Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Atheists Boot Leader David Silverman Over Sex Accusations

A leading movement representing atheists has fired its president over accusations of sexual misconduct.

American Atheists, an organization devoted to the promotion of secularism and removal of expressions of religion in government, dumped David Silverman Friday after the release of a BuzzFeed News story that reported two women’s claims of nonconsensual sexual contact with them.

According to one of the women, Silverman assaulted her in his hotel room following the American Atheists convention in Memphis in 2015.

The second woman stated, “I don’t believe I was in a position to be able to give consent. I was very intoxicated,” regarding the 2012 night she met Silverman at a bar in Columbus during the annual convention of the Secular Student Alliance.

Silverman, who started with American Atheists in 1996 and became president in 2010, denies the allegations. “Mr. Silverman denies any wrong doing and has never had a non-consensual sexual encounter,” his lawyer told BuzzFeed.

“We take our obligation to create safe and welcoming communities for our staff, volunteers, members and supporters very seriously,” Nick Fish, American Atheists’ national program director, said in a statement.

Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.