One of the world's most prominent scientists had to resign his position as President Joe Biden's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He was forced to quit because of evidence that he had created a hostile work environment. The leader of the successful effort to sequence the human genome was tapped for the White House job. He is now one of the scientists who have been reprimanded over their behavior.
Title IX violations have been the most publicized cases. Sexual harassment is not allowed in educational programs that receive federal funds. The astronomer resigned from the University of California, Berkeley after being found guilty of sexual harassment. The board of the American Association for the advancement of science was chaired by Francisco Ayala, a one-time president and chair, who resigned after an investigation found that he had violated the university's policies on sexual harassment and sex discrimination. David Marchant, who had a glacier named for him, was fired from Boston University after an investigation concluded that he had made sexual comments and used derogatory sex-based slurs. Marchant was accused of pushing her down a rocky slope, but the investigation did not confirm this. The National Academy of Sciences expelled both of them from its ranks. The glacier was renamed.
Some cases do not fall under Title IX. There are many forms of bad behavior in science that don't rise to the level of illegality, and perhaps for that reason colleagues often look the other way.
Why? The reasons are complex and likely include sexism and implicit bias. The acceptance of personal misconduct in light of high professional accomplishment is a problem that is rarely addressed.
Many academics believe that brilliant people should not be punished for their bad behavior. This can lead to an intellectual superiority complex. Arthur T. Hadley was the president of Yale University from 1899 to 1921 and he offered this view in an influential 1925 text. Your right to do as you please is increased by your brainpower.
His attitude continues even though he is mostly forgotten. It helps to explain why academics often argue about how accomplished they are when they are not. Intellectual greatness and human decency are two different things. Some people close to the culprit insist they never witnessed anything like the alleged behavior. In the Marchant case, a colleague who had worked with him for 11 years insisted the accusations were not consistent with his experience. Marchant acted badly toward people of lesser professional stature, but he behaved well around those he respected.
The law student in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment justified theft and murder because he believed the crimes would allow him to overcome his poverty and fulfill his intellectual potential. The mindset that motivated Raskolnikov often undergirds other forms of antisocial behavior, and surveys show this kind of personal abuse in science is widespread, is not murder.
The research community holds its most prominent members accountable for their actions. It is not unfair, inappropriate or an overreaction. It is about time.
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