Chairman Lehfeldt, esteemed at-large, independent, and athlete directors,

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First, congratulations to the newly elected and appointed USA Fencing Board members! We are happy to see the new USFA board has started its duties and some of our concerned items are being brought into discussion. By way of an introduction to those who are not familiar with us, Fair Fencing Organization (FFO) is a nationwide nonprofit organization representing more than 3000 active fencing families who strive to improve fairness, transparency, professionalism, and safety in the fencing sport. Almost all of our members are members of USA Fencing. 

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Recently, we have voiced some concerns to USFA board members. We would like to bring these concerns to your attention again. To state an obvious fact, USA Fencing is a membership organization. The members fund almost 100% its operation and the members can and should voice their concerns to USFA leadership. 

 

As board members, whether you were elected by the members or appointed by the board, all of you have fiduciary duties to USFA and its members.  Your personal political stand or preference should not, and cannot take precedence over the will of majority of the members. Specifically, your decision on issues cannot only satisfy your own feeling of moral superiority or be obsessed with political correctness, while ignoring the interest of members. Among the many issues that are of concerns by a vast majority of members, the following three are of paramount importance to our members. 

 

1) National Tournament Sites Selection Criteria

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USFA has a policy of prioritizing the States that support women’s abortion rights, LGBTQ "relationship and parental recognition," etc. (see lgbtmap.org map below, among others, the MAP is excluding all SE states with significant membership), when it comes to the tournament sites selection. This is a political choice without a common consensus of the members. All the reasoning behind this policy is either hypothetical or ideological while disregarding the members’ real safety, accessibility issues, and even the organization’s financials. 

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For our FFO members, Safety (the crime rate of the tournament city), Accessibility (how easy for the fencers to fly to the tournament city), and Financials (the cost of tournament location, the fees that fencers and fencing family would pay, and the revenue that will sustain the development of this sport, etc.) are the paramount considerations in selecting a tournament location, therefore we fully support the motion on these three stated criteria. 

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Nothing else matters more than these three factors. In USFA’s prior site selections, our fencers were harassed by hooligans on the street, heard gunshots outside of their hotels, while some families hid for safety in a restaurant's kitchen. It only takes one crime against our members to cause irreparable harm to the fencing community and USFA. This letter also serves as a notice to USFA leadership that damages to our members are foreseeable and preventable if USFA takes appropriate precautions. 

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2) Transgender Athletes

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We do not oppose transgender! We believe that all people should be able to participate in the fencing sport regardless of gender, age, race, nationality, etc. But the competition must be fair. That is why we agree with the motion by a board of director to form an all-women task force to conduct a study to better understand the dynamics of transgender participation. Only after a comprehensive study with members’ input, a sensible and balanced policy can be formulated. 

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We respect LGBTQ+ as people’s sex orientation and identification. However, when LGBTQ is being abused as a political cult that members cannot even study the issue, it becomes the dictatorship in communist countries, which many of our members have personal experience with. Politics aside, it is a reasonable request to form a task force to do a deeper dive on this issue in fencing and create a safe space where the voices of all women are heard without ridicule and abuse. USFA cannot just ignore the concerns as there are multiple high profile class action lawsuits already on the way regarding this issue. Denying such a task force will force our members to join those lawsuits and put USFA on the defensive stand. 

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3) USFA’s DEI Position

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We welcome the diversity in fencing and are glad to see athletes with diversified background, race, age, location, education, and profession participating in the sport. Past decades have proven that diversity evolves naturally. However, there is no need to use members’ funds for a paid position for a DEI role, and this is the reason why we support this motion. In principle, USFA should not use members’ funds to create any ideologically or politically motivated positions ever unless it is authorized by the majority of the members.  

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Lastly, we condemn any action selectively leaking board directors’ motions to a group of “activists”, before board directors have had a chance of any debate and reasoning in a board meeting. We further condemn the attempt to launch preemptive strikes on the social media against directors’ fulfillment of their fiduciary duties. We condemn any person, whether elected or not, who tries to use such a social media to shut down elected directors’ legitimate motions before the board meeting. It is a gross violation of corporate governance and we are prepared to stand against this and all prior violations of corporate governance committed by any person. 

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We send this letter to you to reaffirm our position on these issues. The members’ will does not depend on the decibel of social media. Most of our members are busy with their work, training, and sending the kids to fencing. They do not use the same Internet forums that you may often see. We are hopeful that we can work with and support this new board to improve this organization and sport. That is why we voice our concerns to this board. However, when important issues like the above ones are ignored, reasonable requests denied, voices through legitimately elected directors silenced, our members will have every reason to believe that USFA is not willing to listen to its members’ concerns. Thus our hope that members can participate in the organization’s management through general elections of board directors is a mere delusion. When such a constructive approach is not available to our members, we will not hesitate to voice our concerns and positions through other lawful means with full force and resources. 

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We request USFA to conduct a survey/vote on the topics above among all USFA members so we will all know where the USFA members stand on these issues. For too long USFA has come up with decisions and policies totally disconnected with the majority of the members. We are hopeful that this new board will listen to the members’ voices and make much needed changes. The time is now.

 

Sincerely,

Fair Fencing Organization

www.fairfencing.org