Thread by @th_nd_r

I can vouch for this story. I am Autistic and was a State Chair under the same RD. Thread below. #YALtoo

https://twitter.com/grace4liberty/status/1348078579159080967

My first impression of this RD was during the January 2020 Leadership Training Summit. During this summit, when teaching State Chairs how to deal with people who are new to activism, he said something like, “You can’t go around autistically screeching all your life.”

He made one or two more Autism jokes during said speech. This infuriated me, ruined my entire day. I didn’t even have the strength to confront him about it.

I haven’t fought for acceptance for so many years to be treated like that.

I never told him I had autism. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It took me until the summer before I even had the strength to tell someone else in national leadership about his conduct. The person I told then reported back to me that the RD is himself Autistic.

Of course, neither whether or not he knew I was Autistic, nor whether or not he was himself Autistic, matters. He shouldn’t have used ableist slurs regardless, especially in YAL, as many of my fellow YAL members are also Autistic.

One of the primary symptoms of my Autism is anxiety. This State Chair gig, which was supposed to be a part time job, has as mindbogglingly high standards as others have mentioned. It became nearly impossible, ESPECIALLY under this particular RD, to succeed academically.

At one point in the midst of all of this, the RD called me in the Student Union, threatening to fire me. This triggered an anxiety attack. I was physically shaking in my seat. I’ve dealt with anxiety virtually every day of my life, but it’s not often I get to those levels.

He later asked me how I was, and I told him I had been having issues with anxiety. He then said that he wanted me to be anxious. He followed this up with giving me even more tasks, telling me that I had to get a car and a driver’s license before summer or risk getting fired.

That’s when I decided to quit, telling him that I needed to focus on schoolwork. This part time job was becoming a full time job, and I couldn’t keep up. He then forced me to promise him to find him another State Chair immediately.

This was, however, an impossible promise to keep, since nobody in my network who had solid leadership skills wanted to do the job. Eventually, I had to ignore his calls so I could focus on school and limit my anxiety. In retrospect, I should’ve immediately blocked his number.

He was as unprofessional as Grace says he was — foul language, demeaning words, manipulation, gaslighting, and even jokes about physical threats were all just part of his style.

Thankfully, he and YAL parted ways in the summer of 2020. But the fact that someone with his character and way of dealing with people was ever allowed to serve in national leadership is just another piece of evidence that there are structural problems in YAL’s leadership.

By talking about this, I do not intend to put my concerns over those of anyone else, least of all over those who have been sexually assaulted and/or harassed. I merely intend to provide what corroborating evidence I can to the #YALtoo cause.

That being said, this is not a comprehensive list of problems I’ve had with either this RD specifically or YAL leadership more generally.

I still serve as a Chapter President out at The University of Tulsa. I am still a dues-paying member.

If structural changes aren’t made soon, I’m taking my dues and my chapter with me.

CC: @realPOTUS2040 @ProperlyZuri @jessinicoleb @liberty_texan @YALiberty @LibertyCliff

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