Bart Bows Out
Bart Meltzer has resigned from the Board Of Directors. He wrote a long letter of resignation, taking full blame for the snowball effect that led to Ellen’s departure, and stating that it was about power and control. He obviously feels terrible — I can only imagine what this has done to his relationship with Ellen.

An exerpt follows:

This is my formal resignation from the board of directors of American Atheists, Inc. and United Secularists of America. I can no longer serve on the boards because of the events that have transpired leading to the departure of Ellen Johnson.

Specifically, I was the instigator to Ellen’s departure and caused irreparable damage to the organization and pain and suffering to Ellen and her family. Because of my own self interests, I tried to stop Ellen from doing the Bill Moore walk. Yes, I was concerned for Ellen’s safety but initially I also refused to work with Ellen to try and make this walk as safe as I could. I just wanted Ellen not to do this walk and I refused to listen to her plea to help make this walk safe.

That’s what Ellen asked me to do when we first discussed this on the morning of March 6th, 2008. “Help me make this walk safe” was Ellen’s exact request. I replied that there was no way to make a two week walk safe. Maybe there was no way to eliminate all the risks, but making it a little safer is exactly what I wound up doing anyway. So I should have just done that from the start. The Bill Moore walk WAS a noble cause for Atheism and American Atheists, albeit a dangerous one. However, it did not turn out to be as dangerous as I thought it would.

The other (not so minor) issue is that I tried to “Control” Ellen. I incorrectly assumed that I had that privilege because of our relationship, I was on the board, and this was a safety issue. I tried to force Ellen not to do something she had already made plans to do. I don’t know that I did this intentionally to control Ellen but I did it just the same. Intentional or not, it was wrong.

I can’t say his departure is a surprise to me, and I can’t say it’s the wrong thing to do (it isn’t). However, I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say this one incident (the Bill Moore March) caused the firing. There were a lot of problems here, and most of them still exist. The Moore March was the final straw. All in my opinion — just applying logic to a very emotional situation.
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