“There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.” –Denis Diderot
Last week, news broke that UC Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy — perhaps the most famous single person in the field of exoplanet discoveries and study — was found guilty by a University panel of sexually harassing at least four students over a period of 2001-2010, with allegations and further accusations extending far beyond that. I wish I could tell you it’s a one-off, a rarity, or a thing that will end with the dismissal of Geoff Marcy from his position.
Image credit: screenshot from http://ift.tt/1OrWkQZ.
But it’s none of those things. It’s a symptom — a single person’s record — of a system that does nothing to stop this kind of behavior under most circumstances.
There’s a lot to process in all of this, and a lot that I’m sure you feel when you first hear about it. But when you think about it, I want you to think about who the real victims are, and I want you to think about what sort of justice would be fair to them. Because if we do nothing, this…
Image credit: Ayodhya Ouditt/NPR, via UNC Charlotte at http://ift.tt/1JojTIg.
…is the least of our concerns. Go read the story of how Geoff Marcy happened.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1G4ruNe
“There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.” –Denis Diderot
Last week, news broke that UC Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy — perhaps the most famous single person in the field of exoplanet discoveries and study — was found guilty by a University panel of sexually harassing at least four students over a period of 2001-2010, with allegations and further accusations extending far beyond that. I wish I could tell you it’s a one-off, a rarity, or a thing that will end with the dismissal of Geoff Marcy from his position.
Image credit: screenshot from http://ift.tt/1OrWkQZ.
But it’s none of those things. It’s a symptom — a single person’s record — of a system that does nothing to stop this kind of behavior under most circumstances.
There’s a lot to process in all of this, and a lot that I’m sure you feel when you first hear about it. But when you think about it, I want you to think about who the real victims are, and I want you to think about what sort of justice would be fair to them. Because if we do nothing, this…
Image credit: Ayodhya Ouditt/NPR, via UNC Charlotte at http://ift.tt/1JojTIg.
…is the least of our concerns. Go read the story of how Geoff Marcy happened.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1G4ruNe
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