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It has come to light that R.L. Stephens has faced sexual assault allegations within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). We have been devastated to learn of the ways that R.L. Stephens has harmed the movement and comrades. We encourage him to ensure he never does again. We’re not going to give him a platform again, and please don’t share this article, because we don’t want survivors to have to see it on social media. For the sake of transparency and accountability, we’ve archived the original article via the Wayback Machine. We’re aware of RL’s history of sexual violence, and we’ve decided to acknowledge this instead of erasing this connection. We want to take this opportunity to take a firm stance as it relates to our vision of transformative justice and ending rape culture. For any organization, we think having a process to hold members accountable is important. We believe it is a serious problem that many organizations don’t have such a process.
We encourage everyone to review Philly Socialists’ policies against bullying and sexual harrassment. If anyone in our organization has engaged in abusive, oppressive, or otherwise unacceptable behavior, these people can be held accountable through our arbiter system. This system stands independent from Central Committee as a check against its power. All complaints can be filed anonymously through the Philly Socialists website.
If anyone has questions or concerns, feel free to reach the arbiters at arbiter@phillysocialists.org or the Partisan Editorial Collective at partisan@phillysocialists.org.
In solidarity and struggle,
The Philadelphia Partisan Editorial Collective
The Philadelphia Partisan 