As you might have noticed, the structure of the EGG board/organizers changed a bit (here you find the current members: https://www.eggschool.org/organizers/). In this post, we would like to briefly clarify the background of these changes.
So far, the EGG board consisted of the following members:
2 phonology members (Tobias Scheer and Eugeniusz Cyran)
1 syntax member (Magdalena Lohninger)
1 semantics member (Deniz Özyıldız and Berit Gehrke “shared” this seat)
1 logistics member (Petra Charvat)
There have been discrepancies within the EGG board for multiple years now, mainly concerning the following topics:
- imposing a gender quota which regulates that an even amount of female/diverse and male teachers are invited to the school. Tobias and Eugeniusz refused a gender quota with the result of a predominantly male line-up of phonology teachers: from 2016-2025, the phonology track hosted 32 male and only 3 female teachers. In comparison, the syntax and semantics line-ups, for which the other board members were responsible, show an even distribution (syntax: 25 male & 25 female; semantics: 25 male & 23 female)
- having a Code of Conduct (CoC) for the summer school. Over the last years there were repeated incidents of (unwanted) sexual attention between participants (including teachers and students) at various EGG summer schools. Based on this, Deniz, Magdalena, Berit and Petra suggested having a CoC in the style LSA provides (https://www.lsadc.org/lsa_code_of_conduct_for_events). Tobias and Eugeniusz rejected a CoC of any kind, comparing it to a restriction of free speech and an “oppressive regime based on denunciation”. Tobias pointed out that there were women “who in fact want sexual attention, even if uncalled for”, and suggested that the “orgy and party” image EGG supposedly had would attract several students and teachers (even after another board member pointed out that this image would often scare away students from attending and discourage professors from sending their students to the EGG).
- grant an equal voting right to everyone involved in organizing the school. Tobias and Eugeniusz insisted that only the following members have a right to vote (on decisions like the gender quota, the CoC, teacher line-ups and the yearly location of the school): the two phonology members (Tobias and Eugeniusz) and the two syntax & semantics members (Deniz and Magdalena). They rejected for the logistics member (Petra) and the second semantics member (Berit) to participate in votes with the reasoning “that they are not proper board members”. Even though Petra and Berit did the majority of organizational work and attended most of the last years’ summer schools (whilst Tobias was only partly present and Eugeniusz never attended any school during his 5 year involvement in the board), they refused to change this voting system.
(Note that none of this board/voting structure is set in written statutes or anything alike, nor has it been agreed upon by all current board members (in fact, Petra, for most years, was not even informed that she had no voting right.)) - a democratic and equitable board setup, in which every track has an even number of members (we proposed the following versions: 2 phonology + 2 semantics + 2 syntax members or 1 phonology + 1 semantics + 1 syntax member + 1-2 logistics members). All options were refused by the two phonologists with the reason “that the phonology side would then lose its 50% of votes”.
During this summer, we repeatedly tried to settle things within the EGG board and proposed various changes and compromises, none of which Tobias agreed to. In the course of this, Eugeniusz left the board and was intermittently replaced by Alex Chabot. Even though Alex did not know anything about the exact board setup and the previous discussion, he backened all of Tobias’ decisions and was not open to listening to the other four board members.
Therefore, we, that is four of the previously six board members (Petra, Deniz, Berit & Magdalena) decided to change the EGG board structure to something we deem more democratic and equitable (1 syntax + 1 semantics + 1 phonology + 2 logistics/general support members) and submitted a proposal for funding to the Van Riemsdijk Foundation in this constellation. We offered Tobias (and later Alex) the still-vacant phonology spot, as this was not an effort to boycott them as persons, but to grant an equal voting right to everyone involved in organizing. Both of them declined.
We hope that restructuring the board will lead to fairer votes, a better distribution of work between the three subfields and a shift to a more open and diverse school.
The EGG board – Petra, Deniz, Berit & Magdalena