If Takei is allowed to speak, he should have to say something
What do we do about George Takei?
Takei fans all across North America are wrestling with that question in the wake of an allegation, published last week in the Hollywood Reporter, that the Star Trek star groped a much younger male model back in 1981.
The consternation is real. Takei, after all, isn’t just a successful actor. He’s a outspoken social media advocate of LGBTQ causes and a long-standing opponent of racial injustice. He’s made himself the most “woke” octogenarian on Facebook and Twitter, with millions of followers, who delight in Takei’s witty, scathing critiques of Donald Trump and other conser- vative figures.
Still, while most Takei fans are dealing with their disappointment, disbelief or disillusionment privately, the Edmonton Public Library and the Edmonton Community Foundation face a public dilemma.
Should they cancel Takei’s speech Nov. 29, a fundraiser for the new downtown library?
Takei is to speak to an almost sold-out crowd of more than 1,600 at the Shaw Conference Centre. The library is paying Takei a $70,000 speaking fee, and spending another $22,500 to rent the revenue and run the sound and lights. If they pull the plug, they’ll lose that money — not to mention all the ticket revenues they’d have to refund.
Pilar Martinez, the library’s CEO, says the money isn’t really the point.
“We have to make a decision based on principles, not on risk. This is a real struggle. It’s very complex, and it’s not easy,” she says.
“These are sexual assault allegations. We know this is very serious. But so far, this is just one allegation, which Mr. Takei is denying.”
Martin Garber-Conrad, head of the Edmonton Community Foundation, which is sponsoring Takei’s appearance, says he and Martinez have agreed to wait until the end of this week to see if any new information emerges before making their final decision.
“I don’t want to minimize this,” he says. “But I’m not particularly interested in feeding the assumption that every single allegation in the world is automatically true.”
This isn’t entirely new ethical territory for the library or the foundation.
CBC personality Jian Ghomeshi was scheduled to speak at a foundation event two years ago, just a week after his own sex scandal broke. In that case, Ghomeshi’s agent contacted the foundation and offered a full refund. The event was cancelled.
Last year, the library booked Canadian author Joseph Boyden for a major event, just a month before stories broke alleging Boyden had largely manufactured his “native” identity, and had plagiarized some of his stories. The library came under immense public pressure to cancel Boyden’s speech. But they went ahead, arguing that cancelling it would be an assault on freedom of speech.
This year, they thought they were in the clear. And then Scott R. Brunton alleged that, as a young man of 23, he’d gone on a date with Takei, passed out and awakened to find Takei groping and undressing him.
By Brunton’s own account, Takei stopped as soon as Brunton said he didn’t want to have sex. Still, given Takei’s online penchant for policing other people’s sexual morality, especially when it comes to consent, the story made the actor sound deeply hypocritical.
Takei vehemently denied Brunton’s accusation. But he didn’t help his own cause, suggesting Russian bots might be behind the attacks on his reputation. Then up popped an interview Takei did with Howard Stern just last month, in which he joked about a past habit of grabbing the crotches of “skittish” young men. Suddenly, Brunton’s story seemed far more credible.
And so, the library is left with a moral quandary. Should it cancel a speech because of one allegation involving two adults in 1981? Would that look like censorship, an assault on free speech? Might it even be seen as homophobic?
Or, in this moment of heightened sensitivity to sexual predators, should the library take a firm stance, and rescind its invitation? If the library doesn’t cancel, is it being hypocritical and giving Takei the benefit of a doubt it would never extend to a conservative straight white man?
So far, say Martinez and Garber-Conrad, hardly anyone has approached them with concerns about Takei’s appearance — though it’s hard to know if that’s because people don’t believe his accuser or because they haven’t heard the accusations.
I don’t know what happened between Takei and Brunton 36 years ago.
I do know if Takei speaks here, we can’t just give him a platform to deliver a pat speech. He has to face tough questions.
Rather than shutting down speech, perhaps this is just the vital moment to have a hard and public conversation.
But if Takei wants to retain, or regain, the public’s respect, he’ll need to be prepared to answer.