A Response to the Provincial Investigation
In an article posted to their website today, the Anglican Church in North America announced that they will hire the firm Husch Blackwell LLP to investigate allegations of sexual abuse within the Diocese of the Upper Midwest. In ACNAtoo’s January 6 petition, we noted that the ACNA Provincial Response Team presented survivors with a list of two investigation firms between which survivors (along with the 8 members of the PRT) could cast a vote. ACNAtoo further noted in our petition that:
From the publicly available information provided by the writing and websites of the investigators/law firms in question, it seems clear that both firms are committed to serving and prioritizing the needs of the client (i.e the Province), which elevates protection from liability rather than elucidating the truth. Furthermore, these firms have no apparent experience with church related investigations and show little to no evidence on their websites of being survivor-centered.
The firm selected by the ACNA is one of the two firms referenced above. Survivors’ concerns regarding Husch Blackwell remain firmly in place as the ACNA has not agreed to publish the contract they will sign with this investigator. As explained in the January 6 petition to the province, with any firm besides GRACE (whose best-practice investigation parameters are non-negotiable), the only way for survivors to know whether the investigation is safe is for the specific contract and parameters to be published.
While the ACNA has included a few of the requested best practices in their announcement, they have neglected some of the most pivotal items that ensure the safety of the rest:
Waiving of attorney/client privilege
The ACNA has specifically stated that they will not waive attorney/client privilege. To quote Rachael Denhollander, “The benefit of waiving is huge - because attorneys are usually involved in crafting the policies both for prevention and response, you simply cannot accurately diagnose problems without waiving privilege. You won't have access to all the information.” (To read her full analysis, you can access the twitter thread here, or a reader-friendly unrolled page here.)
Regarding risks to not waiving attorney-client privilege, Denhollander says there are “None. Unless you’ve created liability.” Because of insurance provisions, she says, waiving attorney-client privilege only involves “risking insurance funds.” So the decision boils down to valuing “insurance proceeds over people,” she says. “Specifically, over people you actually hurt and caused life-altering damage to.”
Anonymity is protected as desired by victims or those who provide information
Although the province has claimed survivor confidentiality as an excuse to not waive attorney-client privilege, they have offered no promise of complete confidentiality to survivors who participate in this investigation. Grand River Solutions, whom the UMD originally hired to carry out this investigation, promised “a confidential inquiry” to all participants. When questioned directly by survivors, they later admitted they could not guarantee that participants' identities would be kept confidential from the diocese. Without ensuring complete confidentiality and anonymity to survivors and participants, many will not feel safe disclosing their stories.
Investigative firm does not represent (or retain the option to represent) the client in ensuing civil litigation
While the ACNA notes in their announcement that “Husch Blackwell will not perform any future work for and will not represent the Province, the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, Bishop Stewart Ruch, any alleged survivor, witness, or anyone else connected to this matter as it pertains to this investigation,” without a published contract, this is an empty assurance.The investigation conducts active vs. passive outreach and information gathering to reach as many potential victims as possible
The Provincial announcement states that it is the Province who will “publicly relay information from Husch Blackwell detailing how survivors, witnesses, and anyone with relevant information can participate in the investigation.” This is not active outreach and does not come close to the standards survivors have requested. This limited survivor outreach, which targets only current, active ACNA members, would have failed to reach most of the survivors who signed the ACNAtoo petition. If the Province is committed to uncovering the whole truth and walking in the light, then true active outreach, carried out to GRACE standards (which include using old mailing lists, membership lists, etc. to reach out to anyone who attended Church of the Resurrection at the same time as Mark Rivera), is non-negotiable.Prioritizing and protecting criminal cases
The Province’s announcement pays lip service to this request by stating that Husch Blackwell “will prioritize not interfering with any ongoing criminal investigations or cases.” In what way will they do this? Since even the smallest discrepancy in survivor disclosures can lead to a sexual abuser being legally aquitted, GRACE refuses to investigate while there are ongoing criminal cases. Why does Husch Blackwell believe they can navigate this safely? What measures are they taking to ensure they will not harm these cases? If they are simply planning to exclude the survivors who have ongoing criminal cases, then this investigation will be excluding essential stories of sexual abuse and subsequent mishandling and will have no chance of uncovering the whole truth of what has happened.Active and trauma-sensitive interviewing practices
While the province has made various promises about the trauma-informed interview practices to be carried out by Husch Blackwell, a quick google search paints a concerning picture to survivors. Peter Land of Husch Blackwell, who the Province has told survivors will be heading the investigation, openly lists his long history and extensive experience defending his clients in court. Although the Province has assured survivors that Husch Blackwell will not litigate on their behalf, this is what their firm regularly does for any clients who request it. Promising a trauma-sensitive investigation by a firm that consistently violates that very definition is suspect to say the least.The final report is made available, in full, to victims and/or published publicly
Although the province has said they will “produce a public report at the conclusion of their investigation,” this means nothing without disclosing the details of their contract with Husch Blackwell. According to Grand River Solutions, with whom the UMD originally contracted to carry out this investigation, the “client” determined what information was included in the final report. Without a public commitment to waive privilege and allow Husch Blackwell to include all relevant stories and details in their final report, this promise is meaningless.The scope of systemic contributions to abuse is both understood and communicated in the report, including enabling, mishandling and cultural contributions to the abuse and its aftermath.
The systemic contributions of spiritual abuse are not included in this investigation. Rather, the announcement states that what they classify as “abuse of ecclesiastical power within the Diocese” will receive “an additional investigation by the Province,” implying an internal rather than a 3rd party investigation.
In addition to the concerns noted above, the Province has represented the involvement of survivors in this selection process in a deeply misleading and tokenizing way. By using phrases like “the PRT developed a set of criteria, with input from some of the alleged survivors, to vet potential firms” and “[survivors’] votes, along with the vote of each member of the PRT, resulted in the selection and subsequent engagement of Husch Blackwell” (emphasis added) the Province is deliberately communicating a level of participation and agreement from survivors that is not accurate.
The rubric that established the PRT’s set of criteria was provided to only three survivors that we are aware of. Two never responded. Joanna (as noted in her letter from earlier this month) replied that “the rubric was ultraspecific about certain things the Province could use to avoid hiring the firm survivors wanted (GRACE), and painfully vague about everything I needed to know to be safe as a survivor, including providing any concrete, action-based definition whatsoever for nice-sounding terms like ‘trauma-informed’ and ‘victim-centered.’“ While the PRT acknowledged Joanna’s feedback and thanked her for it, they never sent her an updated rubric or otherwise indicated how, if at all, her criticisms were incorporated.
Furthermore, the three survivors known to us who received the voting option either responded to vote “no” to both firms, or provided no direct response and subsequently signed the public petition (currently at over 450 signatures) outlining why these firms were both unsafe options as presented.
For the PRT to represent this process as utilizing survivor input in their criteria or including survivor votes in their determination of investigators is to intentionally and deceptively tokenize survivors’ involvement so as to provide a veneer of credibility to the PRT’s actions that simply does not exist. The survivors have repeatedly asked for basic, best-practice protections in order to engage safely in this deeply-needed investigation. The Province seems bent on saving face at the expense of survivors and has not followed through on what they promised.