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.
From Inside Higher Education
Accusations and Suicides
For the second time this year, a professor at the University of Iowa has taken his own life after being accused of sexual harassment.
For the university, which also has faced a scandal involving alleged sexual assault by athletes and a devastating flood this year, the latest incident added to an unsettling semester.
On Wednesday, just a week after he was accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit, Mark Weiger killed himself. He was a professor of music known for his oboe performances and teaching. A former student and teaching assistant’s lawsuit, filed in federal court against Weiger and the university, charged that he had a romantic relationship with another student, engaged in repeated classroom banter and touching of an inappropriate nature, and created a sexually hostile environment. According to the suit, the university conducted its own investigation of the situation last year, found Weiger had violated policies against sexual harassment, and then resolved the issue “informally.” He was found in his car, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, with the garage door at his home closed. Authorities said he left a note.
In August, Arthur H. Miller was arrested on bribery charges and accused of telling female students that he would give them higher grades if they let him fondle their breasts. In one case, he is alleged to have grabbed and sucked on a student’s breast and then sent her an e-mail telling her that she had earned an A+. He then shot himself in a local park.
“This has been a pretty big shock. I don’t know of anything like this ever,” said Emileigh Barnes, editor in chief The Daily Iowan. Some students who knew the professors have praised them, while others have wondered what it means to have multiple high profile cases in a year, she said.
The professors’ deaths make it “hard to tell who is innocent and who is guilty,” she said. But many students are left with many questions, especially since the university hasn’t released many details about the allegations. “The university needs to give us more answers. And they may need to look at how they can protect students,” Barnes said.
Michael W. O’Hara, president of the Faculty Senate at Iowa and a professor of psychology, called the two deaths “a horrible coincidence.” He added that “sometimes in the great big wide world, events converge that are totally coincidental yet you begin to wonder if there is a pattern, and my view is that this is like having our 500-year flood. It seems inexplicable but it happened.”
O’Hara said he knew both of the professors who died, but not the specifics of their cases. He said that Weiger “had a lot of support in the music school.”
After Miller was arrested in August, the university announced that it would require all faculty members to undergo training about sexual harassment. That process is now going on.
Asked what the university should do following this latest incident, O’Hara said that “we have to separate the issue of sexual harassment from the issue of why a professor or anybody for that matter would commit suicide in the face of kind of public disclosure of something that is personally extremely embarrassing if not humiliating. Those are two different issues — people face criminal charges all the time and don’t commit suicide. It’s not an inevitable consequence.”
O’Hara added: “We have to continue on campus to educate ourselves and to be vigilant about sexual harassment and help everyone understand that as an academic community, these things aren’t to be tolerated.” At the same time, he said that the two deaths made him wonder about the treatment of “alleged perpetrators.” It is important to remember, he said, that “being accused doesn’t mean that something happened.”
When Miller was arrested and before he killed himself, the university suspended him. In the case of Weiger, university officials said that he remained “in good standing” at the time of his death. Sally Mason, president of the university, on Thursday issued a statement expressing condolences to Weiger’s family and friends, and letting people know of the availability of counseling services. She also urged people “to refrain from speculation about this event, but to support all who need assistance.”
A spokesman for the university said that officials could not comment on the allegations against Weiger because the university remains a defendant in the suit filed by his former student.
Alison Smith, the lawyer for the plaintiff in the case, said that the lawsuit would continue. She said that her client left the university after the investigation of her allegations, when she didn’t feel secure in continuing at Iowa. When she informed her client about the suicide, she was “very saddened and shocked,” Smith said.
Much of the discussion in Iowa City this week has focused on Weiger, with friends and colleagues talking about how they did not believe the allegations against him. But Smith said that the university itself found violations a year ago and said she was “concerned” about the way the case was being viewed. “We offer condolences, but it’s important that we remember that this young woman was a victim. It’s important that we focus on the whole story.”
— Scott Jaschik
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/14/iowa
And, Mespo, in reviewing this thread I did find some legal confusion on your part.
You first applied criminal law terms like mens rea, even though this is purely civil matter, and no one wants to put the professor in jail.
You and gyges seemed confused about the fact that UC is a state university, and that CA is the employer, acting in its capacity as an employer. McPherson is not a private sector employee.
You seemed unaware that the vast majority of workers in our country, tens of millions of them, are employees-at-will. They have no tenure and can be let go at any time, for any reason, except for a short list of prohibited reasons, like discrimination based on race, sex or religion. They can be told to do things they dislike every single day as a condition of employment.
You claimed that “The CLE argument doesn’t hold water. The requirements are not analougous.” Most lawyers would at least agree that the laws are analogous, since both are 1) state laws that 2) mandate training 3) for public and privately employed professionals and managers. They would then argue that the case of the lawyers should be distinguished.
You said that lawyers accept the requirements of CLE’s BEFORE they enter the profession, but most lawyers know that this is untrue.
Anyone can reread these posts. There is nothing personal in this. I am just posting some legal observations.
Mespo, it was not clear to me, because I never made an ad hominem attack on More. I stated facts about what he did and what happened to him. He prosecuted heretics. He was executed, rightly or wrongly, for treason. These are facts that you have not denied. Do not accuse me of an ad hominem attack, because I deny any accusation that I made such an attack on More.
Anyone here can reread my posts on More.
Vince:
I thought I was clear that the ad hominen attack was against More, not me.
Mespo wrote to me that “ad hominem attacks prove nothing about the original assertion only about the one resorting to the long discredited practice.”
Mespo, I do not see how I can make an ad hominem attack on you, since you are just a pseudonym, and I have no idea who lurks behind it. You are a pen name, a nom-de-plume, an alias. The worst I could have done was to write some “ad pseudonym” things that may have offended you.
In the meantime you yourself have now aimed an anonymous ad hominem posting at me.
Since I don’t know who you are, I could care less.
for Vince, this is what the AACU has to say about academic freedom:
Academic freedom is sometimes confused with autonomy, thought and speech freed from all constraints. But academic freedom implies not just freedom from constraint but also freedom for faculty and students to work within a scholarly community to develop the intellectual and personal qualities required of citizens in a vibrant democracy and participants in a vigorous economy. Academic freedom is protected by society so that faculty and students can use that freedom to promote the larger good.
In defense of Mespo, ‘d’Man for all seasons’:
“On 13 April of that year More was asked to appear before a commission and swear his allegiance to the parliamentary Act of Succession. More accepted Parliament’s right to declare Anne the legitimate queen of England, but he refused to take the oath because of an anti-papal preface to the Act asserting Parliament’s authority to legislate in matters of religion by denying the authority of the Pope, which More would not accept. The oath is written here in modern day English.
….And at the day of the last prorogation of this present Parliament, as well the nobles spiritual and temporal as other the Commons of this present Parliament, most lovingly accepted and took such oath as then was devised IN WRITING for maintenance and defence of the said Act, and meant and intended at that time that every other the king’s subjects should be bound to accept and take the same, upon the pains contained in the said Act, the tenor of which oath hereafter ensueth:…
http://www.answers.com/topic/sir-thomas-more
… And forasmuch as it is convenient for the sure maintenance and defence of the same Act that the said oath should not only be authorized by authority of Parliament, but also be interpreted and expounded by the whole assent of this present Parliament, that is was meant and intended by the king’s majesty, the Lords and Commons of the Parliament, at the said day of the said last prorogation, that every subject should be bounden to take the same oath, according to the tenor and effect thereof, upon the pains and penalties contained in the said Act….
Four days later he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he wrote his devotional Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation.”
And finally, if there’s a system in place where someone knows they can explain to someone in a position of authority a complaint or a concern, it should never get to a point where a situation becomes severe enough, or an atmosphere pervasive enough, to impose a hostile work environment on employees in the first place. The object of the exercise is to have a policy in place that promotes MUTUAL respect.
Vince Treacy: “Academics must meet professional standards in their field to maintain their tenure and academic freedom.”
Bob: “However, academic freedom has nothing to do with deeming a professor as a supervisor for employment law purposes”
Vince Treacy: “So what is your point? McPherson claims that his academic freedom is at stake.”
What’s my point? More like where is your argument. Apparently Buddha Is Laughing had a point and apparently re-assigning premises whenever they don’t suit your fancy seems to be part of your methodology.
BTW, simply because someone makes a glib remark in passing (through a debate) it does not necessarily follow that he has chosen any particular resolution in the matter.
Vince:
You are the master of the trifle, expertly knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. To seriously contend that More was not the standard bearer of freedom of conscience despite his flaws relegates you to realm of those scruffy souls I see parading around in the park proclaiming that the “end is near”– though they probably are technically correct and somewhat amusing, you can’t put much stock in what they say as they continually seem genuinely baffled by all the trees they keep hitting while strolling through the forest.
Vince,
McPherson does seem a bit like Mr. Wallace. Sexual harassment is a very serious crime, which many people blow off as inconsequential, I believe in part, because they think it’s a woman’s problem. This society tends to minimize harm to women or blame the victim when the victim is a female.
I will mention two instances of sexual harassment: 1. a woman in the electrical union was given false information by coworkers who resented having a woman in “their” job. Being told a switch was off when it was not nearly resulted in her death. 2. a male veteran with severe PTSD and a history of sexual abuse in his family of origin had a female supervisor reach down his pants as she snuck up on him from behind. Guess what effect this had on a combat vet with PTSD.
These are just two examples in a sea of very serious cases. We do owe each other a workplace without this kind of bullshit. Sexual harassment law is about being able to go to work/school, do a good job, and be rewarded for the work we do.
It is difficult for me to understand why any person would not want to assure a sane, safe working environment for all. People of good will should not object to learning how to make this possible. It assures the expansion of civil rights for others. It assures that people may go to school or work and not have to leave or lose a job/chance at education due to illegal behavior by others.
This is a big deal.
Jill wrote: “I just don’t think this is McPherson’s Rosa Park’s moment.”
You are absolutely right, Jill!
It is much more like a George Wallace — standing in the schoolhouse door — moment
Bob “However, academic freedom has nothing to do with deeming a professor as a supervisor for employment law purposes”
So what is your point?
McPherson claims that his academic freedom is at stake.
mespo, There were four charges on July 1st. Three of them were baseless. The fourth charge was based on his supposed denial of supremacy in the presence of Riche. Testimony seemed to be in conflict, so someone was lying. The judges ruled against More ON THAT CHARGE, and convicted him of an act of treason.
I am sorry you had to stay up so late, but you still have it wrong.
More’s antagonists did not have a case of treason based on his refusal to sign, since it seems he, as a lawyer, had outsmarted them: he had not explicity denied the king’s supremacy over the Church under the law by spoken or written word.
It is very important to lawyers to know the the exact nature or a charge or indictment. On page 505 of Marius, you will find that, in the fourth count, More was accused of a treasonable conversation with Richard Riche on June 12, when, according to the indictment, More “falsely, traitorously, and maliciously” spoke against the statute. There seems to have been nothing in the indictment about failure to sign the Act.
If Riche was telling the truth, More was guilty. If he was lying, More should not have been convicted. The record is fragmentary, and a lot of history was written by Roper, a partisan source, so the historians have their hands full. No one really knows what happened between Riche and More.
Anyone interested could read Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography.
Marius notes that only one witness to treason was needed at the time; the law was later amended to require two witnesses. That was carried into in our Constitution. It appears that the charge of treason has always required that there be an “act” against one’s country.
I repeat my posting: “More was convicted for something he allegedly said denying the supremacy of the King over the Church in England, not for refusing to sign a document.”
“Bob, esq.: Academics must meet professional standards in their field to maintain their tenure and academic freedom.”
Indeed; thus peer review.
However, academic freedom has nothing to do with deeming a professor as a supervisor for employment law purposes:
http://library.findlaw.com/2005/Feb/6/133651.html
Vince:
“More was convicted for something he allegedly said denying the supremacy of the King over the Church in England, not for refusing to sign a document.”
***************
I suggest you read more and argue less. It might prevent your reliance on half-truths. Here are the elements of the charge against More from Encyclopedia Britannica:
“[More] was summoned to appear before royal commissioners on April 13 to assent under oath to the Act of Succession, which declared the king’s marriage with Catherine void and that with Anne valid. This More was willing to do, acknowledging that Anne was in fact anointed queen. But he refused the oath as then administered because it entailed a repudiation of papal supremacy. On April 17, 1534, he was imprisoned in the Tower.”
The oath read in pertinent part: “…. by reason whereof the Bishop of Rome and See Apostolic, contrary to the great and inviolable grants of jurisdictions given by God immediately to emperors, kings and princes, in succession to their heirs, has presumed, in times past, to invest who should please them, to inherit in other men’s kingdoms and dominions, which thing we, your most humble subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do utterly abhor and detest;…”
Wikipedia elaborates:
“On 1 July 1535, More was tried before a panel of judges that included the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, as well as Anne Boleyn’s father, brother, and uncle. He was charged with high treason for denying the validity of the Act of Succession. More believed he could not be convicted as long as he did not explicitly deny that the king was the head of the church, and he therefore refused to answer all questions regarding his opinions on the subject. Thomas Cromwell, at the time the most powerful of the king’s advisors, brought forth the Solicitor General, Richard Rich, to testify that More had, in his presence, denied that the king was the legitimate head of the church. This testimony was almost certainly perjured (witnesses Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer both denied having heard the details of the reported conversation), but on the strength of it the jury voted for More’s conviction.”
Though Richard Rich did in fact falsely testify that More had denied the King’s Supremacy, the fact of his refusal to sign the oath was the basis for the charge. Rich’s perjury came later and the conviction came under the Treason Act of 1534. The niceties of the charge matching the proof having been conveniently dispensed with by the Chancellor.
Disingenuous arguments do you no credit, and ad hominem attacks prove nothing about the original assertion only about the one resorting to the long discredited practice.
Bob, esq.: Academics must meet professional standards in their field to maintain their tenure and academic freedom.
Mespo, your history is worse than your law,and you are very confused about both. More was convicted for something he allegedly said denying the supremacy of the King over the Church in England, not for refusing to sign a document. More never denied prosecuting heretics. He wrote an entire book denouncing them.
Wiki: QUOTE On 1 July 1535, More was tried before a panel of judges that included the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, as well as Anne Boleyn’s father, brother, and uncle. He was charged with high treason for denying the validity of the Act of Succession. More believed he could not be convicted as long as he did not explicitly deny that the king was the head of the church, and he therefore refused to answer all questions regarding his opinions on the subject. Thomas Cromwell, at the time the most powerful of the king’s advisors, brought forth the Solicitor General, Richard Rich, to testify that More had, in his presence, denied that the king was the legitimate head of the church. This testimony was almost certainly perjured (witnesses Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer both denied having heard the details of the reported conversation), but on the strength of it the jury voted for More’s conviction. UNQUOTE This is confirmed in Marius’s biography.
Your history seems to be a string of quotations wrenched out of context. You confuse conscience with academic freedom. Everyone now, the U. S., has freedom of conscience, unlike More’s England. More would never have signed the Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights, or 13th or 14th Amendments. So what has he to say to us today?
Freedom of conscience is one thing. Academic freedom a related but distinct doctrine. It applies to university teachers who meet professional standards monitored by their peers. It gives them the freedom to explore new truths in their fields of expertise without political or religious interference. But their research must meet professional standards.
I admire the brave Protestants and Catholics who died for their beliefs. I do not admire the Inquisitors and other prosecutors who persecuted them.
The cold hard historical fact is that More was one of the prosecutors before he met a similar fate himself. He had many admirable qualities, but support for the freedom of conscience of others was not one of them.
Go ahead and admire him if you please, but do not put him forward as a champion of freedom of conscience for anyone but himself.
Vince:
More denied those atrocities but it appears that may have been more about improbity than false accusation. The point remains that he was persecuted for refusing to sign a document verifying his acquiesence to a proposition with which he did not agrre and that is an attack on his conscience. To denigrate him does not challenge nor diminish that simple fact of history.
“it is the freedom for yourself AND EVERYONE ELSE to engage in the free search for truth, subject to academic discipline, that is the essence of academic freedom.”
Truth is the agreement between knowledge and its object; i.e. not the agreement between knowledge and its object subject to…[anything].
Then again it appears I’ll have to pray to St. Jude on this one; right?
SIYOM,
Bob
“In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious.”
So, Mespo, he extracted enjoyment from burning heretics?
“I thought the freedom to think as you choose was the essence of academic freedom. Silly me.”
No, Mespo, it is the freedom for yourself AND EVERYONE ELSE to engage in the free search for truth, subject to academic discipline, that is the essence of academic freedom. Silly you.
More believed in the freedom to think as HE chose, but not for the freedom of Protestants to think as they chose.
And no, Mespo and Bob, More would not have put me in sensitivity training. He had far worse methods.
Bob, Esq, I know what More would have thought of you if you are not, in fact, a devout Catholic. You would be a candidate for burning, not for sensitivity training.
I much prefer Erasmus’ description of his old friend Thomas More in his famous letter to Ulrich von Hutten as compared to Vince’s assessment:
“. . .In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious. If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent, if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter. No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense . . . .”