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news
London Cycling Campaign logo Feb 2021-greyLondon Cycling Campaign condemns employee’s racist tweets – but stops short of sacking him
London Cycling Campaign (LCC) says that following an investigation, it has concluded that a series of tweets sent by one of its employees two years ago – before he began working for the charity – “were indeed racist,” but has stopped short of sacking Simon Still, the member of staff concerned.
The tweets, now deleted, were originally posted by Still, LCC cycling infrastructure database project coordinator and co-coordinator of LCC local group Lambeth Cyclists, in February 2019.
Screenshots of them were shared on Twitter last week, and on Thursday they were highlighted by TalkRadio host Cristo Foufas – a vocal opponent of cycling infrastructure – on his late night chat show, with the story also picked up by The Telegraph at the weekend.
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon LCC confirmed that it had “recently received a number of complaints alleging racist tweets by a member of the LCC staff team, Mr Simon Still, posted prior to his employment with the charity. LCC takes such complaints extremely seriously and suspended Mr Still, prior to an urgent investigation.
“The investigation has been completed, and has concluded that the tweets were indeed racist. LCC believes there can be no excuse for such racist statements, condemns them and deeply regrets the offence that these tweets have caused.
“Mr Still did not contest that the tweets were racist. He has apologised unreservedly for the offence this has caused, especially to BAME people, and to the charity for breaching the charity’s values and policies in this way.
“The charity is satisfied that these tweets, which were posted as a short sequence, constitute an isolated occurrence, and has accepted Mr Still's apology,” LCC added. “Mr Still has been removed from external facing duties for an indefinite period and will undergo racism awareness training as a condition of his continued employment.
In a statement, Still said: “I apologise wholeheartedly and unreservedly for the racist tweets that I made in 2019.
“I hope people will accept it when I say that I have never made such unacceptable statements before or since. I’m deeply sorry for, and ashamed of them.
“I recognise that I’ve got a long way to go, as do many of us on issues of race and other equalities issues.
“I undertake to increase my awareness of and sensitivity around these issues and to be actively anti-racist in all I do going forward,” he added.
In response to Still’s statement, LCC CEO Dr Ashok Sinha said: “This whole episode has reminded us that racism in our society runs deeper than we sometimes care to think.
“The board of trustees and I believe the best way forward is not to cast people aside but to own the problem, and take responsibility for working with those people to make amends and reduce future harm.
“This is a hard path, and we know not everyone will agree with us. But we believe it is the right path to take, and is the one we are taking with Mr Still.
“We will also now work harder to ensure all LCC staff and activists are better equipped to understand and prevent racism,” he added. “And we will redouble our efforts to make our charity as diverse as the city we love, working with BAME groups and others to help us achieve that goal.”
Most of the replies to a thread on Twitter in which LCC summarised the outcome of its investigation were highly critical of the organisation. One tweet from a member received a reply from another user of the social network, who said that racist views are not something that can simply be turned on or off, as the person expressing them pleases.
2. The staff member did not contest the findings of the hearing and apologises, without reservation, accepting that this behaviour was offensive and in violation of LCC's equalities and inclusion policies.
— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) February 23, 2021
4. Moving forward, LCC is instituting a robust review process which will ensure we are actively anti-racist. We will publish details on how this will be done. Our full statement is available on our website: https://t.co/CxKuydCqJ9
— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) February 23, 2021
One does not pick and choose when one is racist. One holds racist views and it will affect their conduct and attitude. On occasion they will display overt behaviour and other times they will cause others to suspect it.
One does not simply switch off or pick when they ARE racist.
— Mohammad Rakib (@Mohammad12akib) February 24, 2021
Another Twitter user said, however, that since the tweets pre-dated Still’s employment by LCC, he should not be punished for them.
Ridiculous.
If they did something before employment they shouldn’t be penalised in employment— Rich Lloyd (@RichLloyd19) February 24, 2021
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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51 comments
Our club has a (distant) relationship with the LCC and the committee member who flagged up this guy's comments was very concerned that some of our young riders would see what he'd written. Our club is very mixed and we like it that way as it reflects the mix of our area.
I got my kids interested in cycling and although my eldest isn't a member any more and is away at uni, my youngest still is. I don't know how old your kids are, but I've really enjoyed cycling with mine over the years. While my eldest isn't in a club, he certainly makes good use of his bike!
Where are you guys based? I'm in south Manchester and I rarely see any non white folks on road bikes or in clubs. Thought it might be different in somewhere like London.
We're in South London but ours is a BMX club. Lots of us ride on the road (good for training) and even more ride MTBs and the same is true of the other clubs. London's BMX clubs are all pretty mixed as well.
Kye is a local lad and a bit of a hero to the younger riders around here:
BMX champion Kye Whyte has high medal hopes for the Olympics thanks to National Lottery funding » Northern Life (northernlifemagazine.co.uk)
So ... white people shouldn't be discussing racism because we can't possibly understand it, but unless we actively get involved in combatting it we are part of the problem?
Just want to be clear where we stand ...
As is quite clear from zeeridesbikes' subsequent comments, s/he is very open to a discussion about racism. The point s/he was making is that what is or isn't racist can't simply be definined by white folks like you (I presume) and me, if we wish to eradicate racism the definition of what is racist has to be led by people from the section of society that suffers from the overwhelming majority of it, not the section that hands out the overwhelming majority of it. Which is fair enough, no?
That's pretty much is (and I'm a He).
He's just saying what he see's: a disproportionate amount of bad driving from a particular ethnic group. Applying the stereotype that the majority of young black men dable as criminals is where he's shown bad judgement, especially in this day and age of 'trial by social media'. To be honest, we don't know if he's wrong and we don't know if he's right; so how can we judge him fairly? I don't think he's racist, he's just saying what he see's and applying a stereotype - that's not a crime. The bad driving is.
Don't be nasty. We're all brothers and sisters on this blue-ball, I love you all.
'Applying a stereotype' is surely by definition discriminatory (i.e. generalising from one, likely atypical, observation to all people of a certain class). If the stereotype concerns 'race' (whatever that is) then it would surely be a racist stereotype? Does he offer any robust evidence that black men driving Mercedes car are especially poor or incosiderate drivers? You are right though that it may well not be a crime.
That sounds like a pretty good definition of racism to me. It's not even just applying a negative sterotype to what he saw - he throws in a few other stereotypes, making sure to say they apply to "all", despite not actually having any evidence.
Assuming the quoted tweets are the whole thing, he doesn't actually apply anything to "all" anybody, except all the young black men driving silver Mercs like dickheads.
Fuck evidence. Lack of evidence doesn't mean something isn't true or never happened. If I got knocked off my bike by a car which then drove off, I'd have just as much luck proving who the driver was as I would proving dolphins can feel pain. We sort of know they can but........
No, evidence is quite important, particularly if you wish to be taken seriously. You might "know" something, however, unless you can demonstrate it objectively it remains an opinion, and not "true"
What we "know" is as often informed by our biases as by actual fact. That's why if you have an opinion it is particularly useful to be able to explain and demonstrate rationally. If you can't, best keep it to yourself.
Are you from the Middle Ages? You sound like a peasant from the Middle Ages.
I don't think peasants in the Middle Ages believed in dolphins...
Didn't they just assume they were mermaids?
I don't care whether his viewpoint is correct.. I do care that he was bullied by his employer and made to aplogise for his free speech in order to try and keep his job.
My assumption would be that they haven't sacked him because he hasn't been racist since they employed him. Or at least there is no evidence of it.
It's possible that he's no longer racist, people can change, so I can see why they wouldn't sack him.
I doubt he isn't racist now, but you can't really sack someone for suspecting something.
Whilst it is up to the company to investigate and discipline as needed, i do think Rich Lloyd doesn't understand the nature of consequences sometimes. Does he draw the line on all previous unknown items before employment or only on non-criminal offences ("yes, it turned out the person murdered someone two years ago but that was before he was employed here so shouldn't be fired").
If it is a spent conviction (eg for murder) then yes, done is done, unless it was required that it be declared up front. In this case, I think LCC have got it right. I don't think it is right that a person should be unemployable due to having previously made racist comments on twitter, which they now recognise to be wrong and make apology for. Let the innocent cast the first stone.
Sometimes, reductio ad absurdum can help. However, a murder conviction invokes a mandatory life sentence and is never 'spent'. Worth knowing - just in case anybody was planning anything.
I never mentioned convicted and spent though (although if he never declared them on his CV etc they could mean termination of employment as well). My comparison was Rich is stating that anything done before employment shouldn't affect current employment, I'm just wondering aloud what his limits on the statement are or whether it is unlimited.
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