Same shit, different day.
Is it me or does this sound eerily like the case of the Berkeley astronomy professor who resigned last year?
http://nyti.ms/1k5n3I9
It ain’t easy being elite!
Okay, I have a real problem with the following:
He “had not been found guilty of any offense at North Carolina”?!?!? Having an affair with a student under his advisement is not “an offense”?
U of C is getting a lot of praise for its “swift” action, yet they hired the guy knowing he had serious ethical shortcomings of a sexual nature. SMH…
He hadn’t been found guilty of an offense at UNC, although Chicago knew that he’d committed the offense. That’s your justification for hiring a sexual harasser, Chicago? You knew he harassed, but he hadn’t been caught?
I hope Chicago ends up having to pay monetary damages to the victims. They knew what they were hiring when they hired him. I hope the women he assaulted go after Chicago’s deep pockets.
And another!
This one is a paleoanthropologist previously associated with GWU, where he taught for 10+ years and chaired the anthropology department:
Well, was having a months-long affair with a graduate student in his lab an offense at North Carolina? It depends on what the rules were. It’s not proof that he’s a harasser. It’s certainly proof that he had poor judgment, if nothing else.
It’s an abuse of authority. “In his lab” means he was her boss.
I’ve read a great deal of angst about women and careers in the sciences. I think the star system, and the willingness of hiring committees to overlook grave abuses of trust in star hires, encourages women to choose other careers. What avenues would a young scientist have to protect herself from sexual aggression in her workplace?
Wear ugly, baggy clothing? Paint a front tooth black?
I think it needs to be acknowledged that there are female students who actively pursue professors, at both the graduate and undergraduate level. I certainly have known them.
Of course, they should understand that by doing so they are asking the professor to commit an ethical misdeed, at the least, more so if the student is an undergrad or in the same grad department. In this day and age there must be clear institutional policies regarding this sort of thing, and both parties should realize that this could be a firing offense.
The fact that this occurs does not, of course, excuse a professor who routinely hits on students, especially students in his department who may work for him, and certainly doesn’t excuse someone who takes advantage of a drunk student. I wonder whether the police will get involved? Sounds as if he is guilty of rape.
Well, as much as you and I think it should be, there are a number of institutions where having an affair with your advisee is not an offense under the terms of employment.
I used to work at an institution where not only was it not an offense, but some faculty saw it as just something one was normally supposed to do. Really sick and twisted, IMO, but fortunately they were mostly of a generation that didn’t grow up with the general cultural recognition that this could pose a problem, and therefore have reached or are closing in on retirement age—so maybe there’s hope.
The error is on the part of the U of C’s hiring committee. To invite someone to work on campus who had faced allegations of sexual harassment at other institutions (plural!) is to invite new allegations of such behavior on the U of C campus.
Which is what happened.
Yes, there are students who pursue professors. That doesn’t excuse the professors’ behavior.
It also reminds me of Geoff Marcy: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/15/berkeley-astronomer-resigns-over-sexual-harassment-investigation.
^^ Which is why I cited the Marcy case in my original post. 
What if the allegations are unfounded? Should the professors career but put on ice because of accusations that may not be true?
It’s the same as with any allegation of impropriety. Let’s consider a hypothetical professor, Professor Stellar. He has a great track record securing grants. And yet, he has a more lively employment record than his peers; somehow, he keeps changing employers. And there are these nasty rumors that funds in his lab are misspent. Or, alternatively, that research results have been misreported.
More than once. And you would wonder, if this guy’s a hot shot, why are his universities willing to see him leave?
A hiring committee is not obligated to give a potential hire the benefit of the doubt. I would be surprised if Professor Stellar’s career would continue to rise if the grants were threatened. Would you expect hiring committees to hire someone who is not trustworthy with finances or data?
Why are young scientists treated differently? Is it because the university system produces too many postgrads? Is it because it’s assumed females will welcome any attention from a male?
The real question is how do we realistically solve this problem? The way I see it, men are going to continue being men, and some will always be tempted to play with fire. The risk apparently goes up when you have powerful men surrounded by young, attractive, subordinate females.
That is both an amazingly cynical opinion of humanity, and an even more cynical opinion of men specifically (and really of women, too, as I read it again). I would like to know your evidence for such views, and a defense of what sounds like a very “boys will be boys” position on things.
It’s not cynical if its reality, dfbdfb. Men are attracted to women, and tend to be more bold/aggressive/dominant with regards to pursuing women than vice versa. That attraction is likely stronger when you have men in powerful positions surrounded by young, attractive females (do we really need evidence to prove this??).
Therefore, I feel my question is valid, how do we realistically prevent these incidents from occurring? Harsher penalties? Probably, but will that eliminate the problem? I’m not so sure.
I think harsher penalties, along with social disapproval, are necessary. This kind of behavior has to be just as taboo as overt racism.
The penalties are already pretty harsh though (usually termination, and often legal action), and social disapproval currently exists. I think the bigger problem is enforcement. Administrators looking the other way, or flat out ignoring these cases.
Beneath all of this are questionable morals/ethics. How do we fix that?
I think that part of the problem is that in the university setting you have a group of people who could be considered each other’s natural dating pool: same general educational aspirations, roughly the same age, interested in similar things, etc, etc. You’ve got TAs and undergrads who can be just a year or two apart in age. Same thing with grad students and post docs or professors. Relationships between some of these people are okay; others would seem to violate standards of propriety based on power relationships.
I’m talking about single people, here, not getting involved in marital infidelity issues! I’m also not talking about the guy at the U of C, who sounds predatory. (And I still wonder if there has been a complaint to the police…)