[HN Gopher] A testimony of "guilt-by-association" harassment in ...
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A testimony of "guilt-by-association" harassment in astronomy
Author : xqcgrek2
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-08-18 20:36 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hxstem.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hxstem.substack.com)
| tlb wrote:
| I don't know anything about this situation, so this is
| hypothetical. Suppose that the editors who refused publication
| are personally convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt,
| perhaps because they know one or more of the victims personally.
| In that case, I think they have the moral right to refuse to have
| anything to do with him, like publishing work that he's a co-
| author of.
|
| There is a (very small) number of people I refuse to have
| anything to do with, despite them not being convicted of
| anything. I mean, I'd still hit the brakes if they stepped in
| front of my car. But I wouldn't invest in a startup they were a
| co-founder of, which seems analogous to publishing a paper
| they're a co-author of.
|
| Scientists sometimes talk as if certain journals have such a
| monopoly on a field that being banned from them is fatal to their
| career (and even to The Science.) But IDK, I've never felt like I
| can't read a paper if it wasn't published in a prestigious
| journal. The author should upload the paper to their website and
| email the link to colleagues, who can decide whether to read it
| or not.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dventimi wrote:
| > I think the author must have a very good sense of humor to
| post her photo last as if to say "he must be reformed to resist
| this".
|
| Do you honestly believe that's why the author self portrait
| appears at the end?
| [deleted]
| JohnMakin wrote:
| He was investigated by the university and found guilty of groping
| and harassing students:
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/astronomer-geoff-mar...
|
| Seems perfectly reasonable people in academia would no longer
| wish to associate with his work. The author of this article is
| saying this should not be the case because it was never
| criminally investigated, but I'm very certain you can find plenty
| of real world examples of people's careers being ruined without
| incidents being criminally investigated, or even the incidents
| being criminal themselves - that seems like a complete strawman
| on her part.
| johnnyworker wrote:
| > Seems perfectly reasonable people in academia would no longer
| wish to associate with his work. The author of this article is
| saying this should not be the case
|
| No, the author isn't saying everybody must work with this
| person, they are saying someone who is working with the person
| should not be harassed for that.
|
| > I'm very certain you can find plenty of real world examples
| of people's careers being ruined without incidents being
| criminally investigated
|
| So what? As if that makes it okay, this medieval going after
| the totality of one's person and livelihood. Any and all people
| involved in such mobs are guilty of worse than whatever they
| use as excuse for their stonings.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Name one point or place in history where a person's
| reputation didn't mediate how people treated them.
| [deleted]
| howinteresting wrote:
| A serial workplace or school sexual harasser affects many
| people's livelihoods, their own livelihood is very far down
| my list of concerns. Beware isolated demands for compassion.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| There seems to be a reading comprehension challenge here.
| Commenters are struggling to understand the distinctions
| between being a sexual harasser, being accused of being a
| sexual harasser, being harassed for being an accused sexual
| harasser, and being harassed for working with an accused
| sexual harasser, while not being a sexual harasser
| yourself.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I understand the distinctions quite well, thank you. I
| spent around half an hour reading about the context of
| what he has been accused of doing before commenting.
| amluto wrote:
| The OP says "It is ... a basic human right to be rehabilitated
| into society even if one has ever been found guilty of a
| crime."
|
| One may reasonably debate whether someone who did something bad
| in the past should be ostracized, but I think you are rather
| mischaracterizing the author's argument.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > The allegations were never investigated by a court of law,
| only internally at Berkeley.
|
| This is what the OP literally said in the opening paragraph.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| "Even if" != "only if"
|
| On the contrary, having never been found guilty of
| anything, the bar for forgiveness / rehabilitation should
| be even lower. If it is a basic human right to be
| rehabilitated back into society _even if_ they have been
| criminally convicted, it should certainly be a human right
| if they were merely "convicted" by an academic kangaroo
| court.
| comrh wrote:
| That a decision everyone is free to make for themselves.
| If you want to forgive him feel free but that has no
| bearing on how others might feel.
|
| Society hasn't exiled him into the woods, people are just
| rightfully exercising their right not to be associated
| with him.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I wouldn't claim otherwise.
| ipaddr wrote:
| People are acting fearful the mob will come for them.
| johnnyworker wrote:
| > people are just rightfully exercising their right not
| to be associated with him.
|
| No, they are harassing a person who is exercising their
| right to associate with whomever they want.
|
| To associate with, that is the part that matters. Not "to
| be associated with", which is what people in a mob
| _think_ is what matters, even though it does not,
| certainly not enough to give them license.
| refulgentis wrote:
| > No, they are harassing a person who is exercising their
| right to associate with whomever they want.
|
| Harassing is carrying a _ton_ of load, way above its
| capacity, in the essay. I'm very curious for your
| perspective on what incidents were harrassment.
|
| There's a certain motte-and-bailey aspect in my read, the
| narrow claims are their talk on Geoff's work was not
| accepted at an academic conference and someone removed
| Geoff's name from their paper.
|
| The broader claims range as petty as the conference added
| a non-standard tricky clause to harrass them and engineer
| the denial of their proposal, before their proposal was
| made (?, also, it's a bog-standard morals clause in my
| read) and as vast as you must allow anyone to associate
| with you & it's immoral to decide who you associate with
| unless they've been convicted of a crime by a jury in the
| United States.
|
| It suffers from its rigidness and righteousness.
| _dain_ wrote:
| Why does a university have the power to find somebody guilty of
| sexual assault, and not the actual courts?
|
| EDIT, I am rate limited so I can't reply:
|
| The specific phrase was "found guilty" and the specific wrong
| being alleged is sexual assault, which is a criminal offense
| for which people can go to prison. University HR can fire him
| if they like, but they cannot find him guilty of a sexual
| assault any more than they can find him guilty of fraud or
| manslaughter.
|
| People are innocent of all crimes until they are proved guilty
| in a fair trial, in a real court with a real judge and a real
| jury.
|
| _> Did the university send him to prison, or are you
| collapsing multiple different connotations of "guilty" into
| one? _
|
| Excuse me, am _I_ collapsing multiple definitions here? It
| seems to me the parent commenter is pivoting on two different
| connotations of "sexual assault" and "guilty", so as to have
| it both ways: ostracize this person as one would an actual sex
| offender, without needing to go through the awkward formality
| convicting him of a sexual offense.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Do you think HR isn't real or something? If you grab your
| coworker's ass, do you think they're not legally able to
| conclude this happened and then fire you?
| CraftingLinks wrote:
| Actually, not sure you can in Europe?
| Talanes wrote:
| Did the university send him to prison, or are you collapsing
| multiple different connotations of "guilty" into one?
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Are you asking why people and organizations have the power to
| decide whether to associate with or employ someone, while the
| government has the power of criminal justice? Are you mixing
| up those two things?
| [deleted]
| csours wrote:
| For the past several thousand years, people have generally been
| able to get away with being an asshole (both criminal and less
| than criminal) as long as they are very productive in some other
| way. Very recently, some people have stopped getting away with
| this. It's very very good to hold people accountable.
|
| I also think that it is bad that there is no path to
| rehabilitation. Well, there is no single path to rehabilitation,
| because the world contains many people with a variety of points
| of view.
|
| But remember that it is bad to harass and assault people. That
| should not be ignored. The linked post does not seem to cover
| that very much, or to show any action that the person has taken
| that would make them more welcome in a professional setting.
|
| > History has many examples of the negative impacts of
| excommunicating individuals according to questionable standards
| that are analogous to what happened to Geoff Marcy. Over the past
| century we have seen numerous such examples across the political
| spectrum, in the name of moral virtue.
|
| I must disagree in the strongest terms to this section. This does
| not acknowledge any harms or any balance of responsibility on the
| part of Marcy.
|
| -----
|
| Also, the title is just plain wrong. It is not guilt by
| association, it is disgust at including a person who has caused
| harm. Every objection listed from the scientific community was
| because Marcy was directly attached, either to a paper, a group,
| or a meeting.
| _dain_ wrote:
| >It's very very good to hold people accountable.
|
| Passive voice. Who watches the watchers, who accounts for the
| accountability-bringers?
| csours wrote:
| Well, the organizations that employ and empower them would be
| a good place to start.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Geoffrey_Marcy
| scythe wrote:
| One of those talk pages that makes you appreciate the thicket
| of bureaucratic brambles standing between the angry and the
| consensus version of Wikipedia pages on controversial topics.
| It's not perfect, but it's clearly better than nothing.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| To some extent, this just sounds like willfully digging your own
| grave and then complaining that you're being buried. Sure, a
| shitty person can still do good research. But people are people,
| not computers. If you want to sacrifice your own social status by
| collaborating with a _persona non grata_ then that 's your
| choice, just don't be surprised when you lose friends and
| professional opportunities because of it.
|
| For a much more extreme historical example, see the tragic life
| of Nobel laureate Fritz Haber. A man who arguably saved billions
| of lives with the invention of the Haber process, but who was
| ostracized by many fellow scientists for his work on chemical
| weapons during WWI.
| NotGMan wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar.
| It's repetitive and tedious, and therefore against the site
| guidelines: " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| I realize the OP contains provocations in that direction, but
| you don't have to take the bait. That's why the guidelines also
| say: " _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an
| article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something
| interesting to respond to instead._"
|
| Usually the "something interesting" has to do with the specific
| details of the article, not some ideological abstraction
| skimmed off the top.
| gnull wrote:
| > In my country, Sweden, such actions at a state-funded institute
| fall under the umbrella of "krankande sarbehandling"
| (victimization) and are unlawful.
|
| Does this mean that Sweden is a good place for people who are,
| like the author, critical of the wokeness and "cancel culture"? I
| used to think they're the ones setting the trend there. I don't
| understand anything now.
| bt4u wrote:
| [dead]
| fishtoaster wrote:
| > It is also a basic human right not to be condemned without
| legal due process
|
| No it's not.
|
| It's a basic human right not to be formally condemned by a
| government or government-like body without legal due process.
|
| It's not a basic human right to be free from all judgement by
| your peers without due process. If I think my neighbor's a dick,
| I don't need to hold a trial by jury to decide if I'm allowed to
| disinvite him from my BBQ.
|
| In this case, it seems like a number of people in this community
| think Geoff is a first-rate asshole for publicly-known reasons. I
| have no knowledge of whether that's true or not - I've not
| reviewed the evidence. But a lot of people believe it, and those
| people don't want papers authored, co-authored, or believed to be
| authored, by Geoff in their conference. That seems reasonable, at
| least for people who believe the original allegations against
| Geoff.
|
| (Disclaimer: there's some other bad stuff mentioned, like
| harassment of the author and some shitty assumptions that her own
| work was secretly Geoffs, and that's to be condemned, but that's
| separate from the main thrust of this post.)
| gnull wrote:
| > If I think my neighbor's a dick, I don't need to hold a trial
| by jury to decide if I'm allowed to disinvite him
|
| In this case you are exempt from that principle because
| following it will cost you disproportionally more than the
| possible damage done if you're wrong. Not because universal
| justice principles somehow become inapplicable outside of
| courtroom.
| diogocp wrote:
| > those people don't want papers authored, co-authored, or
| believed to be authored, by Geoff in their conference. That
| seems reasonable
|
| No, it doesn't.
|
| A scientific conference is not your backyard BBQ. The
| reasonable thing to do is to judge submissions on their
| scientific merit and relevance.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Your proposed norm is ripe for abuse by brilliant jerks. Just
| keep producing meritorious work and all incidents of you
| abusing people in your personal life will be excused.
|
| (Your proposed norm is how things used to be, and still are
| to a large extent. This is bad and a failure of society, not
| a success.)
| _dain_ wrote:
| >It's not a basic human right to be free from all judgement by
| your peers without due process.
|
| True, but libel is also a civil tort.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Lets be realistic about this, if Marcy tried to bring a suit
| over this, he would not prevail. A lot of people have a very
| reasonable belief that he's a sex-criminal of some
| description, including his former employers and a number of
| former co-workers.
| slibhb wrote:
| It seems clear that Marcy has been "condemned by a government-
| like body" (with or without due process -- I don't know). At
| any rate, this isn't simple freedom of association.
|
| And according to the article, the blacklist doesn't only affect
| Marcy, it affects people who continue to work with him. I would
| say that's going too far.
|
| Finally, I'm not sure what we gain by systematically excluding
| Marcy from astronomy research. Maybe a 5 year ban would be
| enough or perhaps we could go with a restorative justice
| approach here.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _(Disclaimer: there 's some other bad stuff mentioned, like
| harassment of the author and some shitty assumptions that her
| own work was secretly Geoffs, and that's to be condemned, but
| that's separate from the main thrust of this post.)_
|
| Do these guilt-by-association injustices against the author of
| the article give you any pause when it comes to the same people
| passing judgement against this Geoff? I, like you, have no real
| knowledge of this case. It maybe be the case that Geoff is
| guilty of all of it, or was bullied into a false confession; I
| don't know. My gut says that he's a slimeball but I see
| injustice against the author of the article and I don't think
| the two are as independent as you suggest. If the mob is using
| guilt by association in one case,that gives me some doubt as to
| the mob's ability to fairly pass judgement in the related case.
| [deleted]
| scythe wrote:
| >If I think my neighbor's a dick, I don't need to hold a trial
| by jury to decide if I'm allowed to disinvite him from my BBQ.
|
| A moral defense of social practices shouldn't rely on a dubious
| analogy between a major scientific conference and someone's
| backyard soiree. Human affairs do not separate cleanly into
| "governance" and "private".
|
| >there's some other bad stuff mentioned, like harassment of the
| author and some shitty assumptions that her own work was
| secretly Geoffs, and that's to be condemned, but that's
| separate from the main thrust of this post.
|
| I don't think it's at all fair to the author to reduce
| _harassment directed at her_ to a parenthetical in a post
| discussing her experience in research. It is very important and
| speaks to the prevailing cultural norms.
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