![]() Pober’s special interest in “good-looking, skinny white boys” was an “open secret,” Jon Tyree, who graduated from GMU in 2014, told me. Many who knew Pober well weren’t surprised when, in February 2018, after 15 years as the director of George Mason Forensics, he was placed on administrative leave amid allegations of sexual harassment. When Pober walked through the halls at a speech tournament, people would turn around and stare. In 2005 he started the George Mason Institute of Forensics, colloquially known as GMIF, one of the preeminent high-school public-speaking camps in the country, and led it for 13 years. Pober has participated in speech, as a competitor and then as a coach, for more than 35 years, steering two of the country’s top speech programs-at the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked until 2003, and at George Mason-and winning more top awards than almost any other coach in the country, building an international reputation. In the world of competitive public speaking, known to insiders as “forensics,” Pober is legendary his team, legendary by extension. If someone appears too reserved or too controlled, he will often arrange to meet with him after the tournament, and let him know. So as the team dances-for about 20 minutes, before every tournament-Pober closely examines each student. The prevailing wisdom in collegiate public speaking is that to be truly excellent, the performer must expose himself completely, presenting a speech so “raw” and “real” that he sheds his self-consciousness. It’s his time-honored pretournament ritual, designed to coax students out of their head for a few moments right before they compete. Because standing off to the side, arms crossed, their coach, Peter Pober, is watching. Still, they sway their hips, kick the air, jump up and down, bang on the walls, and belt out their best rendition of Nicki Minaj’s “Starships.” At least one person leaps on top of a chair. It’s 6:30 a.m., and most team members are running on four hours’ sleep and a granola bar for breakfast. On this rainy Saturday morning in April 2017, no one really wants to dance. After seeing the video, Burke shared her thoughts in a Twitter thread that begins, "If you talk to more SURVIVORS and less sexist businessmen maybe you’ll understand what we want.To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. If you're shaking your head and/or fuming after reading this, you're not alone. "The woman was better qualified, but she was very attractive, and he knew, 'I can't have her around, because it's too big of a risk.' And he hired somebody else. He's saying how stressed he is because he interviewed three people that day-one was a woman, two were men," Robbins explained. ![]() "I was just with someone the other day, very famous man, very powerful man. Robbins then gives an example of how he sees the movement playing out in real life: He implies that women have become a liability in the workplace because of the movement. ![]() Pushing against someone else doesn't make you more safe, he explains. He walks her backward through the aisle of the stadium by pushing against her fist, asking her why she's resisting his push in order to make his point. The life coach, whose website says he's "empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries," goes on to use McCool to make his point. When she gets the floor back almost a full two minutes later, she explains that she feels Robbins has mischaracterized an entire movement by claiming that women are using it for their own personal gains. She starts off by saying, "I think you misunderstand the #MeToo movement. In the 11-minute video, an audience member named Nanine McCool, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, is given a microphone to ask Robbins a question. "If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else… all you’ve done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good," Robbins says in the video. During Robbins' speech, he told the audience that the #MeToo movement is an excuse for women to use "victimhood" to help them gain "significance"-and it gets worse from there. The clip dates back to mid-March, when Robbins spoke in San Jose at his "Unleash the Power Within" self-help event, and Burke's response to it is incredibly salient, given the backlash the movement still faces today. The founder of #MeToo, Tarana Burke, took to Twitter on Saturday after video of highly influential life coach Tony Robbins, in which he misrepresents the movement and its impact, went viral. ![]()
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