling blog post that they are a better company now that they ran off a talented employee, hired a bunch of consultants and lawyers for protection, and let everyone know how sorry they are for all this bad publicity created by one of their executives unable to hold himself accountable for sexual misconduct.
I don't know who the executive is. I don't know what happened, but lots of people do. It happened at a company function. The aggressor, clearly a principal at the company, is not in possession of the modicum of personal integrity necessary to make themselves, or the relevant circumstances of the misconduct, known.
I know who DataCamp's executives are, so I suspect them all. At the very least they are all complicit in what happened today, so they have lost all my respect. I spent some time today deleting my paid account, cancelling plans to attend conferences Datacamp sponsors, and unfollowing various associated accounts on Twitter.
I know who the aggrieved employee is because she took to Twitter today to announce that Datacamp had sprung their bit of PR filth on her. They assaulted her all over again by not letting her know that they would be throwing shade at her today for seeking remedy for the assault on a schedule that suited her healing process.
You know who else could have addressed all this earlier, like the very next day? The miscreant responsible for the assault. When I owe someone an apology, I don't wait for them to come to me looking for it. I find them, make it, and make amends where I can.
DataCamp has been a home platform for so many R leaders I admire and respect I am left wondering whom I can trust now. I wish I could join R Ladies.
I wanted to believe that my beloved community of open source programmers wouldn't be a safe place for sexual miscreants. Here I was, sending hundreds of my hard-earned dollars to this organization and evangelizing it to my friends and colleagues. Ugh, I want a shower.
If you use DataCamp. stop. The community of my fellow R programmers and teachers who unfortunately misplaced themselves there will take another form. This can't stop the community.
