An interesting fight is brewing at the University of California. Alexander McPherson, 64, is a leading biologist who has taken a stand against mandatory sexual harassment training on principle. Among other things, he objected to the requirement as an infringement of academic freedom and an act of political correctness. He may lose his tenured position and the University may lose a researcher responsible for $20 million a year in grants.
McPherson must attend a training course by November 12 to regain his standing — he has been suspended from all supervision and management duties. He stated: “I have consistently refused to take such training on the grounds that the adoption of the requirement was a naked political act by the state that offended my sensibilities, violated my rights as a tenured professor, impugned my character and cast a shadow of suspicion on my reputation and career. I even offered to go to jail if the university persisted in persecuting me for my refusal. We Scots are very stubborn in matters of this sort.”
Under a California law passed in 2004, all supervisors of businesses with over 50 people must undergo sexual harassment training. The University says that 97 percent of the school’s faculty have completed the training.
For the full story, click here.
As a former federal employee, I had to attend numerous EEO/Sexual Harassment training (indoctrination) sessions. The classes were somewhat wasteful and repetitive but…
I must admit to somewhat understanding the professor. Such repetitive training is similar to suggesting that if you do not continue to take this class how will you ever be able to avoid or stop beating or harassing your wife, girlfriend, or any other female.” (From a male’s perspective)
I think this might fall in the category of a leading question, “when was the last time you beat your wife?” I am most certainly for limited government and these classes “might” suggest legislating “morality” (from a devil’s advocate’s or perhaps the professor’s view).
The good professor should take the class, although he will observe a good measure of double standard hypocrisy in the training, as I often observed.
Vince,
I wasn’t under the impression that you were the only one that gets to decide what’s relevant to a conversation. I’ll be sure to run things by you in the future before bringing them up.
As an aside, since the Prof. justifies his refusal by saying that the state law is unjust (well he says the state is being unreasonable, and since most people would refer to the University as the University and not the state, I made an assumption), the matter of the law being just or unjust is pretty relevant. But hey, your call.
Mespo wrote: “In essence the government here is trying to change the rules of the game in a profession it only marginally regulates, and that is the essence of unwarranted control of the private sector.”
Mespo, it is not the private sector. UC is owned and operated by the State of California for the people of California. It is in the public sector. He is a public employee.
Mespo wrote:
“Lawyers accept the requirements of CLE’s BEFORE they enter the profession.”
Everyone on the thread should know that this is false, and Mespo must know it.
Mandatory CLE was imposed on all active members of the Virginia State Bar long after I was sworn in in 1972.
Bar Associations all over the country have imposed it on all existing member many times.
Gyges: I’m not saying that the University (As run by the State of California) shouldn’t be able to make the man take the course as a condition of his employment. I’m saying that the State of California shouldn’t be making everyone else (who has over 50 employees) make some of their employees take the course as a condition of employment.
Okay, Gyges. But, for the third time, that is irrelevant.
The entire thread is about a man told to take some OJT, on job training, by his employer, and raising a fuss. That is the point. The application to private employees is something else. I have already said this at least twice.
“Alexander McPherson is Professor, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, School of Biological Sciences, at the University of California, a state university owned and operated by the State of California.
In this case, the State of California IS his employer. It is requiring him to go to a job-related class.”
“Gyges, One more time, the State of California is the EMPLOYER, acting in its capacity as an employer. It is determining how to train ITS employees. No one is being punished for anything.”
Now I have said it three times. Under established legal doctrine, THAT MAKES IT TRUE!
That’s a very good point Patty. I never thought of it that way.
Do you think that they’re calling his bluff?
Once again, let’s not confuse rights and duties.
Governments have duties.
Citizens have both rights AND duties.
Perhaps his research grant money is not that vital to the institution.
Perhaps, the institution’s administrators are not prepared to be bullied on this particular point, by him in particular, nor anyone else, for that matter.
Mespo…
The thing is, is that it’s just a Sexual Harassment class. I do not understand why he is so against taking it.
I do think it’s a little extreme for them to suspend him over it. Has he taken the class in the past? Why is it an issue now?
I’m sure he’s very well educated on the matters of what sexual harassment is.
I think that this is a molehill being made into a mountain
Sally:
“He needs to act like an adult and take the class.”
****
That’s similar to the logic for mandatory re-education classes forced upon the Tibetan monks by the Chinese. Here’s an article excerpt from Barbara Demick in the LA Times:
“In an effort to quell unrest, Communist Party officials are ordering Tibetans back to school.
Buddhist monks, civil servants and public school students have been instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. In these classes, the Tibetans read and recite from texts that denounce the Dalai Lama as a “political reactionary” and a “betrayer of the motherland.”
Ideological training is an enduring feature of Communist life, but has taken a back seat in a country consumed with more modern pursuits, such as making money. But in Tibetan areas, the Communist Party is pursuing “patriotic education” with new zeal.”
This coercion is not our culture and I am more than a little surprised that you and Vince see no problem with it. Maybe you should ask those monks.
JIll:
From JT’s synopsis:
“He may lose his tenured position and the University may lose a researcher responsible for $20 million a year in grants.”
Vince,
Please don’t make assumptions about me based on my views on one particular subject. Just because I feel that a particular law is too over-reaching and intrusive doesn’t mean that I think government is bad. I like Government, I like law and order, roads, etc. The thing is, I think that there are some areas that government should not intrude on.
I’m either being unclear or you’re deliberately missing the point. So, for the final time: I’m not saying that the University (As run by the State of California) shouldn’t be able to make the man take the course as a condition of his employment. I’m saying that the State of California shouldn’t be making everyone else (who has over 50 employees) make some of their employees take the course as a condition of employment.
Mespo,
He isn’t being threatened with a loss of job or salary. He simply may not supervise without taking the course. The reason that the examples you gave are not comparable to a course on sexual harassment is this: it isn’t yet against the law to be anything other than a fundamentalist christian or to think only virtuous thoughts about GWB, or to abstain from alchohol. Sexual harassment is against the law.
Grade and high school teachers take CEC to stay current with their subjects. If a new law is passed concerning sexual harassment training for supervisors then it doesn’t matter how long he’s been employed, he needs to learn and understand the new law. When lead paint was outlawed for children’s toys, we had to get them from China instead because companies couldn’t make them here anymore! Businesses get new laws/regs etc. to deal with all the time. Updating on new proceedures is in compliance with the law, nothing more.
Hey training is part of every job. When I worked as a sous chef, the restaurant owner always wanted us to go to training classes such as food safety, sanitation, etc. We also had to all have First Aid and CPR training.
Did I hate taking the food safety and sanitation classes? Um yes. I never learned anything new, it was boring. But it does help keep you up to par on things.
And with First Aid and CPR, the rules on how it is done are always changing.
He needs to act like an adult and take the class. It’s not like he’s being forced to take a religious class or something. It’s probably one of those Saturday classes that lasts a couple of hours and he justs wants to be difficult.
Maybe he has a guilty conscience though
Vince:
“No one is being punished for anything.”
************
I suspect you would agree that being compelled to do something you did not want to do under penalty of job loss would be punishment. This is especially true if the requirement was not made known to you at the outset of the contract. This is not about training employees to perform their jobs. This is about modifying attitudes of those for whom no proof of the need for such modification exists. That is “Big Brother-ism” no matter how you want to mask it as simple employer-employee contractual relations. If the class dealt with the qualifications of his job–fine. But that is not the case here. Would you feel so strongly, if instead of a sexual harassment class, he was compelled to attend a class on total abstinence from alcohol? How about a fundamentalist religion class? Under your logic, the classes would serve an arguably beneficial purpose and thus would be permissible. Can your employer then impose any condition on your employment if it wants to change or reinforce your attitudes? What if your employer wanted you take a class on the virtues of George Bush and the Republican Party? That would be more than punishment, would it not. Indeed, that would be torture.
Vince:
“The mandatory CLE is exactly on point, and has not been rebutted. In fact, it often includes training in legal ethics. There is no requirement that mandatory training be a part of a licensing process. And it does resemble OSHA safety and fire training very closely.”
*************
The CLE argument doesn’t hold water. The requirements are not analougous. Lawyers are members of a regulated industry because of the power the profession wields in terms of subpoena power and its role as an adviser to the public and as its fiduciary. The professor is engaged in a profession that is not so rigourously regulated. For example, one doesn’t need a license to be a professor though a teaching certificate may be required showing minimum competency. Lawyers accept the requirements of CLE’s BEFORE they enter the profession. This requirement to attend a class on sexual harrassment was imposed well after the Professor accepted his appointment and has nothing to do with his compentency as a professor of biology (unlike the lawyers’ CLE which does) or if it does in only the most tangential way. The point is that lawyers voluntarily concede a measure of personal freedom as a condition of joining the profession; Professor McPherson had no such choice. It is no different than the State imposing new teaching certificate requirments on those who already possess the privilege. If it does the law requires that those previously qualified under the old system are “grandfathered in” and need not comply due to notions of fundamental due process and fairness. In essence the government here is trying to change the rules of the game in a profession it only marginally regulates, and that is the essence of unwarranted control of the private sector.
Gyges, One more time, the State of California is the EMPLOYER, acting in its capacity as an employer. It is determining how to train ITS employees. No one is being punished for anything.
I understand your point — govt is the problem, not the solution. Sure. That has been very popular, among some, for some time. Look where it got us.
Vince Treacy 1, November 6, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Speaking of sex, the Feds just announced that no charges will be filed against Spitzer.
____
Good for him AND mostly for his lovely family.
I’ve been thinking about him, lately, in the midst of the Wall Street Bailouts.
No matter what else I may think about what he did, he was right about this mess – early on.
Insurance policies are contracts. Insurance companies are infinitely interested in preserving defenses available to their risks.
In cases of governments, large companies, and/or high-risk Insureds, providing adequate and usually expensive liability protection often involves unique, multi-carrier packages which may also include initial tiers of ‘self-insured’ retentions, for instance.
It comes down to exposures, premiums, and the budget considerations
– as it would with any ‘business’ interested in controlling costs.
Also, lets’ not confuse rights with duties.
Governments have duties.
Citizens have both rights AND duties.
Jill,
I do, within reason.
Vincent,
Just because something is the law doesn’t mean that it’s a good law. The man’s breaking the law, that’s obvious, but is he breaking a just law?
Again, my problem is not with X determining the training is necessary for employment by X (even if X=government). My problem with the State of California telling all possible Xs that they need to require it.
You also have a point on how X should train it’s cashiers and management. That doesn’t mean that the State of California has any right to tell X that they should train their cashiers and management that way. Why do I have a problem with that? Because at that point it’s the Government FORCING someone to do something (admittedly through a third party) because they MIGHT break the law in the future. That sounds an awful lot like anticipatory punishment to me.
There are plenty of things that are a good idea for a business to do, but they don’t all need to be mandated by law.
Well, Gyges, the people of California passed the law, so it was up to them to determine if there was a pressing need. I think Jill and Patty have given good examples of the problem.
You now seem to agree that it has nothing at all to do with criminal punishment, and that is a plus.
And about mespo’s argument that this is like training people refrain from stealing? This is not solely about the empoyees, but also about the bosses. We could train managers and supervisors on methods to prevent cashiers from stealing, and there would be no problem. So why not train them to prevent harassment in the workplace? So mespo’s argument falls flat.
The mandatory CLE is exactly on point, and has not been rebutted. In fact, it often includes training in legal ethics. There is no requirement that mandatory training be a part of a licensing process. And it does resemble OSHA safety and fire training very closely.
Finally, my point — the government here IS the employer. If you have no problem with the employer requiring the training, then you have no problem here.