Can you please provide any evidence to suggest that this was done, or that it was Jenna and co. that did it?
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Excuse me? First of all, she didnāt vandalize BCUZās pit and Iād like to see you show us something that proves otherwise. Secondly, I believe it was BCUZ who reported Jenna to RECF for being on OWL1ās drive team (which she did legally) and claimed that people were planning on harassing them, and were rather rude/passively aggressive to her on their only interaction at the event. After which, they decided to justā¦not show up to their pit and hide in the MS section for reasons we all probably know by this point.
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Even in a situation where BCUZās pit was vandalized, in what world does that make the allegations less credible? Sexism and BCUZās behavior in general should not be tolerated whether or not they did it to someone who ācommitted vandalismā.
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So first of all, I wanna say the sexism and invalidation both of you faced is unacceptable. Nobody should ever say that women are biologically less intelligent, attack anyoneās socioeconomics, discount other peopleās achievements, etc.
That being said, this post is clearly designed to assassinate Charlieās character. Charlie is the public face of team BCUZ, and blurring messages generally protects the identity of the people involved, but in this case it actually makes it worse, because most readers attribute all the toxic messages to Charlie. In reality, most of the toxic messages were sent by people who have already graduated.
The OPs also all but admit they didnāt put as much effort into their robots as their teammates did.
āwe would be registering another team as a āthrow-awayā to bring the amount of people who were willing to come and dedicate their times to the āactualā team.ā
āI was busy with school, so didnāt have much time to work, but tried my best to be there as often as possibleā
"When I asked about this, I was told that it was done because I was āunreliableā and ādidnāt make my deadlinesāā
As a result:
āone of our builders started involving people outside the program in our teamās design choices.ā
Anyone who has inside knowledge of the situation knows the āpeople outside the programā were involved based on skill, not gender.
Now at worlds, parents sl*t shamed the OPs and made mysoginstic remarks that are far worse than anything in this thread. If this post really is about exposing sexism in the Vex community, it would be very surprising that those things werenāt posted too. But if this post is just about ruining Charlieās reputation, it makes perfect sense.
I reached out privately to one of the OPs, and she responded by making false claims about how long it took Charlie to graduate. This is more evidence that the OPs arenāt here to draw attention to sexism, but simply to turn people against Charlie.
Iām sure I will get downvoted to hell by the dozen or so social justice warriors who have stayed behind to read all the comments, but I hope the rest of you reading this can see that the OPs are being manipulative to turn people against Charlie. Thereās undoubtably an important conversation to be had about sexism and teamwork in the Vex community, but trying to assassinate someoneās character under the guise of that conversation is disgusting. Letās have that conversation properly. Letās stop going after Charlie.
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āLet me make it clear that sexism and toxic culture is bad before I start justifying the sexism and toxic culture.ā
I donāt know what point youāre making with the first one. The event had a cap of 6 team members per team because of COVID, so to get around that they made a dummy team so additional support members could attend the competition. Then, despite writing the documentation for the robot and doing some of the programming, her and some other team members were forced to not be part of the main team, and instead compete with the old bot at the event.
The second one would be a valid reason to reduce their role on the team, certainly. It would not, however, justify basically anything else described in the post.
The third one was because they had to take time away from the team because the team was toxic and sexist and they needed a break from the toxicity. Maybe, instead of punishing people for having a hard time dealing with the toxicity, they should have done something about the people creating the toxicity.
Let me see if I have this straight. After dealing with a constant stream of toxicity and harassment to the point of being forced off the team (which is, according to you, mostly from former members of the team with the implication that the team is better now I guess?), and then being on the receiving end of more toxicity and harassment from parents of current members of the team, the fact that the OPs didnāt immediately jump back into this drama with yet more evidence of how toxic BCUZ isā¦ is proof that they secretly just hate Charlie?
If their goal was to turn people against Charlie, wouldnāt it have made sense to make these false allegations in public? Also, without knowing the claims or knowing how youād be in the position to know whether the claims are true or not, and given anybody still affiliated with BCUZ has lost all benefit of the doubt on account of the thoroughly corroborated past and ongoing levels of toxicity, Iām just going to assume that either the claims made were actually true, or whoever made the claims was just honestly mistaken.
Yes, I am a social justice warrior. If I see injustice, like was clearly demonstrated in the OP and other posts, it makes me angry and I want to fight against that injustice. Also, itās pretty clear from the VEX discord that itās not just Charlie thatās unpopular, itās anybody whoās still affiliated with BCUZ, which I think is pretty fair given they had parents making misogynistic comments against the OPs for daring to speak up. Itās clear that whatever steps BCUZ claimed to be taking to address the issues with their program either had no effect, or more likely were never real to begin with.
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Can you show me even one sentence where I justified sexism and toxic culture?
The first quote shows her teammates felt she didnāt add much to the team. Thatās a skill issue, not a gender issue (see the āpeople outside the program.ā)
I agree that not being dedicated to the team does not justify toxicity. My point was that the OPās lack of dedication led the people on BCUZ to involve outside members, which the OP inexplicably also takes issue with.
Of course the OP is allowed to take a break from the team, but she canāt simultaneously complain about the consequences of taking a break from the team.
āThe OPs talk a lot about the sexism that could be misattributed to Charlie, but none of the sexism that clearly didnāt come from Charlie. I donāt understand how this could be seen as an attack on Charlie!ā
The claim was that Charlie was in his 6th year at school. He actually just graduated after doing 5 years (which isnāt that uncommon for engineering.) The OP wouldnāt have been bold enough to tell a lie like that in public bc she would have been fact checked.
Iām sure you feel that āpost:27, topic:1049ā is a positive knockout punch for injustice. Sadly itās not.
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Commitment to a team whose definition of commitment is to waste your money in college skipping class to be working on the robots through the night?
Throwing your money and future away is a skill issue?
class exists, exams exist. In order to graduate one must pass classes and do well in them. class>robot.
It is difficult to put work into a robot if the robot is built such that very few know the design and donāt share plans and what is going on next.
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The culture was toxic and youāre claiming that when a team member took a break from the team due to the toxicity, that justified the team member being excluded from the team, rather than actions being taken to address the reasons the team member was excluded from the team. Let me give a hypothetical scenario in a workplace
A woman has a male superior and numerous male colleagues who are incredibly toxic and sexist. She had been taking on as many opportunities as possible in order to get a promotion/raise/whatever. However, as a result of the toxicity, and the lack of anything being done about it, she is no longer able to do her job as effectively, and as a result is put on a less important project with no career progression. In the real world, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen, in the bizarro BCUZ world you seem to live in
Punishing women for being unable to perfectly deal with toxicity and misogyny is a way in which toxicity and misogyny is perpetuated. In good organizations you punish the toxic people, not the people being hurt by them.
Or maybe her teammates are toxic misogynistic assholes who donāt want her on the team because sheās a woman acting all āhystericalā and āemotionalā after some light casual rampant sexism.
This led us to the conclusion that while the actions and words of Charlie Grier were unbecoming of a member of BCUZ, the blame for the hostile environment experienced by some members of BCUZ does not lie solely with him. Two other members in particular were identified as having contributed to the unhealthy work environment.
Even in the statements from BCUZ they agree that Charlieās actions were part of the toxic culture. I honestly have no idea who Charlie is, I donāt follow VEX U at all, I have no horse in this fight. But from everything said, including by VTOW, it seems like many people on BCUZ including Charlie were toxic, and from the response Iāve seen, the entirety of BCUZ has had their reputation (rightly) damaged from this thread.
Posit for a second that maybe part of the toxic culture was that in order to be part of a robotics club you had to put your education (and therefore your finances, because college aināt cheap) second to a robotics club. This isnāt curing cancer, itās a robotics competition primarily intended for middle and high schoolers. If the standard for level of commitment is being set by a guy who took 5 years to graduate, maybe he should have spent more time on school and less time living in the robotics room and harassing his teammates.
Iām under no impression that this wordwall is going to singlehandedly solve sexism. With that being said, Iām also not going to stay silent when I see sexism occurring.
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Tbh thanks for checking me, this is a good point. If BCUZ created a toxic environment for women, and then got mad at the women for not liking the environment, thatās on BCUZ.
I met Jenna a few years ago at worlds, and she didnāt have the faintest idea how her own robot worked. Yes it seems there was sexism on BCUZ, but I think attributing this all to sexism is disingenious.
The āissueā with Charlie was that he put more hours into the robot than everyone else, and thatās apparently contrary to BCUZās work ethic. The sexism didnāt come from Charlie.
To the first part of this quote, I donāt think prioritizing robotics is toxic (yes, even above school.) Most serious competitors would tell you in a heartbeat they learn at least as much from Vex as they do from school.
To the second part, lots of people take a fifth year in engineering. Engineering coursework is very challenging, there are a lot of required classes, and lots of people take time off for internships and coops. Personally Iām graduating in 5 years because I took some time off for an internship. My roommate is also graduating in 5 years because heās getting a certificate in CS. Other people might take a lighter courseload because theyāre learning so much from robotics. Thereās no right or wrong way to go through college as long as you learn a lot and pass your classes, and itās kinda messed up to publicly shame someone for taking an extra year to graduate bc they prioritized other (engineering-related) endeavors.
Honestly fair enough. You made a very clean point in the first half of your response and you changed my mind a little, so hats off to you.
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So, I think this is kind of a fair point, but from what was described about the culture of living out of that room, I think (especially for a school club) BCUZ went too far and created a culture where the only two options were ādo VEX U to the detriment of your schoolworkā or ābe labelled as not dedicated enough and be prevented from being part of any decision making or even knowing whatās going on with the robotā.
Correct me if Iām wrong in understanding how the club worked in relation to the school, but I feel like for a club thatās actually officially affiliated with a school, the members should (at least mostly) actually go to the school. If they wanted to make a team with super long hours of the most dedicated people from multiple schools and organize via Discord, thatād be one thing, you do you. Itās another to set the standard for a school club based on the standard of somebody who has made the personal choice to prioritize VEX U over schooling, to the point where they took an extra year to graduate. And itās especially bad when there was an effort to make a second more inclusive less hardcore team with their own robot, and then they just took that robot apart without asking.
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Ok weāre way into the weeds here but I wanna address this super fast.
Is it better to take 4 years and do robotics as a hobby or to take 5 years and do robotics more seriously? I donāt really know, but it seems like the kind of thing reasonable minds can differ on. Maybe the latter approach isnāt right for everyone, but saying itās a ātoxic cultureā just seems way off base.
Certainly having 2 teams with different philosohpies is an easy solution. Did anyone say the hardcore team took apart the other teamās robot without asking? I donāt think I read that but maybe I missed it. If so, thatās not good.
Onto the bigger point though. Itās obvious to me that the OPs meant to assassinate Charlieās character, and thatās the main goal of this post. Would it have been so hard to specify āthe sexism came from the parents and the alums, and not from Charlieā? Thereās a reason the OPs didnāt do that.
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From AI_netās post
We took a week break; I came back around 10 days after completing building so we could program the robots for the scrimmage. To my surprise, there were no robots to program. The robots we built for the scrimmage were taken apart and in pieces on one of our build tables. It was obvious that members of the other BCUZ team had taken the robots apart, without permission, to use the critical elements of our bots on their own. I did not receive any notice of this-- there was no sort of contact made to ask for permission to take apart our robots. While this behavior was completely fine when it came to the āsecondā BCUZ team, it became clear that it would not at all be tolerated if the same happened to our āmainā counterpart.
And OK, it was unfair for me to say itās a bad thing to take 5 years to graduate because you wanted to focus on VEX U. My larger point about dedication, which I maintain, is that it is not good for a school club to have a robotics team where the expected culture is to live out of the robotics room, and if you donāt fit into that culture, you canāt be part of the team.
I donāt think weāre going to be able to reach common ground about the main point of this thread. As a person from the outside looking in, the only reason I even know who Charlie is from this thread is the post from a BCUZ member saying he was removed from the club for his role in all of this, and then the follow up post saying that him and two others on the club were the primary actors in all of this, so he was going to be reinstated in the club but removed from the leadership role I assume he had. From reading the Discord a limited amount, I have not seen any particular targeting of Charlie beyond any other member of BCUZ. Itās entirely possible that if I was more aware of VEX U I would automatically assume BCUZ = Charlie, but from what Iāve seen of the public response, it seems more like the consensus is all of BCUZ is bad.
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