S11, E6: The Smoking Gun of Cancel Culture
Series 11: The Collateral Damage of Revenge in Science
People can be more readily persuaded to omit inconvenient truths than tell an outright lie, and ‘white lies’, are often omissions to protect someone’s feelings. The idea of a ‘greater good’ is key, because although we might surmise that only the nefarious would collaborate in a deliberate lie, even honest people can be tricked into collusion for what looks like a good cause.
There is nothing novel about this for anyone who has made even a causal study of human nature; there are various moral dilemma-games that show how flexible our morality can be in circumstances where there are no right answers.
To contemplate how corrupting the combination of being (severally) in a position of authority; preeminent in the field; well liked and frequently flattered, we have to also consider what might others do should they covet that affection and acclaim. These are questions to inform a sense of what is probable without expectation of an answer.
This series explores the case of Geoffrey Marcy from various angles. I make no claims about whether or not he was really culpable of sexual harassment but do confidently state his treatment was unjust and also, guilt was not credibly determined. You may be tempted to think, ‘well if he’s guilty the injustice does not matter’, but that would be a mistake.
A person’s biggest strength is frequently their Achilles Heel too. An elite sportsperson will be criticised for poor performance and have their lifestyle choices second-guessed. A comedian may be celebrated for shocking yet insightful humour until one day they fail to artfully sidestep their own landmine. A young and famously beautiful woman can one day be attacked for allowing herself to become old.
Similarly, within interpersonal relationships, what makes certain individuals outstanding, be it charisma, genuine affection or openness, can also be cynically interpreted and used against them. To get closer to the truth, we have to examine the information objectively, be sensitive to context and maintain empathy for those who thought they were doing the right thing.
If this episode is too large for your email client please read online.
The False Promise of Catharsis
An effigy is a physical representation of a hated individual to be ridiculed, defiled or destroyed, usually ceremonially by an angry crowd. As group-therapy it fails, because the feelings of hostility are amplified by the symbolic eradication of a human being, plus those who partake are diminished by their actions.
Yet what if a person is the effigy that is made to embody a range of societal ills and to be a sponge for anger? Isn’t that what cancel culture does?
In Jewish antiquity two scapegoats were used; one had the sins of the tribe put upon it before being driven into the desert to starve to death, the other was sacrificed. The scapegoat does not only soak up the revenge for victims it pays the cost of atonement for the complicit.
So what wrongs are we talking about? In 2010 the #metoo movement exposed the widespread abuse of power in the entertainment industry. Wrongdoing would be covered up and sexual favours extorted and this made other industries and institutions to look inward. This was against a backdrop of the low arrest rates and infrequent prosecutions for sexual assault - only a tiny proportion of which, were ever converted to a successful conviction.
Confounders and Drivers
In a later episode, after looking at the empirical performance of the legal process in various US territories, I argue that although punishment and deterrence are about crime prevention, we need to be more technically precise in our approach to the mitigation of risk. Unfortunately, wherever justice appears to fail, there is an impulse to use cruder rather than more sophisticated means to obtain justice, hence the appeal of the vigilante mob.
And it is towards simplistic solutions that groups of people in different branches of academia (in this case philosophy and later astronomy) found themselves headed. At some point retribution became more important than the truth. It’s a small step between mooting that an individual is too powerful to be legally held accountable for their actions, and making them into the personification of power and oppression, to be taken out by any means.
In another future episode I discuss atonement and how the open letters put out by the student body, the postdocs and the faculty, all displayed desperation. I describe how they swiftly denounced Marcy on the basis of a BuzzFeed News article and why that enabled them to deny any knowledge of impropriety while simultaneously condemning it.
I believe it can be shown with high confidence that the conduct of the Title IX investigation, activists, certain complainants and witnesses, was ultimately reducible to the need to rationalise bad behaviour and even lies. I invite you engage with the following thought experiment:
Thought Experiment
Let’s assume you have become convinced of three things about an individual;
They are guilty of despicable acts against people
They are so influential that they will never be held accountable
Unless they are stopped there will be other victims
Then you are given an opportunity to stop them. You are informed that justice can be done if you are prepared to say something that is technically a lie but morally nearer the truth. Because the system does not care about truth and is instead preoccupied with protecting powerful individuals the lie would not matter.
You will be required make an allegation but because previous accusations have for one reason or another, been dismissed or discredited, this one will have to be absolutely damning. It would be less of a lie and more a compensation for an accumulation of unpunished offences.
What would you do?
Even if you wouldn’t lie you can see that others would be persuaded and also (with a little time and effort) they could be found.
After I wrote the above I came across a number of academic blogs, that starting in 2014 could be traced backwards to around 2011, when the #metoo movement was a year old.
The much quoted Inside Higher Education blog, “A Call to Shun”, by Scott Jaschik (March 2011) drew on the writings of three philosophers. They proposed that certain individuals in academia could be shunned by the community for wrongdoing even if it was unproven. The rationale for this is almost identical to that of my thought experiment, because although there is no call to lie, the purpose of such action would be to circumvent the obstacle of establishing truth ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
Let's say there is a scholar in your field who is known to harass women. Maybe you witnessed an incident. Maybe you heard from friends who were his victims. Maybe you heard from friends of friends. The person is known (among women at least) as someone to avoid, but he continues on in a professorship at a top university, serving on influential editorial boards, turning up on the programs of all the right conferences.
“A Call to Shun”, Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik (March 2011)
The paragraph starts with the premise of guilt even if that be on the basis of third-hand hearsay. It’s important to understand that for the purpose of their argument, guilt is not a debatable point, because that is what the reader is instructed to assume in good faith. Later I will show how these blogs influenced those in the American Astronomy Society (AAS) and The Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA). The timing of all this looks highly significant to the Marcy case.
The article continues…
If the man has never been convicted by a judicial body or punished by a university (at least not that you know of), is this just a case of "innocent until proven guilty? Or does this suggest disciplinary negligence …?”
ibid.
So if a guilty person is not punished then the system must be wrong? Remember that this argument not only leans on the premise of guilt it completely discounts any possibility of innocence. Next within the same paragraph, and without warning we are asked if, ‘…this just a case of "innocent until proven guilty"?’ Of course it’s a trap because you’ve already been told to assume guilt. Hence, ‘disciplinary negligence’, is a proxy for ‘failing to find guilty’ in the absence of evidence.
Distinction without Difference
Unlike in my thought experiment, they were not suggesting that people lie, but it made no difference because by their -
willingness to rely on hearsay
disinterest in the burden of proof
contempt for the presumption of innocence
- they weren’t much advocating for truth either.
Like my thought experiment the desired outcome has little to do with truth.
In the legal sense if the person has not been convicted they are not legally guilty which is of course entirely compatible with being actually guilty. Any legal system that attempts to distinguish between guilt and innocence will get it wrong occasionally and it’s better to acquit some of the guilty than to condemn any of the innocent.
Acquitting the guilty is not a flaw, because for any justice system to be functional, it has to be possible that someone guilty is not convicted due to lack of evidence. Were that not true, evidence would not be a prerequisite to establishing guilt, the result being that anybody could be found guilty of anything.
Overlapping with where we left off:
Or does this suggest disciplinary negligence -- or tolerance of serial harassment? That is the question being debated this week by philosophers as a series of blogs and websites have responded to an online project in which women in philosophy have shared stories of the bias and harassment they have experienced.
ibid.
So to underline a previous point, that a murderer may be acquitted is not a sign that there is a ‘tolerance of murder’, but it does indicate a healthy intolerance to lack of evidence.
Rumour Has It
The philosophers referred to were Mark Lance, John Protevi and Eric Schliesser, with respective specialisations in anarchist, post-modern and political theory. Without pretending to be equipped to critique their work, it seems safe to venture, that these philosophers held views that belie a deep scepticism of western legal processes.
Lance said that "of course" one has to be careful about believing unsubstantiated rumors. But he noted that what he and his colleagues are calling for isn't sending anyone to jail.
ibid.
Ignoring the tautology for a moment, Canadian professor Richard Bilkszto was labelled a racist and white supremacist after a diversity, equity and inclusion training. It was a ridiculous claim but he was subsequently subjected to bullying, shaming and various exclusions - the type of community action that the three philosophers and those who quoted them were extoling. That they were not calling for ‘sending anyone to jail’ becomes irrelevant when you realise that Richard Bilkszto took his own life in July 2023. You can read about that here if you care to see where unmoderated judgement can lead.
Not believing an ‘unsubstantiated’ rumour, suggests it is acceptable to ostracise people on the basis of a substantiated rumour - this is a negation of the original tautology or equally, a contradiction in terms.
"Five women tell you roughly the same thing they have experienced. Maybe that's not enough to convict someone in a court, but it strikes me as perfectly reasonable grounds to think someone is behaving badly. I think if such a person walks up to you, you can say, 'I'm sorry, but I don't talk to people who behave the way you do.' "
ibid.
I would hate to live inside a head where any of that made sense.
Let’s briefly remind ourselves that legal models generally consist of advocacy for both the prosecution and the defence plus impartial adjudication. The alternative on offer is an ad-hoc anarchistic form of justice, where offenders can be banished at the whim of a community, with no strict requirement for evidence.
Although they appear contemptuous of formal processes of western justice, it’s difficult to see how these philosophers can possibly believe that groupthink is an improvement upon slowly iterated legal precedents.
The return to an agrarian society without structure might seem like an appealing and romantic notion, but to take that seriously requires of us to be philistines in respect of human progress. In the comedy-drama Shirley Valentine, the eponymous character is in Greece and her fellow English tourists who are ridiculing the primitive boats they saw in the harbour, she remonstrates …
"Don't talk to me about the English because while the Greek's were building roads and city's and temples we were running around in loincloths ploughing up the earth with the arse bone of a giraffe."
Shirley Valentine (Pauline Colins), Shirley Valentine - 1989
Which incidentally is the destination of anarchy.
The stories are anonymous, but the philosophers who have taken up the cause say that the accounts ring true, and that they personally know of many similar cases.
ibid.
Hearsay is not elevated to being credible because philosophers have judged the accounts ‘ring true’. Having the hubris to assume themselves capable of intuiting the truth from one side only, should disqualify them from judging anything or anybody. Claiming to ‘personally know of many similar cases’ is as useful as saying nothing at all.
And a number of philosophers are now calling for some form of shunning to take place -- for scholars to take a stand by refusing to interact with or honor those of their colleagues who have reputations for being harassers.
ibid.
That number being three. Of course, scepticism of the status quo is fundamental to any activism, but the solutions offered are seldom properly defined. If you read ‘Homage to Catalonia’, which is George Orwell’s personal account of the Spanish Civil War, you will receive a warning about confused objectives, propaganda and the bitterness of betrayal. The aims of activism include establishing influence which I argue in S3, E1: Something Wicked This Way Comes - A Primer is a type of power.
We are told:
These philosophers charge not only that harassment is widespread, but that departments and colleges have looked the other way, and that the problem includes some of the top figures in the field today.
ibid.
But on what basis?
… "there are many important figures in the profession whom their colleagues and students know to have engaged in various forms of sexual harassment on multiple occasions. Many of us have heard first-hand accounts of harassment from those who have been harassed; almost all of us have heard second-hand accounts from those who know the harassers or the harassed....
“A Call to Shun”, Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik (March 2011)
The Smoking Gun
The passages I have examined were quoted in a 2014 article on the AAS Women in Astronomy Blog, viz. Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun by Joan Schmelz. I want to take you through what she says to get to that point where she quotes Scott Jaschik.
It starts with an encounter while queuing for coffee, and although she does not mention him by name, she is referring to Geoffrey Marcy.
Some months back, I came face-to-face with one of the astronomy community’s most notorious sexual harassers. There I was, minding my own business, making my way through the coffee line, when BOOM! He turned around, and there was no escape. I’ve known about him for years, listened with sympathy to the stories from his victims, trying to figure out how to help. I understood the damage he had done to the vulnerable young astronomers who found themselves in his sights.
“Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun”, Women in Astronomy, by Joan Schmelz
Beyond the melodrama you should quickly discern that she is not claiming to have been harassed, yet it seems that some didn’t realise this, and Schmelz was obliged to add the following clarification later:
[Note added to text: after reading about this encounter, several readers thought that I was claiming that I was being sexually harassed here. Nothing could be further from the truth! If I had not known about the past behavior of the harasser, this encounter would not have been noteworthy in the least – JTS]
ibid.
By uncovering a number of public disclosures made to the media, reading Will Mallari’s public domain report on his Title IX investigation and through a series of deductions, I have been able to identify the main protagonists in the anti-Marcy campaign.
It is here that Joan Schmelz discloses her involvement and from this paragraph all her connections to the investigation and the resulting report can be seen.
I’ve talked to CSWA, AAS council members, and his University/laboratory/institution colleagues about what to do and how to stop him. I always come away empty – he’s too powerful, too popular, and too successful.
ibid.
Why would a serial harasser be too popular? Remember as has already been discussed, to justify certain actions, the target must be represented as an incarnation of privilege that cannot be assailed conventionally. Revolutions are similarly justified.
People had told me that he was charming, and he started working it as I got my coffee.
ibid.
This is extraordinary. Was she conflicted because she didn’t feel threatened but felt that she should? She continues the theme of his charm in swooning terms worthy of Jane Austen with an attack of the vapours.
I could feel the waves of it rushing over me – and it made me angry. This is what his victims faced, I realized. How are we ever going to stop him?
ibid.
“Mr. Darcy began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.”
“Pride and Prejudice”, Jane Austen
Consider the significance of what she says about this herself in the note she appended later:
If I had not known about the past behavior of the harasser, this encounter would not have been noteworthy in the least
ibid.
By her own admission, whatever construction may be put on her feelings, they were nothing to do with anything Marcy did. This is Walter Mitty territory. That is not to invalidate what she felt but to emphasise that someone’s reputation, regardless of whether it’s deserved, will have a big influence on how any encounter is interpreted. Joan Schmelz made it her mission to warn undergraduates about Marcy, so did she save them, or merely tarnish their experiences too?
I refused to smile, my jaw set and my body rigid. I was strong in the face of the charm offensive, but he wouldn’t just leave it be and walk away. Instead, he doubled down.
“How do I know you?” he asked.
ibid.
While you are making your own mind up about if this question was really a double down, it’s worth bearing in mind that it might have been odd to walk away, given he was in a queue for coffee.
I’d like you to know me as the woman who helped expose your crimes, I thought, but I didn’t say that aloud.
ibid.
It’s a revealing fantasy.
“CSWA,” I replied, and recognition dawned.
“You’re famous!” he exclaimed.
He started complimenting me on the work of CSWA, on the success of the AASWOMEN newsletter, and the good job we were doing. I ignored the chatter. A retort was bubbling up from my unconscious. As it reached my lips, I couldn’t hold it back.
“And you’re infamous!” I replied.
ibid.
So that was the extent of the exchange as far as we are told. Schmelz was later critical of her interaction wondering if she had squandered an opportunity to make a stronger point. Then she reveals that she got the Jaschik article second hand from a prominent AAS member who commented on it three years earlier.
[…], and I keep coming back it an item published in the AASWOMEN newsletter on April 1, 2011. The title was, “Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun,” and it was submitted by Caty Pilachowski, professor at Indiana University, former president of the AAS, and former chair of CSWA.
The item began, “There is a relevant post by Scott Jaschik in the March 30 issue of ‘Inside Higher Ed’ about sexual harassment in the field of philosophy.”
That the original article had been recycled at least twice while using the same title so this may be a bit confusing but the point is it was influenced the AAS and the CSWA at the highest level.
Here are the first few paragraphs of the article …
ibid.
But we have been through that already.
The comments to the Schmelz article are revealing and mostly measured.
Comments to “Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun”
photon said...
Joan, I really admire you and how you handled this situation.
On the other side of this, how do you get out the word that certain astronomers are harassers? How do you put the "bell on the cat", so to speak? (Especially the ones who think they're great feminists and yet are the embodiment of entitlement and patriarchy?)
This probably refers to the fact that Geoffrey Marcy was actively involved in CSWA for many years in the nineties. Schmelz had already disclosed that she discussed the individual (that we now know to be Marcy) with AAS and CSWA council members so this comment very much looks like a nod to that.
Anonymous said...
Yes, naming and shaming is a risky, dangerous business, particularly for vulnerable young professionals.
But the grapevine is also completely inadequat (sic): I have no idea who you are talking about in your anecdote, and no way to find out. And I'm decently connected to the grapevine---generally the more vulnerable an astronomer is, the less access she (or he) will have to the necessary information.
-J
So despite what would later be widely claimed, Marcy’s supposed reputation as an harasser is was not common knowledge in Astronomy, even amongst the readers (i.e. non-council members) of the AAS Women in Astronomy blog.
Also ditto for…
Anonymous said...
I have to agree with the previous anonymous poster.... I was unaware there were any well-known sexual harassers in astronomy! However, I agree that any official kind of rumor mill for disseminating such information would be equally inappropriate, unless there was some official process of conviction and judgement involved. At the same time, if people know of seriously serial harassers, I suspect a lot of the time people will not say anything about it to avoid sounding "gossipy".
Where are the concerned individuals bearing in mind that four of the people who would later engage with the Marcy case in various ways, were on the CSWA council at this time, viz. Jessica Kirkpatrick, David Charbonneau, John Asher Johnson and Joan Schmelz.
Mireille said...
From your description, I can feel that this guy is my Dr Charming.
I'm cute, female, young and will improve his publication output better than any radical feminist if he picks me as his postdoc.
Awkward. If genuine it’s reminiscent of how celebrities are treated. Are we suspicious of all actors, singers and sports stars because they have a fawning fanbase? I think this is a neglected aspect of the entire dynamic, because ‘celebrity’ would both explain why Marcy was ‘too popular’ (Schmelz’s words) on campus, yet resented by some who aspired to be his peers. It would also explain why he would be an ideal mark politically.
The private Astronomy Facebook group that would be instrumental in triggering the Title IX case against Marcy (after a campaign that went back to at least 2011) gets a mention.
Anonymous said...
We talked a bit about this, and some of the ideas listed on the Astronomers facebook page, and had an idea.
Based on the suggestion of giving people in the AAS the ability to become an #ally, and part of a group who get to wear the ally tag. Since some of the worst perpetrators fancy themselves "allies" who are anything but, so what about implementing a sponsorship / vote-in ally group? Start with a core group of trusted people, and then allow those people to nominate other allies and let people vote (with the possibility of discussions of the nominees, including the ability to anonymously comment). It's true that allies would begin as "elitist," but as time progresses this would become less and less of a problem, as the group nominates and votes in new members.
The influence of the Jaschik article reached the Astronomy Facebook group perhaps as early as 2011. This was about creating an outgroup who could be identified by dint of being tag-less. Then there is this balancing reflection:
Anonymous said...
I'm concerned that we may be over-interpreting. What if Dr. Charming is just a kind person, with no further expectations? I actually appreciate it when I can talk to a faculty member and have them treat me as a human being, rather than as another set of hands to crank through the data. A world where pleasantries and helpful conversations are considered to be sexual harassment seems too extreme to me. It would feel like a very cold world if kindness and conversation were turned away on the assumption that they equate to sexual harassment.
A view that would be extremely unfashionable to express about a year later.
This may even be the smoking gun for the origins of modern cancel culture, where many ideas about how to bring ‘shunning’ up to date, were formed.
Next: S11,E7: Rekindling Old Flames and
S11,E7B: The B-Side/A Timetable of Injustice