Carole Bell
Carole Bell was formerly a member of American Mensa, until being removed from membership as a result of a national hearing. She has subsequently joined British Mensa, despite a rule from Mensa International prohibiting national Mensas from accepting members that were expelled from other national Mensas without approval of the International Board of Directors, because at the time British Mensa had no provision in its governing documents permitting such a restriction on acceptance of members; this "loophole" has since been plugged by amendment, preventing any future people in similar situations from joining as she did.
In 2001, Bell was elected to the post of International Director of Development, which made her a member of the International ExComm and a director of Mensa International Limited. At her first meeting in this position, she clashed considerably with the other membersCite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag At the hearing (for which she arrived just barely in time after taking a long, complicated railway journey, although Mensa had provided her an airplane ticket that she did not use), she was officially removed from her elected position.[1][2]
Subsequently, she was brought up on a national hearing in American Mensa, held in New Jersey, at which she was expelled from Mensa membership for the "act inimical to Mensa" of bringing a dispute to an outside authority (the British court) before all internal means of resolution were exhausted. By then, she was spending most of her time in England, and eventually she joined British Mensa under the since-closed loophole that it had no provision permitting them to bar entry to expelled members from other countries, despite the International Mensa rules.
Her case was a hot topic of discussion on many Mensa political forums at the time, and still flares up there occasionally, similarly to the Judy Dosse hearings of the 1990s.
Notes and references
- ↑ Minutes of the Meeting of the International Board of Directors of Mensa International in Budapest, Hungary, 6th-7th October 2001 (requires username/password for Mensa International site, which can be found in issues of the International Journal)
- ↑ Transcript of hearing against Carole Bell (in file area of Unofficial-TRIBUNE list; requires list membership to access)
