With the creation of the position of Advocate, an appointee directed to help bring members before Mensa's Hearings Committee on charges of acts inimical to Mensa, Mensa's justice system is changing. At the March 2003 AMC meeting, the AMC had on the agenda a motion to modify the ASIE that defines "Acts Inimical," mainly by enumerating specific acts for which a member could be charged and sanctioned, including suspension or expulsion. The motion, which widens the applicability/purview of an acts inimical charge, is as follows:

For the purpose of ASIE 1998-017, "Mensa" is defined as including American Mensa, Ltd., any recognized subdivision or local group of American Mensa, Ltd., any recognized national Mensa or subdivision thereof, and Mensa International, Ltd. "Acts inimical to the society" are defined as "deliberate acts that are harmful to, or result in harm to, Mensa." Acts inimical to Mensa shall include (though the definition shall not be limited to) the following:

1. Any intentional misrepresentation by a member in dealings with or under the auspices of Mensa, including falsifying records;
2. Unauthorized use of Mensa property, including copyrights, trademarks, and trade names;
3. Threatening, intimidating coercing, or otherwise interfering with persons involved in the authorized activities of Mensa;
4. While participating in activities sponsored or sanctioned by Mensa, engaging in conduct that:
   a. Endangers the well-being of others,
   b. Results in willful damage to property, or
   c. Involves illegal or improper use of funds of Mensa;
   
5. Making a knowingly false or misleading oral or written statement to a Hearings Committee;
6. Failing to discharge a debt to Mensa, within sixty days after written notice of the existence of the debt has been sent to the debtor; or
7. Failure to exhaust all avenues of settlement and redress within Mensa before taking a dispute to external authorities.

One member, former AMC Chairman Sander Rubin, wrote to the AMC, asking that the governing body not pass the motion. With Sander's permission, we reprint his memo to the AMC here in Going Forward.

This memo sets forth reasons why the motion under item G. 3 of the meeting agenda amending ASIE 1998-017 should not be passed by AMC.

AMC does not have the authority to legislate members' standards of behavior.

Nowhere in the By Laws is AMC authorized to act as a legislature with respect to individual members' behavior or conduct. Affirming the round table ideology of Mensa, the following wording is included in the By Laws:

(3) Every member shall have the same rights and privileges accorded every other member, without qualification or limitation, unless sanctioned under sections (5) or (6) of this Article.

A plain reading of the By Laws will show that the function of AMC is to conduct the administrative business of Mensa on behalf of the members. AMC has powers to organize the structure of AML, appoint members to functional offices, to do necessary business on behalf of the society.

A hearings committee was established under the By Laws separate from AMC precisely to remove from AMC any responsibility for the discipline of members. This step, as well as the adoption of an ombudsman, was taken under the theory of "separation of powers" with full recognition of potential conflicts of interests between administrators and the individual member. This history is memorialized at Responsibility and Accountability in Mensa: History and Recommendations.

Prior definition of offenses by legislation is not necessary.

There is no single best theory of jurisprudence. In this matter, we can contrast two: judge-made law and legislated law (there are others). These theories relate historically to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the Common Law and the continental tradition of the Napoleonic Code. Both have their place, but it is not a matter of indifference as to which is appropriate. The choice of jurisprudence depends on existential circumstances.

In the context of American Mensa, the Common Law tradition of judge-made law is better.

Those who wrote the By Laws and created the original Hearings Committee did not act negligently or thoughtlessly. They had specific reasons for treating "acts inimical to Mensa" — not further defined — as the sole basis for a disciplinary charge. The following table compares the two options.

 

Judge-Made	Legislated
Tends to focus on real circumstances	Tends to focus on semantics
Requires thoughtfulness in judgment	Emphasizes formal logic over existential understanding
Facts of the case come first	Conceptual framework comes first
Subordinates certainty to objective experience	Emphasizes psychological certainty  (in an uncertain world)
Outcome depends on actual circumstances	Outcome depends on fitting circumstances to a preconceived conceptual model
Fits the concept of diverse individuality	Fits the concept of authoritarian hierarchy
Requires a showing of actual harm to Mensa regardless of terminology	Opens the door to "It's not in the book, so I'm innocent."

Which would you choose?

The "EXPLANATION" accompanying the motion does not justify its passage.

The following explanation of the motion appears in the Agenda:

This amendment adds a non-exhaustive list of acts inimical, as modeled on the rules used by other not-for-profit social organizations. The amendment is necessary because the conduct of some members has, on a number of recent occasions, gone beyond that which is acceptable under general organizational standards and may have caused harm to the organization. Since there is presently no "map" as to what may constitute an act inimical, members affected by the improper conduct of other members have hesitated to bring charges. This amendment provides clear and simple guidelines as to the conduct that may subject a member to sanctions by a Hearings Committee, without strictly limiting the potential "acts inimical" to this list.

This explanation asserts that the definitions are "modeled on the rules used by other not-for-profit social organizations." But Mensa is not defined by a putative similarity to other organizations. It has a character of its own and it is the duty of AMC to preserve that character. Looking at other organizations may (or may not) be useful, but is not a proper basis for adopting others' rules and practices.

This explanation asserts that "[t]he amendment is necessary because the conduct of some members has, on a number of recent occasions, gone beyond that which is acceptable under general organizational standards and may have caused harm to the organization." This sentence contains allegations and conclusions which are not substantiated. Necessity is not established. Further, assuming the truth of the allegations as a hypothesis, there is no reason to believe that the elaboration of rules with more words will change anyone's behavior. Indeed, experience tends to show that it will not. The "cure" is likely to fail and even to promote other "diseases."

This explanation states, "Since there is presently no `map' as to what may constitute an act inimical, members affected by the improper conduct of other members have hesitated to bring charges." The implied effect of the motion, then, is to encourage the bringing of charges, to "grease the skids", so to speak, for more disciplinary actions. I submit that this is exactly what AMC should not be doing. If harm cannot be proven in fact, there should be no other basis for alleging "acts inimical." Hesitation in such matters is exactly what we should encourage. I ask, what sort of society do we purport to be? Where do AMC's responsibilities lie?

—Sander Rubin

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The AMC passed the motion 16-1-2. Banko and Becker abstained. Wilterding opposed. Bakke, Burg, Werdell, Vasiliauskas, Burke, Magnus, Kirsch, Kullman, Burnham, Rainey, Lytle, Rudolph, Remine, Soper, Gilbert and Pendley voted in favor of the motion. Jacobson and Beatty were not in attendance.]