A Statement of Accountability from the Commission on Appraisal

The members of the Commission on Appraisal speak with one voice to offer our apology for the hurt and distress caused by our presentation to the plenary at General Assembly in Quebec last month. We are elected by the General Assembly, and are thus accountable to the General Assembly and to the congregations represented by that body. A presentation to the plenary should always represent our best work, our best planning and communication, and our best efforts to honor the principles of our faith and the commitment of the UUA to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive institution. Sad to say, our presentation was hastily written, carelessly reviewed, and unrehearsed. We regret that the skit which was part of our presentation was not anywhere close to our best work, and did not reflect the principles to which we are committed.

In calling ourselves to account in the aftermath of General Assembly, we ask ourselves several questions. How did we allow this to happen? What can we do to restore right relations? What is it we need to learn from this? In answering those questions, we commit to the following:

• the intentional application of anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and anti-bias lenses to all our work, individually and communally;
• working together as a group to sharpen those lenses and develop new skills;
• continued reflection among ourselves about additional steps we can take to ensure such a misstep does not happen again;
• developing ongoing relationships with DRUUMM and the Journey Towards Wholeness Transformation Team and others with the intention of formalizing our structures of accountability and awareness; and
• sharing what we have learned publicly.

As elected leaders of the Unitarian Universalist Association, we recognize that we are called to model best practices, even and especially when this means modeling the process of learning from our own mistakes. We intend to stay engaged in the sometimes difficult process of trying to deepen our own understanding and promote change in ourselves, our Association, and our society.

Janis Sabin Elliot, Chair
Rev. Roberta Finkelstein
Charles B. Redd
Joyce Gilbert
Rev. Earl Holt, Vice Chair
Janice Marie Johnson
Dr. James Casebolt
Mark Hamilton
Rev. Linda Weaver Horton

July 2002