First it was Geoffrey Marcy, the astronomer who was sexually harassing students for at least a decade. Next it was Christian Ott, an astrophysicist at Caltech who was up to some publicly unspecified shenanigans. He’s been suspended.
For what is believed to be the first time in its history, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena has suspended a faculty member for gender-based harassment. The researcher has been stripped of his university salary and barred from campus for 1 year, is undergoing personalized coaching to become a better mentor, and will need to prove that he has been rehabilitated before he can resume advising students without supervision. Caltech has not curtailed his research activities.
Again, we don’t know what he had done specifically, but we can assume it was serious if they actually suspended a tenured professor with two NSF grants and a CAREER award.
And then there’s a third case. It’s an old case, a sexual harassment situation that was quietly resolved a decade ago, and the professor involved, Timothy Slater, says he is a changed man, that he had the sexual harassment sensitivity training and is thoroughly reformed, and now has a decade of problem-free research activity at the University of Wyoming.
Unfortunately, what prompted the initial accusations were pretty ugly.
Officials interviewed at least 10 witnesses who worked with Slater and told investigators that he routinely made lewd jokes and behaved inappropriately. Investigators described a work environment where sexual innuendo was frequent and tolerated and boundaries were often blurred. Slater and another senior member of his lab often invited graduate students to lunch and lap dances at strip clubs and and even gave students sex toys — such as chocolate handcuffs and the cucumber-shaped vibrator — as gifts.
One woman who worked for Slater told investigators that he regularly told her that “she would teach better if she did not wear underwear.” Once, she said, “he grabbed her underwear through her dress, stretched it and snapped it, and said ‘You’d look a whole lot better without these on.’”
The woman also told investigators that she once complained to Slater that the room they were working in was too cold. Slater, the woman said, responded by looking “at her breasts and comment[ing] that he thought ‘they’ were supposed to get hard and stand out when they were cold, and that it must not be too cold.”
On other occasions, she said, Slater told her: “I want to get you naked” and “Stand up, turn around — half the boys in your class are going home to masturbate after watching you teach.”
This occurred years ago, and he’s got a clean record now, so barring recent evidence, we should consider him reformed. But it leaves open a major question:
How the hell, in a fiercely competitive academic job market, could this guy have gotten a second chance?
I’m sorry, but this is a cutthroat business where we’ll roundfile an applicant for a job who only got two papers out of a post-doc, but apparently we’ll give a pass to someone who takes students out to strip clubs and is censured for sexual harassment by his university — and in this case, the university thought it appropriate to make their condemnation confidential. No wonder this situation persists when offenders get a slap on the wrist and the protection of a wall of silence.
One congressperson is trying to change the secrecy of the Old Boy’s Network.
Speier announced that she would introduce legislation aimed at requiring universities to inform other universities of the outcome of a disciplinary proceeding. “It’s time to stop pretending sexual harassment in science happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” she said.
This state of affairs was made public by Pamela Gay, who received the confidential file from an informant and passed it on more widely. I approve. We can’t get change from within if the within is hiding its sins.
“I did this when I realized that astronomy is currently not able to protect its community members from abuse, and that real change would only be possible with public and political pressure acting from the outside,” Gay said in an email.
Now as I said, Slater got a second chance he probably shouldn’t have, but if he’s been a good citizen since I can’t see punishing him again. But my sympathy kind of vanished with this comment.
“My wife, Stephanie, and I are admittedly very, very successful in our field, which causes more than a small amount of jealousy,” Slater wrote. “Dr. Gay and her comrades are our direct competitors, and have unfortunately engaged in this kind of gossip against us for years.”
…
The Slaters have since threatened to sue Gay. On Wednesday, Timothy Slater filed a version of his letter as a sexual harassment complaint with Gay’s university, accusing her of violating its sexual harassment policy by making “frivolous and malicious sexual harassment charges” against him.
Wait. The guy who was found guilty of rather blatant sexual harassment is now planning to sue the person who revealed his crimes…for sexual harassment? Maybe he hasn’t reformed as much as he claims. Suing whistleblowers for exposing bad behavior is a great way to shelter that bad behavior and allow it to continue on.
If Pamela Gay needs help fighting off this threat, I’ll let you all know.
One other thing: the American astronomical community is beginning to look like a terrible hotbed of abusive sexual predators, but what we should keep in mind is that the reason for that is that lately they’ve been exposing these problems to the light, and acting strongly to slap them down. That is a good thing. Maybe, instead of giving American astronomers suspicious looks, we should wonder why the European astronomers, or the biologists, or the chemists, are all sitting there so quietly. It’s almost as if they don’t want us to notice them.
I know that most of my colleagues and advisors were respectful and supportive of women, but I also heard second hand rumors of several who were not. I can’t name names, because these were second-hand…but if someone were to plop a file or a first-person account on me, I’d definitely make it public, as Gay did (note: that is not an invitation! I also know from experience how vicious the backlash gets. But I would not shy away from the responsibility, if forced on me). I would hope (and prefer!) others would, too. I know there are bad actors in every discipline, and so I’m less troubled by the vigorous and open reactions of astronomers than I am by the curtain of silence discreetly drawn over the affairs of other academics.
Here are Congressperson Speier’s remarks on the issue:
Oh, jebus. The full report (pdf) is available. Those select quotes weren’t the worst stories in there.
I see what the root of Slater’s problem is: he has no idea whatsoever what sexual harassment even means.
Assign him to a course of remedial English.
This is a well thought out and balanced look at the days news. The Christian Ott news is good as it shows that when people complain no one is above the law. Universities can’t police what no one tells them about.
Furthermore, the second accusations show that a while back a prof would be disciplined for the kind of actions that man was accused of. Reading his wife’s blog she does not seem to think that one was handled so quietly…it was just such a long time ago now. Unless we mean for someone to get a lifetime ban…he is a positive example that the system when used was working even in 2004. I’m not sure I agree that simply going to a strip club if it was off hours social activity constitutes harassment in the workplace. They were really nasty and egregious things.
I asked the VC of an Australian university how they’d handle a situation like Marcy soon after it broke. He took the question very seriously – including making sure HR also heard it – and indicated that he’s removed people from the university for less while faculty dean. The university considers sexual harassment to be an example of unethical conduct, so in cases where behaviour might be interpreted as discriminatory, it was on the staff member to ensure they didn’t even come close to that line.
This is a mid-level Australian university – top 20, but not top 3 – and I can’t speak to how typical the approach is in Australia or even whether this particular university would actually act the way they believe they would. I like the approach of tying sexual harassment to ethical conduct, though.
OT, I know, but… “Chocolate handcuffs”? How do they work?
Re. the Christian Ott case:
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Io Kleiser and Sarah Gossan, who Ott harassed and who filed complaints against him, have provided more information. BuzzFeed has the story: http://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/ott-harassment-investigation . Trigger warning for examples of Ott’s sexual harassment.
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As an alum of Caltech (although I was in Planetary Science rather than Physics), I say that Caltech must do better at preventing and dealing with instances of harassment. Firing Ott permanently would seem to be a good start.
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Re. Hontas Farmer @2:
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No, Timothy Slater is _not_ a “positive example that the system worked”.
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Slater has continued to harass people since 2004. His recent retaliatory bullying of Pamela Gay, which PZ mentioned above, is only one example. Another example comes from the middle of 2015, when both Timothy and Stephanie Slater engaged in a grossly unethical (and also illegal) project to defame advocates for social justice in professional physics & astronomy that they disagreed with as “anti-social”. Details should be available at https://www.facebook.com/equity.einstein/posts/1420566431600546?fref=nf .
_
And people at University of Wyoming report that they did not know about Slater’s history of harassment when making the decision to hire him (see http://mashable.com/2016/01/12/astronomy-professor-sexual-harassment-university-of-arizona/#lpLFSRHIoiq2 ). As Rep. Speier said in her statement, that’s a large part of the problem: Harassers go from one place to another, continuing to harass people, and they are able to get away with it because no one knows the full extent of their history.
Sounds like all Slater has learned is to be a bit more subtle in his methods, which, from the description, shouldn’t have been difficult or much of an improvement. And even though I’ve been reading this blog and Futrelle’s mammoth for years, I am baffled how someone could engage in this kind of behaviour. A perfect storm of privilege, power and utter obliviousness. Changed man my arse, someone who does stuff like that should be kicked out, period.
I’m not sure about universities here in Europe – I dread the answer for no reason other than being habitually disappointed on the sexism score. But the Royal Society of Chemistry and Institution of Engineering and Technology* both have been trying to work on the dearth of women in STEM-fields. Their respective monthlies have been running quite a few articles on the various problems (disparities, pay gap, harrassment and other topics) and there are a number of events, awards and grants to support women in their careers. All in all I’d like to think they’re doing well. Unfortnuately, I can’t say how active harrassment is treated, which could mean one of three things:
1) I just don’t know because I haven’t heard anything (Fingers crossed)
2) I haven’t heard anything because there is nothing going on (Not getting my hopes up)
3) There is something going on but the powers that be elect to keep it quiet instead of dealing with it (Tanj!)
*One of many professional bodies for Engineers in the UK. Sadly the engineers never managed to unify into one society. Everyone has to have their own thing.
Re: NelC #4:
I happen to know that NATO-ration packs for soldiers include chocolate bars that, slipped into your pocket, would probably stop a bullet.* I’m sure the same material could be used to manufacture sturdy handcuffs with mechanical locks and keys. If you tried to gnaw your way out of them you might starve to death before you could free yourself.
*Shattering into a million razor-sharp pieces lacing your body in delicious but deadly shrapnel instead.
The Caltech thing is just “tip of the Iceberg”, Caltech is about to get SHUT DOWN by the Feds
“Threat to National Security”
Patriot Act (MANDATORY Federal Prison sentence) is about to get invoked. See below, plus there’s a SECOND instance of Threat to National Security (with repercussions to TMT = Thiry Meter Telescope with Caltech as a partner). TMT has been temporarily suspended, the Hawaii governor (Ive) is involved!!
Funny thing..mentioned in publicly disclosed internal Caltech letter is Provost Ed Stolper,
“The faculty committee concluded, and the provost concurred, that there was unambiguous gender-based harassment of both graduate students by the faculty member.”
who HIMSELF HARASSED/EXTORTED female engineering professor Dr Sandra Troian (recruited from Princeton)..who is SUING Caltech!! The IRONY is STUNNING!!
Ugly details here:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/sp-caltech.html
191. Caltech’s four years of retaliation and harassment have also caused Dr. Troian severe anxiety, stress, sadness and depression, sleep disturbances and other physical ailments.
“According to Troian, when she reported these violations, some Caltech administrators and professors ignored the Israeli’s extensive violations, and then, enabled by diverse cronies and subordinates, launched an ESCALATING RETALITATORY CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER for trying to stop the Israeli’s illegal activities. Some of the actions described below were remarkably petty, others of considerable significance.
The complaint, filed November 13th, 2014, describes the course of events in illuminating and excruciating detail. The statement also says that Stolper and others worked to impede information from reaching the FBI, which was investigating possible Israeli spying and infiltration at Caltech.
The alleged espionage and theft largely took place at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a top NASA research and development center.
According to Troian’s statement, ***Stolper*** repeatedly attempted to intimidate Troian, saying that
people at Caltech “feared” him and that she would be “miserable” if she did not cooperate with him.
[ This is EXTORTION, not just harassment ]
Stolper also seems to have used his power to deny Troian more than a million dollars worth of grant funds, threatened to cut off her access to post-doctoral researchers, and attempted to tar her with (unfounded) accusations of scientific misconduct.
If Troian’s statements below are accurate, they reveal SIGNIFICANT SUBVERSION of one of America’s most important scientific institutions. They also provide a case study of how U.S. taxpayer funded scientific technology is stolen by Israel. U.S. agencies periodically name Israel as a top espionage threat against the United States.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Troian said: “I have committed my heart and soul to Caltech. But I will not violate the law. And, I will not allow Caltech to ruin my career for alerting them to violations of laws intended to protect our greater society.””
“There are no words to describe the shit-show that is Academia”
— Dr Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, MIT post-doc Physics (outspoken on FB about gender, race)
The internal Caltech email is here:
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fus11.campaign-archive1.com%2F%3Fu%3D0657df8937aa6f6a60b025e79%26id%3D7a115853f8&h=8AQFEDEer
It’s a LAUGHABLE PC (“politically correct”) response, the ONLY reason they suspended Ott & went public, was because of the Marcy/Berkeley action. The Academic equivalent of Bill Cosby/Hollywood — a general malaise. Cosby has the NERVE to sue some of the complainers, just like Dr Pamela Gay (leaked a document from an anonymous complainer) is being threatened with lawsuit.
Caltech has a LONG history of sexual harassment culture..undergrads & Feynman antics. Why hasn’t Caltech done anything about it (Checks/Balances, Rules/Enforcement Model, etc), & now taking a “heroic stand”?? It’s massive HYPOCRISY. There were female whistle-blower going back to 2000, via Ms magazine:
http://www.msmagazine.com/aug01/college3.html
“There’s a lot of denial about what’s happening to women on campus. According to several people I talked to, there was a meeting about SEXUAL VIOLENCE several years ago in which participants responded to women’s stories of rape by saying, “That doesn’t happen here.” And when I said I was writing this article, some people advised me not to discuss glomming or other problems because it might scare away potential students, and we desperately need a more diverse student body. It never seems to occur to anyone that maybe women should be wary about coming to Caltech. We do need more women students here — and more students of color — but they will be better prepared to deal with the atmosphere if they are warned about it instead of being deceived into thinking Caltech is some kind of utopia for aspiring scientists. That is the first step in transforming Caltech into a school where the administration rigorously enforces its own sexual harassment policy, where women and students of color do not feel like oddities. ”
“Universities are AFRAID of old alumni [ who know of problems ]”
Before the Web/Internet (an invention by Academia), these “problems” could be covered up..people forget. With Social Media, the entire ROTTING MESS that’s Academia is now expose. The Irony is STUNNING — Academia’s own invention (Web/Internet) is about to BRING IT DOWN!!
Take a look at this link, where some REALLY UPSET Caltech alumni are chiming in about Caltech sad-state of affairs:
https://gordonwatts.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/cutting-at-universities/
“By the way, alum donations also go way down if students don’t have a meaningful and awesome experience. Unhappy students = unhappy alums. Get rid of deadbeat professors who do nothing for the students. Keep the staff who take care of the students.”
— caltechalum
“Caltech has one of the richest endowments in the nation for a school of its size. This is despicable. As an alum, I think I will redirect my charitable donations this year to something else. No doubt professors (some of whom are horrible and have no business teaching or being at Caltech) will be spared while the people who truly work and make sure that the students are taken care of will be affected the most. I truly question whether this new president [ Dr Jean Chameau..preceded current Dr Rosenbaum ] values anything other than “name” professors. He certainly doesn’t care about the students’ experience and the people that take care of the students. The students are the raison d’etre of the University and he seems to have forgotten that.”
— caltechalum
“As a former Caltech student, I can tell you that ‘family’ atmosphere is gone. It is run like a business. This change is noted with sorrow by many current and former students. It began when they lost so much money in the stock market after the dot com bust and the 9/11 attacks. When money rules, people suffer.
When Caltech’s student body threatened to boycott dining services to protest pricing and availability changes, the administration said they would fire employees to compensate for the lost income.
Professors don’t care about mentoring students as much as they care about consulting for industry and making $$$. My graduate adviser prevented me from moving forward with an idea because it would have conflicted with his private company’s financial interests.
Currently, they’re cutting loose and graduating many graduate students because they can’t afford to keep them on, even as cheap labor.
They take $$$ from the NIH and NSA, and who knows how they spend it? How many hours do you think Caltech professors and students spend looking at internet pornography?
Hint: there are about 4 men per 1 woman on campus.
It’s pathetic to see this institution go through these changes.”
— Former Caltech student
The above comments were from Pasadena Star News (which I saved..thankfully).
Caltech is about to be BROUGHT DOWN to its knees (ala Bill Cosby) via
“Preponderance of Evidence”
along with its sister institutions (R1 Univs in Astronomy & Physics) — Harvard, U of Arizona, et al.
The Presidents of Harvard, Caltech, U of Arizona along with Director of NASA/JPL (run by Caltech) will have to RESIGN.
I AM NOT KIDDING ABOUT THIS.
I’ve got the paper-trail, I’ve been “toiling” over this, like the female sex harassment victims (many of them anonymous)
Appendix 7 million $$ per year ACCOUNTING RAUD (Whistle-blower on Pasadena Star News)
UsedtoWorkforCaltech:
CalTech is the teaching aspect. And JPL is the applications side of the house. When I worked there, I learned that Caltech were being billed ERRONEOUSLY by certaincompanies for about $643K monthly. Because the Manager did not know how to correct the problem, and BECAUSE THE ERROR IN BILLING HAD GONE ON FOR SOOOOOO LONG, the Manager opted to leave the billing as is.
I could not believe that to save face, rather than to save the institution money, she would rather continue paying an erroneous bill of $643K PER MONTH. PER MONTH !!!
[ that’s 7.7 million dollars…FRAUD, invites the Feds for investigation. I.e. OIG/Office of Inspector General for NASA, which reports to Charles Bolden (NASA Head) with DoJ/Dept of Justice as Enforcement Agency ]
When I found and proved the error, I gave her all the paperwork so SHE could look like the hero. She could have adopted any kind of presentation to make herself look good.
CalTech and JPL are quite corrupt.
By the way, if you are a foreigner, you stand a better chance of getting hired. They don’t care if you’re a citizen of not. And they overlook visa’s and citizenship papers. All you need is a PhD and with CalTech and JPL, you’re IN !!!
==========
Bottomline:
Caltech has traditionally had a loose/fast Management style for their Faculty/Students (that extends to JPL).
They can’t keep their people UNDER CONTROL
Generally, Academia is like the Catholic Church (since Univs were derived from Catholic Church INFRA-STRUCTURE to “prove” religion):
It’s an Old/CORRUPT infrastructure that allows CORRUPTION (incl sexual predators) to thrive
I’m just going to leave this bit from comment number 2 up here for everyone to admire.
(1) There apparently is such a thing.
(2) Generalissimo Google™ also reports “chocolate handcuffs” is a term for a certain “sexual” act. Those of a squeamish disposition probably do not want to investigate! (You have been warned.)
Has Witness J in the report been outed yet? There are indications that he used his position (alongside Slater) to possibly have sex with minors and seemed to be a bit more creepy to the complaining witnesses (at in contrast to Slater at least, who seemed content to just push verbal boundaries). Slater enabled Witness J and did a lot of things wrong, don’t get me wrong, but reading the report left me with the suspicion that Witness J might be the non-consensual type. Anybody else get that impression?
And once again. It likely isn’t the first time Newman has done this. Expect more victims to speak up.
http://jezebel.com/mount-sinai-doctor-accused-of-ejaculating-on-sedated-pa-1752808252
This is what happens when there’s no accountability, when a sense of entitlement and invulnerability is encouraged.
In what way is this sad story different than the RC Church finding serial predators, burying the findings and shipping him to a new parish? One college fires a teacher but doesn’t tell the next institution down the line what happened. Transparency is needed in all cases!
I’m not sure I agree that simply going to a strip club if it was off hours social activity constitutes harassment in the workplace.
I’m just going to leave this bit from comment number 2 up here for everyone to admire.
I stand by that. IF slater made people go to a club to meet him to talk about their work that was wrong. If he and some work mates wanted to go to a strip club and a female student willingly went along that’s on them.
Now his giving people sex toys, making comments about underwear, etc etc are clearly unprofessional and he was rightly punished for it. IMO those victim should have sued and gotten PAID. They had a good case.
That said, simply going to a strip club, or having a sexual life that doesn’t make someone else comfortable is not in and of itself sexual harassment. Heck, if I was 80 lbs lighter I’d be stripping on the side myself.
The trick is to keep your hands and sex lives and raunchy jokes to yourself unless you are really comfortable with your coworkers and know everyone is cool
I’m not sure I agree that simply going to a strip club if it was off hours social activity constitutes harassment in the workplace.
I’m just going to leave this bit from comment number 2 up here for everyone to admire.
I stand by that.
IF slater made people go to a club to meet him to talk about their work that was wrong. If he and some work mates wanted to go to a strip club and a female student willingly went along that’s on them.
Now his giving people sex toys, making comments about underwear, etc etc are clearly unprofessional and he was rightly punished for it. IMO those victim should have sued and gotten PAID. They had a good case.
That said, simply going to a strip club, or having a sexual life that doesn’t make someone else comfortable is not in and of itself sexual harassment. Heck, if I was 80 lbs lighter I’d be stripping on the side myself.
The trick is to keep your sex lives and raunchy jokes to yourself unless you are really comfortable with your coworkers and know everyone is cool. NEVER touch another co worker unless permission is asked first or a relationship is established where permission is a given. (i.e. I’m sure a husband and wife team can kiss eachother.)