UCL has released the promised statement. It’s short and to the point.
9 July 2015
UCL Council, the university’s governing body, has today reviewed all of the circumstances of the resignation of Sir Tim Hunt as an Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Life Sciences on 10 June. Having seen the relevant correspondence, including the exchange of emails between Sir Tim and UCL, the Council is satisfied that his resignation was accepted in good faith. Council unanimously supports the decision taken by UCL’s executive to accept the resignation.
The subsequent extent of media interest was unprecedented, and Council recognises the distress caused to Sir Tim and Professor Mary Collins. Council acknowledges that all parties agree that reinstatement would be inappropriate.
Council recognises that there are lessons to be learned around the communication process. Consequently it has requested that the executive undertake a review of its communications strategy.
Note the last sentence of the first paragraph –
Council unanimously supports the decision taken by UCL’s executive to accept the resignation.
That’s important, because Louise Mensch and her footsoldiers have been saying over and over that there’s a rebellion in the Council and that many members wanted to reinstate Hunt to his honorary professorship. It appears that Louise Mensch was wrong about that…at least, wrong that they wanted it badly enough to go to war over it.
I think I’ve read that UCL recognises that “the Tim Hunt affair” has damaged UCL’s reputation. Is it possible that his sexist remarks in Korea were his first ever after decades of support for female scientists? Should UCL be more careful in checking who it gives honorary positions to? (Statement of interest: UCL graduate.)
I think this is even more significant:
True Dat!
Note that “all parties” includes Sir Tim Hunt.
Very disappointed that the Now Show last Friday (which I just listened to today) had a long segment on this, including a skit by the cast, in which John Holmes took Sir Tim’s ‘side’. Punch up, people.
So this could be…over? But we’ve only had 33 days of talking about this — I wanted MORE!
Re #5:
Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to find obsessive antifeminists/hyperskeptics/MRAs raving on about it right up until the sun has swollen sufficiently to make this planet uninhabitable, if this is any consolation.
Considering the gutters you’d have to dredge with your browser to find them, mind, we’re probably better off just secure in the near certain knowledge they’re out there, somewhere.
(/Or perhaps we can suggest NASA build some sort of probe, if we’re really that curious. What with their experience building things for environments generally hostile to life.)
Note the third paragraph of the statement. Council also acknowledges that UCL seriously screwed the pooch on this one which is why the discussion is unlikely to disappear any time soon.
Always changing the subject.
The only thing Council acknowledges, Chris61, is that their communications to Tim Hunt didn’t work out to their satisfaction and their communications process needs review. I guess it’s all part of the “he resigned before direct contact could be established” context. But hey, keep spreading the lie that they said they “seriously screwed the pooch” on this one. Their unanimous vote says different.
Gen @9
In other words, PR-speak for “seriously screwed the pooch”. You have to love academic politics.
So Tim Hunt made perfectly appropriate and collegial remarks at that lunch, and then UCL came along and seriously screwed the pooch. This whole thing is all the doing of UCL. UCL also kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
Ophelia @11
No, Tim Hunt made inappropriate remarks at that lunch and then UCL came along and seriously screwed the pooch.
chris61,
UCL has a policy statement on Dignity at Work. They make clear that it applies to everybody and beyond Gower Street. Having done that and rather well they don’t expect to have to dash about the planet fishing Nobel laureates out of holes.
So they fumbled for a moment? Big deal!
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/docs/dignity-at-work.php
chris61 – and yet what UCL did is all you talk about, here and at Pharyngula.
Maureen @ 13
See that’s how a lot of people feel about Hunt. He fumbled for a moment and it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Ophelia @14
For some people, including a number of academics, what UCL did is as much or more of an issue than what Hunt said.
A fumble of social significance that is now echoing around the world.
The very same people who maintain that his statements were misrepresented and taken out of context despite Hunt admitting that he meant them and then apologizing for them. Their mistake, aside from thinking they can put the spin on his statements at this point, is to assume this is only about inappropriate jokes and not the views expressed by them, which contradict the very values he was meant to represent in his position. The only “fumble” on Hunt’s part is that his low opinion of women’s ability to do science became public.
chris61@ 15.
Let me lay it on the line for you.
Sir Tim Hunt was not doing science at that lunch in Korea. No-one has questioned the value of his scientific work, by the way. He was on a PR “mission” to a conference of women – almost certainly a freebie for him – to bring what in the trades union world call we fraternal or sororial greetings from an organisation which has long had a strong commitment to actual equality and is getting better at putting that aim into practice.
All he had to do was be polite to his hosts (failed) and either amuse (failed) or inspire (failed) the guests at a luncheon where he was the guest of a whole lot of women.
At first he said his remarks were a joke. Some joke and one which can be traced back at least 250 years. It was never a good joke and it has become steadily more wearing, steadily more tedious at every one of the several trillion times it has been told.
Then he said – BBC Today telephone interview from Seoul airport – that he meant it. Some confusion there, perhaps?
He had a useful job to do, if not his usual one. He made a complete bollocks of it and upset his hosts, worried his audience, embarrassed two organisations with which he is closely connected.
What should he get, then? A cookie?
Maureen @ 18
Tim Hunt made a bollocks of his remarks at the lunch. Three journalists who were there appear to have deliberately distorted what he said to turn it into a story. The media amplified the bollocks made by the three journalists and the UCL made a bollocks of their response to what he was reported to have said. So no, Hunt doesn’t deserve a cookie but nor does anybody else involved. Maybe this will all end up helping women in science but somehow I doubt it.
No.
Ophelia @20
You don’t think so? The evidence, limited as it is, would indicate otherwise to me. For starters, Deborah Blum’s original post had Hunt saying something positive about women in science and then coming up with his joke. Connie St Louis in her interview with BBC had Hunt starting out by saying something along the lines of thanking the women for preparing the lunch because that was their role, making his infamous statement and then slogging on for another five minutes or so. (But apparently only a few dozen words were worth transcribing.) Seife who was also there initially claimed Hunt had never said “my trouble” but rather “the trouble”. Which claim he quickly dropped. Three journalists claim they independently transcribed the comments and agreed when they compared notes but nobody agrees on the details. Which suggests nobody was really paying that much attention. Which to me suggests that in contrast to the outrage that three or four journalists report having felt, many in the room didn’t find the speech all that remarkable at the time.
Because that’s how speech works. You don’t know somebody is going to say something “provocative” from the outset; the provocation develops as the provoker talks, so you start paying “that much attention” partway in.
Ophelia @22
Yes, that’s how speech works and that’s why the story has been suspicious from the start. Why did Connie St. Louis’s transcript not include any more of that 5 -7 minutes that he apparently slogged on? Why did Deborah Blum not notice that Hunt continued to talk for some minutes once her attention had been captured? Or if he didn’t, why did St. Louis think he did? Why did none of the other 90-100 journalists present transcribe any comments? They’re journalists sitting on a ‘hot’ story and they ignore it? Some of them may have been listening to translations rather than to the speech itself but even so I’d have expected a few more people to sit up and take notice (and transcribe!) if what Hunt said was really perceived as being provocative.
I’m not interested in relitigating this yet again. Louise Mensch has that job covered. Either talk about something else now or go away; I don’t need a full-time Tim Hunt-defender on staff.