RWA response to Courtney Milan 2020-01-17

Dear Courtney,
Thank you for your email. We have received your request to cancel your RWA membership and be refunded $114 for your 2019-20 RWA membership dues and postage package and a prorated amount of $25 for your 2018-19 membership dues.
The Board has approved a refund of your November 30, 2019 payment of $114. Staff has processed this request and the amount will be delivered to the credit card you used to pay for your membership within 5 to 7 business days. As you were able to have full access to your membership benefits from August 29 through November 30, 2019, the Board has not approved a prorated refund for your 2018-19 membership dues.
This has been a painful and challenging time for RWA, for you, and for the romance community. We recognize that through our failures to meaningfully address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion that we've lost the trust of our membership and our community. We are sorry for it and we are working to fix it by:
• Hiring an expert, independent law firm to conduct an audit of the recent ethics matter. o This will include independent interviews with key individuals as well as findings and recommendations on improving our process. o The Board has released current and former members from confidentiality restrictions to provide relevant information to the outside firm conducting the audit. Please see section 3.11.12 of the Policy manual, updated as of today (January 17, 2020). o The Board has committed to fully sharing these findings and recommendations with our membership.
• Making leadership changes. The RWA President has resigned and the Executive Director will depart in the next two weeks o To clarify a statement in your email, the outgoing Executive Director has recused herself from all duties pertaining to the audit, and Leslie Scantlebury has assumed the role of RWA staff liaison to the law firm conducting the audit.
• Identifying a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant who will assist RWA with diversifying Board and staff recruitment, as well as design and structure future membership programming and events, including our 2020 annual conference. o That process is underway and the Board will provide updates to the membership, and seek input, throughout this process.
We appreciate your suggestion regarding transparency throughout this process and agree wholeheartedly, which is why the Board has provided regular updates to the membership of the above. We will continue to make these updates publicly available so you can be kept informed, should you desire.
In your email you raise specific details regarding the process around the ethics matter. To ensure the integrity of the independent investigation while it is ongoing, we are not in a position to address these details. We want to reassure you that any findings will be made public, and if there were failures throughout that process, we will address them.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
RWA Board of Directors