It was brought to our attention recently that a one-time contributor to C4SS has been outed as a member of a racist and misogynistic chat group. Toby Fitzsimmons, a student at Durham University in the UK, submitted one article in May 2020, titled “ANTi-Capitalism: The Use of Knowledge in the Nest.” At the time, we were unaware of Toby’s involvement in such communities and published the article after a quick vetting on Twitter. 

We were notified on September 26th, 2020 that Toby was revealed to be a member of at least one of these chats, and we removed his piece shortly after. You can read the Durham University newspaper The Tab for more on this collection of group chats and the vile things being discussed there. 

In light of the severity of some of the things said: including conversations making light of or even encouraging sexual assault, we’ve also decided to post this disclaimer stating that we won’t be working with Toby in the future nor publishing any more of his work. 

We are also discussing ways to improve our vetting process for guest writers and new submissions moving forward. Many thanks to the Durham students who uncovered this activity and took the time to reach out and let us know about this behavior as well.