Why I no longer contribute to Racket

In January 2020, I told two members of Racket’s core team that I would no longer be contributing to Racket or partic­i­pating in the Racket commu­nity. Why? Because of a history of inten­tional, person­al­ized abuse and bullying directed at me by another member of the Racket core team: Matthias Felleisen.

No facts were disputed. The inci­dents were numerous, happening over a period of years. They were always witnessed by others on the Racket core team. For that reason, there’s no need to enumerate the details now. Though I will give one example as illus­tra­tion—

I was at Racket School 2018 in Salt Lake City, UT. The Racket core team had invited me to teach mate­rial from Beau­tiful Racket about lexing & parsing. I would be respon­sible for one full day of instruc­tion during the week­long program.

I agreed to do it because I thought it would be good for Racket. I put in about five weeks of unpaid labor preparing my mate­rial. I covered my own travel expenses. In short, the gig was neither cheap nor easy.

After the second day of Racket School, the Racket core team and I met to discuss how the day had gone. For what­ever reason, Felleisen was dissat­is­fied with the teaching that day. He started listing his complaints with esca­lating irri­ta­tion. I myself hadn’t taught yet; I wasn’t on the schedule until later. Never­the­less, Felleisen even­tu­ally swiveled his rage in my direc­tion, verbally impugning my skills and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, and suggesting that however bad things were, I would only make it worse.

The ambush was mysti­fying: sudden, unpro­voked, unjus­ti­fied. I had liter­ally done nothing that day! But worst of all was its perfor­ma­tive cruelty. I was in the room with the Racket core team. I was an invited guest. A volun­teer. Despite this, Felleisen clearly took plea­sure in demeaning and belit­tling me in front of this group.

Of course, I did push back on Felleisen. But there was a limit to how hard I could push. Again—I was merely a guest. In the moment, I was strug­gling mostly to keep my emotions in check. I did assure him that his fears about my future perfor­mance were unfounded.

After the inci­dent, I was stunned and shaken. I wanted to leave town imme­di­ately. (Remember—this was not the first or last time Felleisen would come after me, though it was the most personal & vitu­per­a­tive.) But the show had to go on. I muddled through the rest of the week. I didn’t let it affect my teaching. At the end, the students gave me the best eval­u­a­tion scores of all the instruc­tors—Felleisen included.

I should’ve felt great about my prepa­ra­tion & perfor­mance. I didn’t. The expe­ri­ence had been ugly and dispir­iting. When I returned home, I seri­ously consid­ered quit­ting Racket entirely.

Felleisen never apol­o­gized. Nor did any member of Racket’s core team hold him to account. Everyone just shrugged and moved on. I was encour­aged to do the same.

For a while, I did. Rather than quit Racket, I thought—don’t let the bully win. I persisted another year or so. I returned to teach at Racket School 2019, subject to the condi­tion that I be allowed to teach a sepa­rate class, largely so I could avoid Felleisen. It was better. But still not great. By the end of 2019, my stamina was depleted by the accu­mu­lated strain of nega­tive inci­dents.

Why mention any of this now? Two reasons.

BTW, I expect nothing about Racket to change based on what I’ve said here. (That wasn’t the point anyhow.) Felleisen is a founder of the project. Other members of the core team don’t attempt to defend his behavior. Indeed, one of them admitted to me “Matthias is a pain and always has been.” Plainly, they’ve already calcu­lated that the bene­fits outweigh the costs. That part is out of my hands.

In general, I have a strong aver­sion to sharing any kind of personal or confes­sional anec­dotes on the internet. I’ve made an excep­tion in this case because the conceal­ment is worse.

Today, I’m a reason­ably well-adjusted adult (or at least my dog thinks so). But a long time ago, I was a fat and dorky and smart kid. Because I grew up in suburban New Hamp­shire, these were huge liabil­i­ties.

For years, I was phys­i­cally and verbally bullied at school. One time, I was sent to the hospital for stitches after a kid blud­geoned me with a sharp hunk of ice. Another time, a kid stubbed out his ciga­rette in my back. Every school recess was like being sent to the prison yard, waiting to get jumped. It was relent­less and terri­fying.

But as was true for a lot of kids like me during that era, computers were a refuge. Computers never judged me. They rewarded my curiosity. And other kids that liked computers didn’t see me as fat and dorky. They just thought I was cool. That was a first.

I learned early on that when you tattle on the bullies, they come for you twice as hard the next time. The only work­able tactic was to distance your­self and hope they found someone else to pick on. In my case, they did. But I’ve never forgotten that other kids—espe­cially kids whose differ­ences stood out more promi­nently than mine did—weren’t so lucky.

Felleisen’s attacks nega­tively affected me for a long time. Partly because that’s the expected result of delib­erate cruelty. But also because program­ming was always a place that felt insu­lated from the bullies. It hurt to be reminded that wasn’t true.

As for Felleisen himself. I don’t know him well. Over the years, we’ve also had some friendly inter­ac­tions. I wouldn’t say the toxic side of his persona is the biggest part. Though it does make the biggest impres­sion.

Now that I’m no longer a fat and dorky kid, it’s easier to feel a little sad for bullies. Their defining char­ac­ter­istic is a certain isola­tion and unhap­pi­ness, which even­tu­ally curdles into a self-fulfilling cycle. They want others to suffer as they do.

As for Racket. I’ll keep using it. I’ll just restrict myself to the periphery, where most of its users are. I’ll also continue to main­tain & update Beau­tiful Racket, because I know that it’s intro­duced thou­sands of program­mers to the possi­bil­i­ties of language-oriented program­ming. That project is much more impor­tant than what­ever water has gone under what­ever bridges.

Still, a thorny ques­tion remains: can I endorse Racket without implic­itly condoning the abusive behavior? It’s a close call. In FOSS projects, I think we should weigh the soft­ware on its own merits, at a remove from its devel­opers, who may be people we don’t find partic­u­larly lovable or even likable. Because once code is put under an open license, the inventor doesn’t control the outcome. On the other hand, Felleisen is the self-styled leader of the Racket project, not some inci­dental figure. His behavior sets a tone within the commu­nity.

Today, I have a large labor invest­ment in Racket. Rejecting it entirely would mean aban­doning soft­ware that’s crit­ical to my work. That, in turn, would only increase the burden on me. It’s more than I can absorb right now. Thus, I’ve chosen to limit my Racket involve­ment strictly to using the soft­ware. The rest, I ignore. For me so far, that compro­mise has sufficed.

All abuse, harass­ment, and bullying is unac­cept­able. It is merely violence by other means. For that reason, I’ve shared my expe­ri­ence. Others can take from it what they will.

[June 2021]

Felleisen’s first response

A day after I posted this piece, Felleisen contacted me privately by email. Part of me wants to share his message as written, because it was such a strange mix of concil­i­a­tion and hostility. Also, I don’t want to mischar­ac­terize anyone’s words.

On the other hand, I believe in the norm that private commu­ni­ca­tions should remain so, unless everyone agrees. Here, however, that norm has been weak­ened, because Felleisen already misused privacy & secrecy in our inter­ac­tions. Bullies crave silence.

So I’m going to para­phrase his message. If Felleisen feels mischar­ac­ter­ized, I give him permis­sion to publish it.

The best I can say: I believe Felleisen was sincere in his compli­ments and his desire to find a way to move beyond these events. I’ve said that Felleisen and I have had friendly inter­ac­tions in the past. That part is not a surprise.

The worst I can say: by refusing to acknowl­edge any aspect of my account—let alone offer an apology—he convinced me that I was being steered toward an ambiguous non-reso­lu­tion where he’d tell me we had to agree to disagree about what happened, or that I was just confused about his intent, etc.

Partic­u­larly weird was his request that I provide “concrete expla­na­tions”. What was this whole piece, if not a concrete expla­na­tion? Further­more, there were four other people in the room on that day. If Felleisen wanted to check his recol­lec­tion, he could talk to any of them. If I totally got it wrong, he could then publish a piece called “MB Totally Got It Wrong”.

Felleisen’s second response

A day after his first response, Felleisen posted an “Apology” on his personal website. No idea how long it will remain, so I will include the complete state­ment here:

The best I can say: Compared to his first response, Felleisen’s tone has changed dramat­i­cally. As I hoped he would, he consulted with two people who were there. He confirms that my account of the event is accu­rate. He apol­o­gizes—twice. If anyone was unclear on the meaning of bullying, Felleisen describes it exactly: he admits that he lever­aged his posi­tion as the “oldest and most expe­ri­enced” person in the room to get “emotional and overly intense” toward someone who “had nothing to do with how the day had gone” and that it caused “hurt”.

The worst I can say: it’s been almost three years since this partic­ular event, and nearly 18 months since I with­drew from Racket. This apology would’ve meant a lot more the day after. Better late than never? In one sense, I suppose so. But in the interim, I had to carry the burden. That included having to give up some­thing I loved (namely, partic­i­pa­tion in Racket).

BTW, Felleisen refers to past state­ments where he suggested I replace him in Racket lead­er­ship. I do remember these comments, which as he says go back several years. But I’ve never actu­ally been invited to join Racket lead­er­ship—nor has Felleisen stepped down, obvi­ously—so I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s a compli­ment based on a hypo­thet­ical? OK. But a compli­ment, however kind and genuine, cannot itself absolve years of miser­able behavior.

BTW2, the fact that Felleisen posted his apology on his personal website and not, say, the Racket mailing list is a little strange. Putting this as gently as I can—Felleisen’s personal website is a place that most people in Racket visit once, and there­after main­tain a respectful distance. Indeed, I only found out about the apology from an anony­mous internet comment. But better than no apology at all? Of course.

And yet

Since I first posted this piece, my inbox has filled with other stories of Felleisen’s misbe­havior. I’m not going to char­ac­terize them because they aren’t my stories to tell. Though some will come out, I’m sure.

What’s notable is that people have been confiding in me—an internet stranger—because they are plainly terri­fied of Felleisen and the conse­quences he will orches­trate if they speak out against him. Most of them are in acad­emia or PL research. A number of them are already in a more vulner­able posi­tion because of their nation­ality, gender or sexual iden­tity, etc.

Initially, it felt good to unburden myself. Now I feel newly revolted.

I’m aware that being a white Amer­ican male—who depends on Felleisen for nothing—gives me a protected posi­tion to speak from, and insu­lates me from the hottest blow­torches of anony­mous internet enmity. (Given that advan­tage, some may wonder why I didn’t speak up sooner. I have no excuse. Like those who have written me recently—I was afraid.)

In one sense I appre­ciate Felleisen’s apology. But in another sense, I worry—is it merely a priv­i­lege divi­dend? Because it’s apparent that the event I described here is just one hurt inflicted by a person who’s appar­ently racked up way more than his fair share over the years. Again, this is not merely hearsay—in addi­tion to my own expe­ri­ences, I’ve witnessed Felleisen’s mistreat­ment of others.

Peace, as Dr. King put it, is not merely the absence of tension, but the pres­ence of justice. At its grandest, that idea can apply to soci­eties and nations. But on a smaller scale, it can apply to any commu­nity struc­tured around a shared set of values.

Even if the tension between Felleisen and me is reduced, that alone won’t put the Racket commu­nity into a state of justice. Racket has adopted certain values against “personal harass­ment”. Those need to be prac­ticed and enforced. Or they’re worth­less.

If Felleisen can’t or won’t adhere to these values, then he should step down from Racket lead­er­ship. If other members of Racket lead­er­ship won’t enforce these values, or won’t hold Felleisen to at least the same stan­dard as everyone else, then they should step down too.

It’s hard to write that. Racket lead­er­ship consists of people I person­ally like and very much look up to on an intel­lec­tual level. But what other prin­ciple is defen­sible? On its current path, Racket may be consigning itself to becoming nothing more than a weird cult at the edge of the FOSS jungle. It’s well past time for Racket to stop thinking in terms of what will be lost by living up to its own prin­ci­ples, and consider what will be gained.

Further