Press release, January 31, 2025
Background: A June 11, 2024 open letter to MCC’s global constituency detailing serious concerns about workplace abuse within MCC has been broadly supported by 1573 petitioners. In September, a group of open letter signatories and allies announced the formation of MCC Abuse Survivors Together (MAST). MAST seeks justice for survivors of MCC abuse, accountability for MCC, and transparency for the MCC constituency.
MCC reaches non-confidential legal settlement with John Clarke and Anicka Fast after 15 months
In October 2023, John and Anicka alleged to the Québec Labour Board (CNESST) that MCC had fired them without just and sufficient cause and had engaged in the prohibited practices of firing them while on sick leave and after making a complaint about harassment.
John and Anicka initially hoped that their complaints would be heard by a judge, offering external validation that wrongdoing had occurred. However, they eventually decided to engage in the pre-trial conciliation process offered by the tribunal, believing that a public financial settlement could offer a measure of justice. They invited MCC to make an admission of wrongdoing.
The conciliation process took place on January 22, 2025. Rick Cober Bauman, present for MCC, stated that any apology or admission of wrongdoing could only happen as part of an upcoming planned “facilitated conversation” with MCC boards (see below). He also stated that there was currently no commitment by MCC to an external investigation of all the allegations of abuse, or even just of John and Anicka’s allegations.
The agreement that was eventually reached is not confidential. MCC did not admit wrongdoing, but neither did they deny it. MCC will pay John and Anicka 180,000 CAD. This amount represents financial support for the remaining months of their employment contract, plus an additional sum of approximately 30,000 to cover additional expenses. Anicka and John have waived all further financial claims and have withdrawn their legal case. However, they are free to continue their advocacy as before, and to pursue further conversation with MCC leaders.
John and Anicka say,
“We have mixed feelings about this agreement. We are glad to have gotten a measure of financial restitution from MCC, but it is disappointing that we could not easily get external validation of MCC’s wrongdoing through a court judgment, and very painful to see MCC’s ongoing lack of openness to an external investigation or to a simple admission of wrongdoing. Overall, we feel we have taken the best path that was open to us within the constraints of the legal system in order to move toward greater justice not just for us but also for others who have been harmed. Even as MCC has come to this agreement with us, it hurts to think of other survivors of MCC’s abusive practices who have no legal recourse. We know of others who have asked for restitution and have been flatly refused. We hope that this financial compensation sets a precedent to show that MCC cannot harm its workers with impunity.”
MCC releases misleading internal statement about the legal settlement and the Veritas investigation
On January 23, MCC Executive Directors Rick Cober Bauman and Ann Graber Hershberger sent an internal FAQ to all staff as well as regional MCC board members. MAST finds this document to be problematic, misleading, and inaccurate in multiple ways.
The Executive Directors downplay the seriousness of the Veritas investigation results, making it sound like MCC’s only mistake was not to respond more quickly to concerns that, they imply, were unfounded anyway. They continue to imply that “wrongdoing or harm” might not be “clear” in this case.
They also imply that any problems are limited to Human Resources, even though allegations have identified the involvement of senior staff from every sector of MCC and even though the Veritas investigation summary report points to harassment by “senior personnel as a whole.”
Sadly, MCC continues to demonstrate its lack of commitment to getting to the bottom of what has gone wrong, even in the face of more than 1500 petition signatures and reports of allegations from more than 50 people.
Read MAST’s detailed analysis of MCC’s statement on our blog.
MCC’s “internal third-party investigation” by Veritas Solutions finds that “senior MCC staff as a whole” engaged in harassment against John and Anicka
Veritas Solutions, an investigative agency hired by MCC, found that actions by MCC “senior personnel” toward John Clarke and Anicka Fast constituted multiple counts of “harassment.” A summary of the Veritas Report (Dec 30, 2024) is available on the MAST website. Anicka and John had no input into the choice of investigator. After repeatedly explaining to MCC why the investigation did not meet reasonable criteria for a transparent, trauma-informed, external investigation process, they declined to provide oral testimony to the investigator. They did, however, provide some documentary evidence.
Read an interview with John and Anicka in the Canadian Mennonite here, where they explain their reaction to the investigation findings.
MAST calls for negotiations about an external investigation during upcoming “facilitated conversations”
“Facilitated conversations” are being arranged by leaders from Mennonite World Conference and Mennonite Mission Network, with the help of Doopsgezind Wereldwerk. These conversations will bring John and Anicka, a survivor advocate and two support people into conversation with MCC board members in coming weeks.
MAST insists that these conversations must not be limited to John and Anicka’s case alone. MAST continues to call on MCC to commit to a full external investigation in which the choice of firm and the mandate and scope of the investigation are approved by the MAST steering committee. As survivors, many of us long to finally share our evidence and our stories in the safe space that a fully external investigation can provide.
MAST launches website
In January 2025, MAST launched its website at https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/. The website includes survivor stories, letters of support, news items, a blog, and ideas for how supporters can get involved. You can also continue to follow #stopmccabuse on Facebook.
Survivors share the deep pain and isolation they feel due to unquestioned MCC loyalty in their communities
MAST is now aware of 52 cases of “bad endings” with MCC. Survivors often share with us the extreme pain that they feel due to isolation from their communities in the aftermath of their harmful experience with MCC. Not only is the experience of being abused, bullied, or harassed itself traumatic; when an MCC worker returns early or returns traumatized, the unquestioned loyalty to MCC in many congregations adds to a sense of shame and isolation. As one survivor explained,
“There is trauma when you come back. I felt like I had to say [my MCC term] was great. I felt such shame.”
We call on MCC’s supporting congregations and denominations to care for those who have been harmed by MCC. When church communities remain silent, this compounds survivors’ pain.
Mennonite church leaders support survivors at story-sharing event on Dec. 12, 2024
Some congregations and conferences are beginning to express their concern about this situation and to join us in seeking to hold MCC accountable. Leaders from Pacific Northwest and Central District Conferences of Mennonite Church USA reached out to MAST members to express their support and have written letters of concern to MCC. In December, MAST held an online story-sharing event in which five survivors shared their stories with leaders from these two conferences, as well as concerned congregational leaders from Canada, the US and the Netherlands. During the two-hour conversation, church leaders offered words of compassion and support and brainstormed about how to support other survivors and help hold MCC accountable for the abuse of its workers. We look forward to further conversations of this nature.
What we want is very simple:
We want MCC to stop hurting people.
We want an external investigation into all cases of abuse, in which survivors’ input and voice can shape an appropriate process.
We want MCC’s constituents to step in and clearly communicate that they refuse to accept this violence.
We want the church to respect and care for survivors.
How you can help
Because MCC is a “worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches,” no Mennonite congregation or conference can claim that these issues do not concern them. We call on all to support justice and healing instead of enabling a culture of silence about abuse.
Our website offers suggestions for how you can help by contacting MCC leaders, reporting your own experiences of abuse, taking congregational action, and supporting and advocating for those who have experienced harm.
In an article recently published in Mennonite Quarterly Review, historian and MAST member Anicka Fast argues that on the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement, it is time for Mennonites’ cherished value of non-violence to begin to refer “not only to our refusal of military service and our migrations to avoid conscription, but to the work of naming and identifying our own violence, hearing from those who have been harmed by it, confessing and rejecting it, and repairing the harm it has caused.”[1] Will you join us in this work?
[1] Anicka Fast, “‘Woe Is Me! For I Am Undone’: Remembering as Repentance and Revival,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 99, no. 1 (January 2025): 167.