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INTEREST: Vic Mignogna No Longer a Member of RWBY Cast

At the very least one should show both/all perspectives, yet here we got 20 angry tweets reflecting one side, with the other side only briefly being present in a few tweets that are being answered. I don't view this as very ethical, and I would ask ANN to do better.

Addressing a few issues & questions.

Why didn't ANN contact Mignogna?
A: We did. The article states "Anime News Network reached out to Mignogna to comment in hopes of gaining more specifics about the allegations. He declined to comment and instead chose to stand by his statement from January 21.

uncutpokemon wrote:

No, I'm saying we should wait until it gets taken to court before we start getting him fired from stuff. And excuse me for not wanting him to be recast from shows that will suffer from quality loss as a result of his recasting.

If you owned a store and you caught an employee on video stealing, would you wait until they were convicted to fire them? Would you take them back of they were somehow acquitted? Of course not.

That is not a standard anyone has ever used in real lifr . Courts have an incredibly high standard of proof, but unless you're serving on a jury, you don't have to abide by it. You can judge the evidence on your own. You can disagree with a court's findings. Everyone does it all the time.

If you owned a store and you caught an employee on video stealing, would you wait until they were convicted to fire them? Would you take them back of they were somehow acquitted? Of course not.

1.This stuff has been rumored for years and not only has he been invited back to cons but he is has been working with the same voice actors for years who are calling him out no. Thats questionable to me.

2.We used that standard for a CRIME which sexual assault and harrassemnt is, if you believe an allegation is true, why not put him on that jury with all the evidence that are supposedly out there and convict him?

3.The law ain't perfect, but its far better to witchunting and the internet mob which is not even fair so for you to say that you can disagree with a court's findings which undermines our justice system just shows your kind of thinking when it comes to this.

1.This stuff has been rumored for years and not only has he been invited back to cons but he is has been working with the same voice actors for years who are calling him out no. Thats questionable to me.

Dracofire3 wrote:

1.This stuff has been rumored for years and not only has he been invited back to cons but he is has been working with the same voice actors for years who are calling him out no. Thats questionable to me.

Some cons didn't invite him back and instead banned him. And cons had a profit motive to bring him back, because he had fans and would bring fans to cons, which means more paying guests.

As for voice actors, well, they have to pay the bills. They don't get to choose who they work with. In a society where you need money to survive, you often may find yourself working with people you intensely dislike.

Quote:

2.We used that standard for a CRIME which sexual assault and harrassemnt is, if you believe an allegation is true, why not put him on that jury with all the evidence that are supposedly out there and convict him?

First of all, there is a wealth of actions that are between the points of "perfectly fine and innocent" and "criminal sexual assault."

Second of all, neither the people you are arguing with, nor the writers of this article, have the ability to arrest Vic or put him on trial. Some posters have said he should be, but they have no authority to do so. The only people who can arrest him are the cops, but they aren't gonna just act on their own, and there are many, many reasons why victims might not want to report to the cops, including the possibility that some of them may themselves believe the actions fall into the range of "incredibly gross and inappropriate, but not technically criminal."

Thirdly, related to that last part, you may be surprised to know that sexual harassment is not necessarily a crime. It's not even necessarily something that you can be held liable for civilly. I was on a jury for a rather complicated sexual harassment lawsuit a few years back, and the instructions we were given were quite clear. We weren't supposed to determine if the plaintiffs had been sexually harassed. We were supposed to determine if they had suffered "legally actionable" sexual harassment.

There was a lot of specific definitions for this, but the thing that kind of surprised me was that we could find both that someone was sexually harassed, and that the sexual harassment was severe and/or sustained, and that still wouldn't by itself meet the standard for legally actionable sexual harassment.

So yes, there is a massive, massive amount of sexually inappropriate behavior one can do that doesn't automatically qualify as criminal.


Related to that, there is a point I want to make. People often bring up "innocent until proven guilty" in situation like this, but that legal standard for guilt only applies to criminal cases, where jail time or worse is on the line. Vic is not facing possible jail time at this moment, to the best of my knowledge, and if he does at some point in the future it will mean he has been arrested, in which case the "court of public opinion" will not determine his case, and "innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt" will in fact be the legal standard used at trial.

Right now, one of the biggest things that Vic is facing is potential loss of money. So it seems to me, if we're gonna use a legal standard regarding guilt for Vic, it would make more sense to use a legal standard that is used in civil lawsuits, where loss of money is generally the result of losing.

The legal standard for civil cases, as explained to me by the judge presiding over the sexual harassment case I was a juror for, was "preponderance of evidence", or as she put it, "more likely than not." Going into the case, we were supposed to be unbiased, have no preconceived ideas on who was right. The scales should be weighted 50/50, and if at the end of the case they were still 50/50, a complete coin toss as to who we felt was right, we side for the defendant. But if at the end of the case those scales had shifted just slightly, even if we simply felt there was a 51% chance that the plaintiff's claims were correct, we would side on behalf of the plaintiff.

Also, and the judge stressed this fact repeatedly, witness statements were evidence. She quite bluntly said we could decide the case based on the testimony of a single witness if we found it credible enough.

So it seems to me, if we're gonna start invoking legal standards about guilt, this is the one that makes sense. Based on the evidence that is multiple witness statements, based on the evidence that is multiple photographs, based on the evidence that is at least one video, is it more likely than not that Vic acted sexually/physically inappropriate?

Quote:

3.The law ain't perfect, but its far better to witchunting and the internet mob which is not even fair so for you to say that you can disagree with a court's findings which undermines our justice system just shows your kind of thinking when it comes to this.

Courts have convicted hundreds, thousands of people who were lately exonerated. Courts have said that slavery was legal and moral. Courts have made countless mistakes, and will continue to make countless mistakes. In the sexual harassment case I was on, for one of the plaintiffs we hung, which is by definition a mistake, because the defendant could not be both guilty and innocent at the same time, yet we could not come to an agreement on it.

So, are you really trying to suggest that someone simply saying "courts sometimes make mistakes so it's okay to disagree with decisions they make" is somehow a wrong or gross statement? Because that was the implication I got from your post.

But hey, maybe I'm misinterpreting your post. I mean it is late and I am a bit tired after all.

Dracofire3 wrote:

1.This stuff has been rumored for years and not only has he been invited back to cons but he is has been working with the same voice actors for years who are calling him out no. Thats questionable to me.

Some cons didn't invite him back and instead banned him. And cons had a profit motive to bring him back, because he had fans and would bring fans to cons, which means more paying guests.

As for voice actors, well, they have to pay the bills. They don't get to choose who they work with. In a society where you need money to survive, you often may find yourself working with people you intensely dislike.

Quote:

2.We used that standard for a CRIME which sexual assault and harrassemnt is, if you believe an allegation is true, why not put him on that jury with all the evidence that are supposedly out there and convict him?

First of all, there is a wealth of actions that are between the points of "perfectly fine and innocent" and "criminal sexual assault."

Second of all, neither the people you are arguing with, nor the writers of this article, have the ability to arrest Vic or put him on trial. Some posters have said he should be, but they have no authority to do so. The only people who can arrest him are the cops, but they aren't gonna just act on their own, and there are many, many reasons why victims might not want to report to the cops, including the possibility that some of them may themselves believe the actions fall into the range of "incredibly gross and inappropriate, but not technically criminal."

Thirdly, related to that last part, you may be surprised to know that sexual harassment is not necessarily a crime. It's not even necessarily something that you can be held liable for civilly. I was on a jury for a rather complicated sexual harassment lawsuit a few years back, and the instructions we were given were quite clear. We weren't supposed to determine if the plaintiffs had been sexually harassed. We were supposed to determine if they had suffered "legally actionable" sexual harassment.

There was a lot of specific definitions for this, but the thing that kind of surprised me was that we could find both that someone was sexually harassed, and that the sexual harassment was severe and/or sustained, and that still wouldn't by itself meet the standard for legally actionable sexual harassment.

So yes, there is a massive, massive amount of sexually inappropriate behavior one can do that doesn't automatically qualify as criminal.


Related to that, there is a point I want to make. People often bring up "innocent until proven guilty" in situation like this, but that legal standard for guilt only applies to criminal cases, where jail time or worse is on the line. Vic is not facing possible jail time at this moment, to the best of my knowledge, and if he does at some point in the future it will mean he has been arrested, in which case the "court of public opinion" will not determine his case, and "innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt" will in fact be the legal standard used at trial.

Right now, one of the biggest things that Vic is facing is potential loss of money. So it seems to me, if we're gonna use a legal standard regarding guilt for Vic, it would make more sense to use a legal standard that is used in civil lawsuits, where loss of money is generally the result of losing.

The legal standard for civil cases, as explained to me by the judge presiding over the sexual harassment case I was a juror for, was "preponderance of evidence", or as she put it, "more likely than not." Going into the case, we were supposed to be unbiased, have no preconceived ideas on who was right. The scales should be weighted 50/50, and if at the end of the case they were still 50/50, a complete coin toss as to who we felt was right, we side for the defendant. But if at the end of the case those scales had shifted just slightly, even if we simply felt there was a 51% chance that the plaintiff's claims were correct, we would side on behalf of the plaintiff.

Also, and the judge stressed this fact repeatedly, witness statements were evidence. She quite bluntly said we could decide the case based on the testimony of a single witness if we found it credible enough.

So it seems to me, if we're gonna start invoking legal standards about guilt, this is the one that makes sense. Based on the evidence that is multiple witness statements, based on the evidence that is multiple photographs, based on the evidence that is at least one video, is it more likely than not that Vic acted sexually/physically inappropriate?

Quote:

3.The law ain't perfect, but its far better to witchunting and the internet mob which is not even fair so for you to say that you can disagree with a court's findings which undermines our justice system just shows your kind of thinking when it comes to this.

Courts have convicted hundreds, thousands of people who were lately exonerated. Courts have said that slavery was legal and moral. Courts have made countless mistakes, and will continue to make countless mistakes. In the sexual harassment case I was on, for one of the plaintiffs we hung, which is by definition a mistake, because the defendant could not be both guilty and innocent at the same time, yet we could not come to an agreement on it.

So, are you really trying to suggest that someone simply saying "courts sometimes make mistakes so it's okay to disagree with decisions they make" is somehow a wrong or gross statement? Because that was the implication I got from your post.

But hey, maybe I'm misinterpreting your post. I mean it is late and I am a bit tired after all.

2.We used that standard for a CRIME which sexual assault and harrassemnt is, if you believe an allegation is true, why not put him on that jury with all the evidence that are supposedly out there and convict him?

Dracofire3 wrote:

2.We used that standard for a CRIME which sexual assault and harrassemnt is, if you believe an allegation is true, why not put him on that jury with all the evidence that are supposedly out there and convict him?

I am like 99.99% sure that putting the accused on the jury is not proper legal procedure... O_o

SOcrates wrote:

zip

it is true that ANN is not a gossip rag, but on the other hand, accusations of decades long misconduct kind of go beyond just the realm of gossip. There's a difference between sleazy gossip rag and serious investigative reporting, and these accusations are a serious matter worthy of concern. And I for one am glad ANN reported on them, though you could probably have easily guessed my viewpoint by now. I understand being concerned, but ANN did a lot of research in their initial article and corroborated a lot of stuff with multiple sources, so I think they are taking this stuff seriously and giving it the care it deserves.

So first, in the other thread, ANN's CEO had this to say:
Anime News Network reached out to Mignogna to comment in hopes of gaining more specifics about the allegations. He declined to comment and instead chose to stand by his statement from January 21.

At that time at least, Vic wasn't interested in saying more. He did make an apology at a con apparently, and that video was included in this article. I'm sure that if Vic decides to release a second statement, ANN will be happy to report on it.

Secondly, *zip*.

"I'm fairly confident these tweets are instead being highlighted because they are Vic's professional colleagues, and so what they have to say on the matter is potentially relevant (especially if some of them, like Monica Rial, can attest to having directly confronted Vic about the his behavior with fans in the past.) Now, the fact that at least so far, the other voice actors speaking out about this publicly are pretty much all speaking against Vic"

"well you are free to come up with your own interpretation as to why that is. I certainly have mine."

His career is ruined now. You reap what you sow.

sailorsweeper wrote:

Quote: Neil Kaplan's take was just... a piggy back ride? Seems a bit of gasping at straws now. Doesn't matter its video proof of unwanted attention and is what matters in this situation.

If you read Neil's tweets, he talks about Vic's crotch being against his neck. That's a pretty big boundary violation, especially when you consider that they didn't previously know each other. Yeesh.

I found Monica Rial’s tweets to be refreshingly straightforward. But they seem to imply Vic was protected—or at least that his behavior was excused or ignored or tolerated—by somebody or multiple somebodies at Funimation. I wonder who. And why.