I spent some time at an 'elite' neuroscience institution - HHMI Janelia. They're good at window dressing but they try to 'hire the best' and prioritize that over everything else. As a result they end up with self-obsessed PIs who are good at publishing, not doing science - usually at the cost of all those under them in their lab, and then give them a ridiculous amount of power. As you can imagine, sexual harassment thrives in this environment.<p>It's sick, and pushed me out of 'that' academia. I don't want to be a part of an institution that is built on empowering literally the worst, least altruistic, most exploitative people that ever lived. These people also necessarily suck at science.<p>I'm done with it, the institutions need to be torn down and rebuilt. It's all bullshit. The process of doing science (the journals), the institutions, the incumbents. It has all got to go.<p>I'm going to do science. But on my own terms.<p>My new purpose in life is to take the energy I would have put into science, use it be clever and generate as much capital as possible - so I can participate in our democracy and create the institution I want to be part of.<p>Join me. Quit your job, start a company. Burn it all down.
While we've gone through some amount of publicly addressing this in industries like film, I suspect there are many industries where we're not introspective enough to even recognize there's a problem yet.<p>I worked in games for a while, and I'd not be surprised to see that industry have a #metoo moment sometime over the next few years. We're just starting to see individuals called out in some of the more progressive studios [1], I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.<p>[1]<a href="https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/yweqk5/harebrained-schemes-designer-accused-of-sexual-harassment-resigns" rel="nofollow">https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/yweqk5/harebrained-s...</a>
Here's the study report (free with "Guest" login): <a href="https://www.nap.edu/download/24994" rel="nofollow">https://www.nap.edu/download/24994</a><p>"Findings and Conclusions" sections are too long to summarize.<p>excerpt from the "Students" section:<p>KEY TAKEAWAYS<p>• Overall, 20.0 percent of the students surveyed reported experiencing
sexual harassment perpetrated by a faculty or staff member.<p>• Female students (22.0 percent) and students who endorsed a gender other
than male or female (46.3 percent) had significantly higher incidence rates
of sexual harassment by faculty/staff, compared with male students (15.3
percent).<p>• Female medical and engineering students both reported significantly
higher incidence of sexual harassment by faculty/staff (medical: 47 percent,
engineering: 27 percent), compared with students enrolled in another
major (i.e., sciences, non-STEM).<p>• Female students who experienced sexual harassment, compared with
those who had not, generally reported worse physical and mental health
outcomes, feeling less safe on campus, and higher levels across various
indicators of academic disengagement.<p>* Among female STEM students, although white (non-Hispanic) students
reported greater incidence of sexual harassment by faculty/staff, students
of color and white Hispanic students who experienced sexual harassment
by faculty/staff generally perceived their campus as less safe than the
other female STEM students.
Professors have too much control over grad students and academic labs are too insulated from the greater institution. Profs have basically no oversight on how the treat and/or pay grad students. Any institution serious about tackling this and many other issues needs to reform the employment relationship with grad students. Grad student funding should not be coming from one professor's grant money, but the department.<p>Independence in scientific direction? Yes. Independence in personnel management? No.
I am an international grad student and a regular commentator on HN here, but as this topic is quite sensitive, I would like to remain anonymous.<p>I just knew from a first-hand source, a very accomplished PI was suspended just a couple of weeks ago from the job held at a large research institute. He also had appointments at the two largest universities in the same state. The description was that he "stormed out of the building." Apparently, he (white male, eh) employs a number of postdocs from China and apparently made out/had sex with them. It was so ridiculous that there were witnesses of him pushing the postdoc-single mom baby's cart in the park. The reason is described in the article: If the postdocs want good recommendations, they better keep their mouths shut. Oh, and somehow, according to the same source (first-hand), reports of the sexual harassment from the PI was swept under the rug and was mysteriously disappeared before the #meeto movement.<p>As an international student, I understand how hard it is to change jobs as a student in F-1 visa in here. The visa situation for international students and postdocs made it especially easy to exploit those people. If you get kicked out of the lab you're currently in, you have extremely limited time to find a lab in the same university, otherwise, you will be kicked back to the home country. If you find out that you're not a good fit for the university then you're literally fucked -- you can't be employed, you can't have gap time to find another one. The only way is to find another university who is willing to adopt you first and then transfer. But heck, that's a catch-22: How can you find another university if you don't have a good recommendation?<p>Personally, I can attest to that visa situation from another angle. I have a very bad taste in my mouth the first week I worked for a public school as a grad student here. So before I entered grad school, I worked for a public educational institution in the US as an OPT student after receiving my bachelor's degree. They were grateful for the extra work I did for them before I departed for grad school, so they offered to pay me some trivial extra amount of money. So, to make sure everything was OK, I called up the international office in the new school to explain the situation. Not waiting for me to finish my sentence, they threatened to deport me because "I told you not to work on anything else when you're on F-1 visa." I was totally disheartened by that response and it literally ruined my whole positive outlook for the grad school for me.
Every industry where powerful men are gatekeepers is like this -- some are just higher profile than others. Politics, film, and other high profile industries will be first to be publicized, but it exists everywhere.
One factor that distinguishes academia here is that the power imbalance can be far greater compared to employees in a regular company. As a regular employee the worst case is usually just losing your job. A PhD student has much higher stakes, as you're potentially risking years of effort and your degree.<p>A direct conflict with your adviser is not something you want to risk, as it can easily put you in a terrible situation. You also can't just switch departments or something like that without losing a lot of progress, if it is possible at all.<p>The way science is structured makes it rather susceptible to abuse by people in authority, and it inherently discourages challenges by PhD students.
> The most common type of sexual harassment is gender harassment, the report finds.<p>I hate the way these reports misuse language and terminology.<p>No lay person is going to think gender harassment is sexual harassment.
Isn't sexual harassment rife pretty much everywhere? When you listen to what both men and women have really been subjected to, it's just sad and the prevalence is honestly depressing to me. I even have worked with people who think they're not the type to sexually harass and then see them engaging the behavior unknowingly (basically in denial).
If anyone is interested in solutions, Frank Dobbin, a professor of sociology at Harvard that studies the effectiveness of anti sexual harassment programs has some interesting conclusions here:<p>> The worst news is probably that men who are hostile to women to begin with do not improve with training. Men who score high on “likely harasser” and “gender role conflict” scales are the most likely to have adverse reactions to training<p>> In an unpublished paper on diversity training, we find that mandatory training reduces actual workforce diversity and voluntary training increases it. It looks like forcible training of people who are hostile to the training message may backfire.<p>> Workplace gender equity is still our best bet for reducing harassment, but progress on equity has stalled in the corporate world and on the faculty.<p><a href="http://www.asanet.org/news-events/footnotes/apr-may-2018/features/can-anti-harassment-programs-reduce-sexual-harassment" rel="nofollow">http://www.asanet.org/news-events/footnotes/apr-may-2018/fea...</a>
Talking about sexual harassment, I have just read an article at <a href="https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-is-workplace-sexual-harassment/" rel="nofollow">https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-is-workplace-sexual-harassme...</a> about this matter. I think sexual harassment is a very old crime, but we don't care about this problem. Thanks to some movements such as #MeToo which have helped many people to start speaking up about this.
Sexual harassment is rife everywhere. Every failed attempt at seduction could be considered harassment. But none of us would be here if our parents didn't try it.
Seeing <i>Nature</i> reporting this as news feels to me a bit like watching Captain Louis Renault telling Rick Blaine:<p><i>"I am shocked -- shocked! -- to find that gambling is going on in here!"</i>[a]<p>Still, it's progress.<p>[a] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME</a>
Wasn't there a thing called Gamergate related to that a few years back? I only followed it from afar, but best I can recollect it seemed like there was a lot more to sexism in gaming than just within the industry itself.
The major issue is that in general society values results above all else. As long as you are producing, with few exceptions, your supporters will back you up. Look at Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Weinstein (until just recently), Roman Polanski for examples.<p>While I hope the focus and importance that #MeToo has brought to the issue of sexual harassment will be a long term thing, I think human nature being what it is, people will make the right statements while in reality continuing to protect and promote harassers as long as they are producing for them (be they politicians or scientists or engineers).
Women: No shit.<p>Men: I FEEL PERSONALLY ATTACKED!!<p>Just watch. That's exactly what will happen here.<p>edit: And the downvotes pour down like rain. No shit.