to join the board and publicly pressed a publisher for answers as to why they had never signed a non-white romance author. For her efforts to increase diversity within the RWA, the Board gave Milan a Service Award in July 2019. In August 2019, Milan joined an ongoing Twitter conversation about racism and gatekeeping in the romance publishing industry. The conversation originally focused on Sue Grimshaw, a longtime romance buyer who allegedly refused to buy romance novels by authors of color. Grimshaw was hired as an acquiring editor by Suzan Tisdale, an author who had started a small publishing company. Milan reviewed a book written by Tisdale's other acquiring editor, Kathryn Lynn Davis, calling its depiction of a half-Chinese heroine racist. Tisdale and Davis filed ethics complaints with the RWA against Milan, who was at the time the chair of the RWA's Ethics committee. In her complaint, Davis wrote that Milan “cannot be allowed to hold a position of authority, or to use her voice to urge others to follow her lead" and alleged that Milan's comments had caused Davis to lose a book contract. On request, Milan resigned as chair of the Ethics committee to avoid any conflicts of interest. On December 23, 2019, the RWA Board voted to suspend Milan for one year and ban her from all leadership positions for life. As Milan noted, the board sanctioned her for the same behavior that had resulted in an RWA Service Award in July 2019. There was an intense backlash against the RWA's decision. The board reversed the sanctions a week later, citing irregularities in the process. In a mass resignation, the women of color on the Board of Directors resigned, as did the President, Carolyn Jewell. The RWA was forced to cancel the 2020 RITA Awards after hundreds of authors resigned as judges and more than 300 stories were withdrawn from consideration. Major publishers spoke out against the RWA's decision and announced their intention to skip the 2020 RWA annual conference. The Cultural, Interracial, and Multicultural Special Interest Chapter of the RWA organized a petition to recall the new RWA President, Damon Suede, which gained over 1000 signatures in two days; Suede and RWA executive director Carol Ritter both resigned on January 9. Davis admitted to The Guardian that her initial complaint was exaggerated - she had never had a contract for more books and did not explicitly