Nicholas Nixon in trouble

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/new...n-accused-of-sexual-harassment-at-his-request
There seems to be a decreasing number of heroes in the photography profession.

see here too:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/human-beings-are-complex-creatures.158986/

It's interesting that in journalism, writers are required to call these incidents "alleged" -- failure to do so, when there is no proof or evidence, results in a lawsuit. But apparently it's now OK to go public with accusations without such due diligence, essentially doing the same thing as the negligent journalist only without a legally sanctioned punishment.

That thought aside, do we want to live in a society where accomplishments in art, science and more is swept aside by a mob (however well intentioned or convinced of their moral uprightness)?
What about a year, or a decade or more, from now when social mores change again -- do we then take a giant crap all over a whole new set of people who accomplish great things? I guess it goes down to separating art from the artist.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but.......this has nothing to do with Photography, Movies, Sports, Corporate Ladders, etc etc etc.
It has everything to do with the Hundreds and Hundreds and Hundreds of years, of The Systemic Abuse Of Women By Men.
What is shocking is the lack of initiative by men to stop this shit.
"Great Jim, welcome to the team, we are Very Happy and Very Lucky to have you here at XYZ.Com.
Oh.......BTW Jim.....if I ever hear that you are making lewd jokes about, improper comments directed at, or any kind of ass grabbing of Women at this company. We are going to chain you, your wife, and your kids to the bumper of my car, and drag you all through the parking lot until you are dead."
"Enjoy your employment here Jim, we are very pleased to welcome you aboard".

Thank you @CMoore

Basically, we are adults, we can enjoy or not enjoy a person's work. If their personal failing is so bad that it turns a person off their work, well, that's the person's prerogative.

OTOH, there is no need to defend the indefensible and invoke the image of mob attack. Bad behaviors should be called out. If I am the lonely voice and others don't raise theirs, then does not necessarily make me right or wrong. The number of protesters have nothing to do with it.

Colin Corneau said:

It's interesting that in journalism, writers are required to call these incidents "alleged" -- failure to do so, when there is no proof or evidence, results in a lawsuit. B

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Actually, there is nothing actionable about failing to use "alleged" in a news story. What is actionable is repeating an allegation as fact, which then subsequently turns out to be false or impossible to substantiate.
To protect themselves, journalists who report allegations describe them as allegations. If those allegations are proven or acknowledged as being accurate, journalists are then safe to report them as facts.
The libel insurance industry has a lot to do with this.

Are we all suposed to join F++kAlholics Anonymous? This is getting to be like Prohibition.

CMoore (#5) makes some good points, but then resorts to sarcasm, which demeans his basically good arguments.

The entire mess we now find ourselves in regarding all this, comes down to many men AND women in positions of power and responsibility, BOTH not accepting responsibility for their actions, and not displaying the critical thinking skills and the maturity (which they may not have to begin with) to set the standards of their conduct in the workplace. Fortunately in the latter two businesses I ran, good conduct policies were in place and these enabled rational decisions to

In my long careers in media, as a photographer and an architect, I have had to deal with many such situations in the workplace, which were by and large most unpleasant to try to resolve. In many cases the parties involved were often less than truthful in their accusations, counter accusations and arguments and no end of hidden agendas small and large became evident and had to be resolved.

These situations usually involved a lack of critical thinking by the parties involved. They weren't at all pleasant and a monumental waste of valuable work time in arbitrating and resolving the conflicts (which were almost always deeper than only the sexual misconduct) without having to take any draconian actions such as dismissals. In almost every case one or both parties involved were resentful and resigned not long after, sadly but truthfully to everyone's relief.

Some (mostly government and large corporations) employers have definite policies regarding sexual exploitation by ALL staff, and have appointed staff to appropriately enforce these by ensuring that ALL employees, land male, are aware of them and guide themselves by them. Unfortunately, many small businesses are run as in-house petty dictatorships by their owners, particularly in family businesses where kin folk without any particular skills or talents in anything get given senior positions and then act as if the employees are their servants or slaves or even playthings.

We need look no further than in politics (in the USA and Australia but by no means only in these) to find noteworthy and even blatant examples of power being abused in sexist or exploitative ways. Also of a prevailing "it's okay, they have money/power and so are above the law" attitude to the abuses of power etc etc etc that are being done.

The is entirely too much "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude being displayed in what has become a very serious issue. It now seems obvious to most intelligent people that it IS broke and it's high time we took positive steps to fix it. even if it means demolishing and rebuilding entire systems and removing serial offenders at the top.

MattKing (#6) has written a sensible explanation of the too-overused term "alleged".

chip j (#7), respectfully assuming that you are not an alcoholic who feels threatened by this discussion, would you please explain (sparing us the F-expletives, which demean and denigrate what if anything you were trying to say) just you meant by your post? What you wrote provided little if anything meaningful to the debate and rated only an Australian Bogan Alert citation.

Why should "people in power' be singled out? Soon words & glances will be outlawed by the sex police. Of course thoughts are already outlawed by many religions.

If your Nine Year Old son is slapping Nine Year Old girls at his school.....and the school calls you to complain, do you ask them, "Why are you singling me out.?"
If people think Atomic Bombs "ended" the war in the pacific, you blame the very few people (In Power) that are printing the history book, not the thousands of people that read the books while they were in high school

Don't be obtuse, of course "The People In Power" should be singled out.

The links above provide very little factual information about N. Nixon. Nothing for which any reasonable conclusion can be obtained.

...........................

For serious photographers:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/magazine/01-brown-sisters-forty-years.html

CMoore said:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but.......this has nothing to do with Photography, Movies, Sports, Corporate Ladders, etc etc etc.
It has everything to do with the Hundreds and Hundreds and Hundreds of years, of The Systemic Abuse Of Women By Men.
What is shocking is the lack of initiative by men to stop this shit.
"Great Jim, welcome to the team, we are Very Happy and Very Lucky to have you here at XYZ.Com.
Oh.......BTW Jim.....if I ever hear that you are making lewd jokes about, improper comments directed at, or any kind of ass grabbing of Women at this company. We are going to chain you, your wife, and your kids to the bumper of my car, and drag you all through the parking lot until you are dead."
"Enjoy your employment here Jim, we are very pleased to welcome you aboard".

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While I support the Me Too movement, I would like to point out that lynch mobs do not bother with the finer points of the law like due process and innocent before being proven guilty. It is more fun to hang directly rather than bother with the details.

Sirius Glass said:

While I support the Me Too movement, I would like to point out that lynch mobs do not bother with the finer points of the law like due process and innocent before being proven guilty. It is more fun to hang directly rather than bother with the details.

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Except that we are dealing with inappropriate behavior and not crimes, so the idea of formal due process and evidentiary requirements is misplaced. As best I can tell, Nixon hasn't disputed the facts. Instead, he resigned to minimize the fallout.

faberryman said:

Except that we are dealing with inappropriate behavior and not crimes, so the idea of formal due process and evidentiary requirements is misplaced. As best I can tell, Nixon hasn't disputed the facts. Instead, he resigned.

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Yup.

chip j said:

Why should "people in power' be singled out? Soon words & glances will be outlawed by the sex police. Of course thoughts are already outlawed by many religions.

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photography teachers do some weird stuff with their students but some of the stuff he did went a little bit too far ...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...far-too-far/9O4Yyd0CBlGSiW33Tb8tcI/story.html


in loco parentis

I miss the days before the internet when I was able to maintain the belief that you could be expected to be treated with dignity and respect by the average person. These days, it seems that every time someone gets caught doing something abhorrent, a chorus of defenders come rushing to their aid to help blame the victims and establish straw man arguments to confuse the issue.

Do you really believe that there’s a conspiracy of dozens of people who meet in secret to fabricate false accusations against a man for no reason? Do you really believe that simply because his actions may not have been illegal that they were acceptable for a professional in his position? Would you feel comfortable with this man instructing your wives/daughters/granddaughters?

jim10219 said:

Do you really believe that there’s a conspiracy of dozens of people who meet in secret to fabricate false accusations against a man for no reason? Do you really believe that simply because his actions may not have been illegal that they were acceptable for a professional in his position? Would you feel comfortable with this man instructing your wives/daughters/granddaughters?

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I would not feel comfortable but it would not change my appreciation of his work.

I liked it much better when words were dirty and the air was clean! <<sigh>>

Richard.L said:

But, decades change. These grandchildren aren't children of the sixties.

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In general: what was normal, or was tolerated, or was not even seen as harrassment by the opponent, may today be taboo.

Sirius Glass said:

While I support the Me Too movement, I would like to point out that lynch mobs do not bother with the finer points of the law like due process and innocent before being proven guilty. It is more fun to hang directly rather than bother with the details.

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I certainly understand and agree with tis basic premise, but i do not think that is what usually happens.
What i see, is a woman makes an accusation about a man, and then (often spanning a time of several years) other women come forward with similar stories about the same guy.
In my experience, those scenarios are Rarely. if ever, a knee-jerk reaction.
But yes, if One Woman says..... "Chip Moore grabbed my ass in the hallway"..... i would hate to think i would be fired, and i do not think that happens. It is the additional and ongoing accusations by several others that gets "me" fired..

Sirius Glass said:

I liked it much better when words were dirty and the air was clean! <<sigh>>

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Touche'.....

"People in Power", that should be relativated. When a student is of age he can decide where to go and what to do. He can leave a situation he does not feel comfortable with.
(Yes, there are restrictions on this argument, as grants, or regulated studies where you are sent to a certain place without choice.)

AgX said:

In general: what was normal, or was tolerated, or was not even seen as harrassment by the opponent, may today be taboo.

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I am getting older, and my memory may not be what it used to be, but I don't seem to remember the good old days when instructors handed around photographs of their penises to their students.

Dali said:

I would not feel comfortable but it would not change my appreciation of his work.

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It certainly raises interesting questions about the separation of important work from the conduct of the author of that work. If all the important photos of say the Vietnam war were by someone who was subsequently accused and found guilty of sexual harassment at a later date does it make sense to take that work "off the market-place", out of historical archives, etc

I suspect not. Otherwise we are in danger of censuring our knowledge, are we not? "Throwing the baby out with the bath water" might be an apt phrase.

Society as a whole might not want to have anything to do with that person on a social/personal level but does it make the work of any less importance?

pentaxuser