His story is a cautionary tale about real life vs idealism. The two come into conflict frequently, and sometimes violently. Nothing is more difficult or dangerous than holding power to account; the mechanisms we imagine are in place to hold power accountable exist purely in that imagination. The personal feelings of shame, guilt, or ethical responsibility we imagine there to be, or the social pressure brought to bear on those who demonstrate a lack of those qualities, is missing when push comes to shove. Being an idealist, really believing in these things, is the setup for great tragedy. The fundamental mistake is to believe that others think like you do or value the same things you value. Of course I know nothing of this particular situation, but the shape of it is all too familiar - an idealistic, inspirational collegue forced out after speaking truth to power. How many tens of such people do we know? How many of them do not actually get back on their feet? How many of them did we speak up for?
This story really hits home for me. My dad was a physics teacher, and these complaints sound all too familiar—especially this part:<p>"I did what the University told me to do, and then these administrators ruined my life for it."<p>It’s frustrating how often dedicated educators are forced to navigate politics instead of focusing on teaching. The best educators are usually the least political, while those who thrive in politics often end up as administrators.
I met Marshall a few times. He was a good teacher and someone who had a positive impact on several successive classes of students who wanted to start companies and build meaningful products + technologies on that campus.<p>And I trust (quite a bit) that whatever he brought to light should be followed up on - if no other reason than to respect his memory. I hope it is taken seriously and those who retaliated find themselves w/o their positions of responsibility and power over other faculty.
> “My career has been destroyed by multiple administrators at NCSU who united together and completely ignored the EthicsPoint System and its promises to employees,” Brain wrote.<p>Well, lesson learned. Take your ethical concerns to the public/press instead. The retaliation would be just as swift as it is with The Process. Or: abandon ship and leave the system to consume itself.
I received my engineering masters from NC State, but not this department (I was in the Industrial & Systems Eng. dept, in the IMSE program: <a href="https://imsei.ncsu.edu/" rel="nofollow">https://imsei.ncsu.edu/</a>). That said, my program was intentionally broad & flexible because students seeking higher ed in manufacturing engineering might be EEs, MEs, CS undergrads, or something entirely different and could be pursuing any sort of leadership role in a manufacturing environment. Because of that, the program often referred students to Brain's program, and it was always common knowledge that one of the bigger differentiators at NCSU's engineering school was the focus on entrepreneurialism (especially compared to most other regional unis in the southeast, except perhaps GATech and maybe UFlorida).<p>Even if the loss of Brain and/or the scandal around the circumstances seem fairly inconsequential to most of you, it's a <i>big deal</i> for NC State's engineering program and the students there. It's also likely going to be a big deal for large donors like John Sall (co-founder of the SAS Institute, which is HQ'd in Raleigh).
Lots of people in this thread alluding to similar experiences "speaking truth to power" or "failing to read a room" or "not playing politics" and suffering the fallout from it. But as someone at the start of their career I'm kind of interested in the specifics--what kinds of ethical concerns? What forms of retaliation? Everyone's being pointedly vague and I guess that's necessary to an extent to preserve internet anonymity (or maintain a reputation, if your professional work is tied to your HN account) but it is frustrating as someone trying to figure out <i>how</i> to "read the room."
The website is geoblocked in the EU.<p>Mirror: <a href="https://archive.ph/R39hz" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/R39hz</a>
> Kashani said Brain submitted numerous complaints through the EthicsPoint system and said tensions arose because Brain didn’t “play the political game” through his questioning of higher-ranking administrators.<p>This right here is why I scoff at “anonymous reporting systems” or stuff like EthicsPoint, for the simple reason that the only ethics that ultimately matter in an organization are those of everyone above you, and those individuals have a vested interest in preserving their political capital over acting or behaving ethically.<p>It’s disgusting and reprehensible if true, but it’s sadly not surprising. Those of us who behave ethically are little more than prey to those whose moral compasses are fungible.
It's sad to see a group of engineering professors having political squabbles involving unethical behavior in response to an ethics complaint.<p>Ethics are supposed to be a core part of engineering, not too dissimilar from medicine. Good thing those folks are in academia where they can't hurt the rest of us.
> Brain’s complaint contained allegations of wrongdoing... regarding repurposing the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space to accommodate a new hire.. “What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation the likes of which could not be believed”<p>"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law</a>
sounds like typical high school bullying except by adults and so-called professionals. how does a disagreement between two turn into multiple departments jumping in for one side?
I consulted at a Stanford biomedical department that openly used age discrimination to displace older full-time employees. They also were biased in hiring researchers and staff who tended to be of the same ethnicity and characteristics as PIs, and they abused part-time workers for years to deny them benefits, organization-wide.
My son wants to be a mathematician. I told him never go into academia because it's a pit of poisonous vipers, administrators and professors both. I'm going to send him this article to hopefully re-indoctrinate him in case he forgot my previous message.
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451: Unavailable due to legal reasons<p>We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact technician-editor@ncsu.edu or call 919-515-2411.
"<p>Must be a skeevy website to just rather not have me than not spy on me
I don't know why so many people want to go into academia these days.<p>Tenure is a multi-year rat race with worse hours than a seed stage startup (to be fair to the startup, at least you have feedback in the form of sales and VC fundraising). The pay is bad and the politics are incredibly petty. Tick off the wrong person and your career is torched.
The article suggests he was let go for "submitting numerous ethical complaints" but it is utterly unclear to me what these ethical complaints could have possibly been about, and the only source in this article is a starry-eyed protege. I am wondering if Brain was (perhaps unintentionally) abusing the complaint system as a way of adjudicating political disputes: "this person is stubborn and wrong" elevates to "this person is behaving unethically." My suspicion is that the numerous ethical complaints evidenced a pattern of unstable behavior.<p>I don't like speaking ill of the recently deceased. But I also don't like jumping into conspiracy theories based on platitudes about "the system," when there are more obvious explanations: his last email is a work of unhinged paranoia and resentment, not truth-telling in the face of oppression. It is obvious that Brain was mentally unwell in his last few hours; I wonder how long that was going on.
Related <i>Marshall Brain has died</i> (322 points, 2 days ago, 157 points) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228759">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228759</a>