While dating in the workplace is not inherently bad and
cannot be effectively forbidden there are certain rules that go with that. Don’t date subordinates, if you do find them
a new supervisor, if you end it don’t also end their employment/threaten their
career. Christian Ott violated all three
of these basic rules in how he treated Io Kleiser his student. The old case of Timothy Slater is more
troubling in what happened, reassuring in what was done about him, but should
trouble any who believe in due process and redemption for what is happening
now.
As
Meg Urry observes in her article at CNN in cases like Christian Ott’s the
problem is when the “romance” is over and how you handle that. Plenty of couples exist in astronomy without
problems.
Timothy Slaters case is a different category of good old
fashioned “Mad Men” sounding behavior. Except in those days it was acceptable for a
woman to slap a man when it was called for.
Christian Ott broke
three basic rules of work place dating.
1.)
Thou shalt not date, in any sense of the word, a
direct subordinate.
2.)
Thou shall inform hr / your supervisor if
feelings develop anyway.
3.)
Thou shalt not fire or harm the career of a
subordinate due to your feelings.
The first rule is easy enough. Just don’t date subordinates in any workplace
EVER. It causes problems. Being at the top of the organizational chart
means you have to keep everyone at an objective professional distance. This only matters if one has more actual
power. Simply being more senior in a parallel
part of a company or school, or having more experience isn’t necessarily the
same. Plenty of people date in the work
place who don’t have exactly identical years of experience etc. without
problems.
The second rule is what happens if you break the first. It exists because people are not in conscious
control of their heart. We say people “fall
in love” because it is an unexpected and uncontrollable thing. What matters is how we react to it. Ott not only feel for her but in his mind
linked her research work to his feelings for her that were personal. That situation could only, theoretically,
work if the supervisor can compartmentalize feelings and work. Most people can’t, that’s why this isn’t the
first rule. Don’t date a subordinate.
The third rule If the first two rules fail is there to say
how to end either the professional relationship or the personal
relationship. In any case do not harm
the career or life of the person who is subordinate. The superior should, if
anything try to implement the second rule and find someone else to act in a
supervisory role to the one they are interested in. Either that or the supervisor should be the
one to leave
What complicates
the case of a professor like Christian Ott is that if he were to have quit
then, or be fired now it would trash the career of all of his students, and the
whole web of researchers that depend on him as a principle investigator.
“Because Christian still has a place at Caltech, I feel that
I don’t,” - Io Kleiser
Firing Christian Ott may make Kleiser feel better the truth
is the world does not turn on anyone person’s feelings. It is a little childish to think that it
should. To do so smacks of the kind of
revenge typical of a ended personal relationship of some sort. From the sound of things it does seem that he
hurt her feelings as much if not more than he objectively and quantifiably hurt
her career.
At least one of them needs to be mature about this and that
person due to his age and senior level needs to be Prof. Ott.
As for Timothy
Slater, Oy Vey.
I want to address the other sexual harassment news regarding
former University of Arizona professor and current Endowed Chair of Science
Education Professor at the University of Wyoming Timothy Slater. He was accused of things that make what most
of what Geoff Marcy was accused of look tame.
Other than one “crotch grab” which had no real evidence behind it Geoff
Marcy was accused of rubbing a student’s neck/a pat on the upper back and
looking at someone. Timothy Salter made
comments, touched, gave sexually inappropriate gifts, had met students at strip
clubs to discuss their work. His
conduct makes Geoff Marcy look like Mr. Rogers.
To illustrate it for you dear reader and save you from
reading the lurid details…. The lab Tim Slater ran at UA sounds like it was his
own version of M*A*S*H and he was Capt. Hawkeye Pierce. (But there was no Maj.
Burns or Maj Houllihand to check him.) Think about it, much of what we all found
funny about that show was sexual harassment of people who, depending on the
situation had power. In the OR Hawkeye “chief
surgeon” out of the OR arguably Major Houlihand outranked him and was
professionally hostile. *
That
said, as he and his wife put it this was over ten years ago now. He went through the disciplinary process, was
punished, reformed, and hasn’t had any more such problems. As
Slater himself puts it he has been subject to more scrutiny in the last ten
years than most and has a clean bill.
Why I advocate for
due legal process, and those who think that is a bad thing are misguided at
best.
Personally as a transwoman of color I know more people than
most astronomers who have been accused of crimes, tried, convicted, went to
prison, then got on with life and are clean and successful now. Many of these were other transwomen who in
doing what they had to to survive committed “sex crimes” i.e.
prostitution.
I am also part of a minority that is too often victim to
mass hysteria over bathrooms.
Having people want to kill us because they found us
attractive (much less file some sort of complaint) AFTER they have enjoyed our
company.
I have also had something I was accused of and exonerated
for used against me years later.
So I have to support their right to accuse one of the people dredging
up this old news of sexual harassment and sue them. I
understand that person feels aggrieved but at some point you have to let it go.
That person was helped/used by Pamela L. Gay .
There are accusations of jealousy and a real back and forth.
I don’t know who is right but like any person trying to
really be fair I want more facts. Specifically, why a complaint in which
actions were taken in line with then current policy is relevant ten years later?
This is why these things should go to court. People ought to sue and countersue. Hire lawyers and handle this the way everyone else in the world does. To act like academics should not is to place ourselves on a higher level than the ordinary folks.
I read online that a lawsuit has been filed
by the Slaters against Gay, if Gay wants to defend herself she may possibly
countersue. My advice to her and the
women behind that issue is view a lawsuit not as a threat or some sort of
injustice. View a lawsuit as an
opportunity to take your case before a competent tribunal and win some measure
of real justice. Even if you cannot get
money, having a judge condemn the man’s actions in some way could be
emotionally healing.
That said, the idea I have seen expressed here around the
web that accusations mean guilt, and guilt should mean firing and some sort of
life time ban/ scarlet letter is just absurd.
It comes from a place informed
by white feminism and privilege just as bad as any
of the men these women are railing against.
Simple Solutions are
hard to implement:
The solution for problems like the above would be some sort
of academic management training for all new professors, instructors, lecturers etc. The real truth is that even the most lowly
adjunct with three course with thirty people in each course is a supervisor to
from 30 to 90 students. Each and every professor even an “entry
level “ adjunct professor is a supervisor too. Academia needs to realize that taking people
who were students of various levels from 17 to 30 or 35, and suddenly giving
them the power of career life and death over dozens of people… is just asking
for trouble.
As I alluded to we can give women permission to slap the
face of men who touch them in an unwanted fashion.
*Just realized that in this day and age there are plenty of 20 somethings and younger who have never really watched an episode of MASH. Too bad for them. Back when it was on we could just laugh at things like this.
