New Documents Destroy John Dehlin’s Arguments Against Sexual Harassment Allegations
By: James Patterson
Tags: Exmormon, Open Stories Foundation, John Dehlin, Rosebud, Sexual Harassment

Let me be very clear up front: I’m not going to spend time making a lengthy legal argument regarding John Dehlin’s or the Open Stories Foundation’s liability for sexual harassment, or proof of such legal liability here.

Again, what follows below is not a legal argument.

It has been made abundantly clear that Open Stories Foundation is and was protected against formal charges of sexual harassment because federal anti-discrimination laws protect organizations with six or fewer employees from such charges. John and OSF get off on a technicality here.

Instead, it’s important and entirely relevant to focus on the fact that John Dehlin has openly and repeatedly held himself to a higher standard as it relates to sexual harassment, a standard he outlined in a series of social media posts in 2018.

Sexual Harassment as Defined by the Open Stories Foundation

In those posts, John proudly trumpets the Open Stories Foundation’s new sexual harassment policy, and emphatically stands by the policy by saying he is “not aware” of ever having violated it. He goes even farther:

If I am guilty of sexual harassment or abuse, I deserve to be fired

So the standard by which John Dehlin wishes to be judged as it relates to sexual harassment is his own foundation’s policy. He is openly asking to be held accountable to this standard. He’s practically challenging someone to bring the goods.

Fair enough, let’s do so.

OSF’s sexual harassment policy states:

Open Stories Foundation considers sexual or romantic advances or innuendos by persons in a supervisry or authoritative role toward subordinates within the same department or chain of command, or by persons having authority over staffing or salary decisions, to be harassment for which disciplinary action will be taken.

John’s affair with “Rosebud” has been fairly well documented over the last several months. He has openly admitted to the affair and that it was sexual in nature — while not including actual sexual intercourse. We don’t need to go further into those details.

What John refuses to admit to, however, is the professional dynamic that existed between him and Rosebud, which is central to establishing if he was in a position of “having authority over staffing or salary decisions.”

I’m going to show how that’s exactly the case as it relates to Rosebud.

John’s False Statements About Rosebud Being His Equal

First, let’s talk about John’s main line of defense against these sexual harassment allegations: that Rosebud was his equal, because she was a fellow “founding board member.”

This, however, is verifiably false, as official OSF documents show that the foundation was incorporated in March of 2010 (with John as the sole director), but Rosebud was not voted onto the board until June of 2011, more than a year after OSF’s incorporation.

Rosebud couldn’t have been considered a founding board member when OSF was already up and running for almost a year and a half. John, in fact, helped bring Rosebud onto the board after having nurtured a relationship with her for several months. In fact, he asked her to volunteer to moderate Mormon Stories FB communities and help out with other projects before she became a board member.

So the suggestion that she helped found OSF or that she was an equal to him in the establishment of the foundation simply boggles the mind and requires a heavily revised version of history.

(As an aside, the above facts quite interesting, given the fact that John listed Rosebud as a board member on an official IRS tax filing for the tax year 2010. Whether John lied on the form or just misremembered who was on the board at the end of 2010 remains to be addressed)

John’s Ability to Hire/Fire Rosebud

What other standard can we use to determine John and Rosebud’s working relationship? In most work instances, the ability to hire/fire is a main determining factor if one is an a position “of authority” over another person.

The Supreme Court, in fact, has repeatedly found that the ability to hire, fire and make salary decisions for an employee indicates being in a position of authority over that person.

In an email I obtained from December of 2011, John asks several OSF board members to sign-off on his decision to hire Rosebud as an employee of the foundation. To that point, John had been directing her work as a highly involved volunteer.

In the email, John says:

“I’ve been trying to pay Anne for her efforts w/ the foundation for about 6 months and she has nobly resisted out of a desire to ensure that the foundation can sustain this move first. With Kevin’s committed donations and the $$ that we have generated from conferences (due to Anne’s efforts), I think that we can afford to start paying her at least $2,000/month. It’s not nearly worth what she’s doing for us, but it’s a start. If our fundraising tanks over the next year, we’d have to revisit in 12 months, but I honestly don’t see this happening. I see us being very successful if we continue on the track we are heading down. Could ya’ll please let me know if you approve, and if so, what we need to do to get this rolling?”

John made the decision to hire Rosebud, decided what her salary would be and asked the board to give final sign-off on his decisions. It can therefore be assumed that he had similar power to fire her, and only needed to go to the board for similar approval.

It’s interesting to note the board’s posture towards John during this type of exchange. At one point Joanna Brooks actually asks for John’s permission to put it forth for a full board vote, even though she chairs the board of directors:

“…it wouldn’t hurt to run it by the board for a vote, if that sounds okay to you, John.”

John was clearly in a position of actual and perceived authority over Rosebud. He had the authority to hire her. He had the authority to set her salary. Getting board approval was a mere formality.

The record shows that not only did John almost unilaterally make this staffing decision, he did so while in the midst of an affair with her.

Quid Pro Quo Harassment

Another of John’s (more outrageous) arguments is that it was actually Rosebud who was sexually harassing him.

However, in a series of message board posts from last month, John openly admits to entering into an “agreement” with Rosebud while she was a volunteer that then extended to his offer of employment:

Rosebud made multiple personal promises to me from the very start and throughout to “go away” if our relationship ever got to the point where it was hurting me or the Open Stories Foundation. This was a personal agreement we had made, which she agreed to prior to joining the board or coming on as an employee. I was only asking her to keep her promise. Frankly, I was stunned when she refused. I honestly thought I could trust her. But that was a personal plea.

Here, John shockingly admits to entering into a quid-pro-quo agreement tied to a sexual relationship with an OSF volunteer and later employee: an agreement in which Rosebud would work for OSF under the condition that if, at any point, John did not like the nature of their sexual relationship, she would have to leave.

Quid pro quo literally means “this for that.” If you do this, I will do that. If you do what I deem acceptable within our sexual relationship, I will allow you to have a job. If not, you will leave.

Rosebud’s employment was conditioned upon John’s whims as it related to the nature of their sexual relationship. This is quid pro quo harassment, by definition.

This also provides a rational explanation as to the text messages John recently revealed in which Rosebud made sexual advances at him. In an agreement such as the one John had entered into with her — one in which Rosebud’s employment was tied directly to John’s satisfaction with their sexual relationship — it’s entirely understandable that she may have been erroneously searching for ways to keep her job as things soured. His mercurial nature must have been confusing. He states in an email that there had been “manipulation” in their relationship.

If your job hinges on keeping your boss happy in the affair the two of you are engaged in, the text messages start to make more sense.

Despite her efforts to manage an impossible situation, Rosebud was fired in August of 2012, after John determined he was done with her and reported their relationship to the OSF board chair. John, on the other hand, resigned temporarily and was quickly rehired as CEO and unanimously voted back onto the OSF board.

Rosebud lost her job. John Dehlin gained almost sole control over OSF, and then gave himself a 56% raise the next year.

Why Won’t OSF Hold John Dehlin Accountable?

This much is clear and documented:

John was in a position of authority over Rosebud, with the ability to hire her and determine her salary, both of which he did. John made repeated sexual advances and innuendo toward Rosebud from early 2011 through mid 2012. John also entered into a quid-pro-quo agreement with Rosebud which hinged on their sexual relationship. Rosebud was fired when that sexual relationship was revealed to the board chair by John.

No matter what comes after, the above constitutes a clear and blatant violation of the Open Stories Foundation’s sexual harassment policy, which John claims he has never violated and which he says if he has violated, he should be fired for.

The Open Stories Foundation has never publicly addressed these allegations and never stated what consequences or disciplinary action John may or may not have faced over the years as a result of these actions.

Instead, John calls the allegations “baseless” and claims they are part of a conspiracy by the LDS Church to take him down.

The allegations are not baseless. They are verifiable. They’re not coming from the Church. They’re coming from his inability to take accountability for his actions.

So why does OSF continue to ignore these documented facts?