Thursday, August 3, 2017

Why things don't change

Ii is kind of a good news/bad news thing, if you value civil behavior and a safe and fair working environment for all. The good news: Christian Ott, another unrepentant sexual harasser is no longer a professor. The bad news: he resigned on his own under pressure, since Caltech didn't think that violating the terms of his suspension by contacting one of the students he harassed, despite any required "rehabilitative training", disqualified him from being professor.

While it is surely a sign of progress that this wasn't swept under the rug completely by Caltech like it would have been even 10 years ago, one of the students has already stated that she is leaving academia due to the lame response by the University and other stars in the field. Tolerance of awful behavior by "geniuses" has a chilling effect on people choosing and staying in STEM fields, especially academia. Things may be better, but the improvement is glacial.

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