By now you are all likely aware of an incident involving a senior moderator, /u/Anal_Cavities, in which he used a racial slur in response to /u/AOLwarez.

Following the comment, /u/Kentucky210 made a distinguished moderator comment, in which he advocated for giving Anal the chance to apologize and explain himself today, as this behavior is not what we've come to expect from one of our most senior moderators.

I want to explicitly say that there is no excuse for the language used by /u/Anal_Cavities, and on behalf of the /r/SquaredCircle moderation team, I would like to apologize for any unnecessary distress this situation has caused.

In the aftermath of Anal's comment, our immediate reaction was to make sure that he was okay. I know that the subreddit wanted him gone ASAP, and I know that the past few months Anal has made some comments that are not up to the standards I expect for this moderation team.

Because of his otherwise clean record, we've wanted to give Anal the chance to explain his actions - both to the subreddit and to the moderation team. Upon further review, we've come to the decision that nothing can be said to remedy this situation and the only solution left is his removal.

I am sorry that it took the time that it did, but since nothing like this has happened before, we did not want to proceed until all the moderators had the chance to weigh in. Again, there is absolutely no excuse for what happened, but in terms of the time it took us to reach a decision, I would ask for your understanding, as our moderators are spread across different timezones and I did not want to act hastily without their approval.

Ultimately, Anal's behavior would get a normal user a 3-day ban AT LEAST. For that reason, and because the language he used is never acceptable, we've removed him from our team.