NAS ousts member for first time, for sexual harassment

doi:10.1126/science.372.6546.1025

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DOI	10.1126/science.372.6546.1025
	NAS ousts member for first time, for sexual harassment
	Jocelyn Kaiser
	2021-06-04
发表期刊	Science
出版年	2021
英文摘要	The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) last week brought some closure to a long-running saga by rescinding the membership of astronomer Geoffrey Marcy because of sexual harassment. It is the first time the 158-year-old body has expelled a member for any reason. NAS set the stage for the expulsion in 2019, when it revised its bylaws to allow the removal of members who have been found guilty of misconduct, including sexual harassment, by their employers, journals or funding agencies. No one formally sought such action for sexual harassment transgressions until September 2020, when François-Xavier Coudert, a computational chemist with CNRS, France's national science agency, filed complaints with NAS against Marcy and three other academy members. After a vote that an NAS spokesperson said met the required two-thirds majority, the academy's 17-member council revoked Marcy's membership on 24 May for violating its harassment policy. “I don't know if there is any justice here for the women Marcy harassed … but at least the academy is holding him accountable for the damage he did,” says Seyda Ipek, a theoretical particle physicist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who filed her own complaint last fall with NAS against Marcy and evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, who was also named in Coudert's complaint. Marcy, who studies extrasolar planets, was forced out of UC Berkeley in 2015 after BuzzFeed reported that a university investigation had found him guilty of sexual harassment, including kissing and groping students. After his NAS expulsion, Marcy repeated earlier denials of sexual harassment. “My engaging and empathic style could surely be misinterpreted, which is my fault for poor communication,” he wrote to Science . “I would never intentionally hurt anyone nor cause distress.” Ayala, a second target of Coudert's complaint, resigned from UC Irvine in 2018 after a university investigation found him guilty of sexual harassment, including making suggestive comments and inviting a junior professor to sit on his lap. Ayala has “absolutely” denied the allegations. NAS told Coudert in November 2020 it was adjudicating Ayala's case. But its spokesperson said last week the academy does not “have information on [that or] other cases.” Coudert's complaint also included cancer biologist Inder Verma, formerly at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 2018, Science published accounts from eight women alleging sexual harassment stretching over decades ( Science , 4 May 2018, p. [480][1]). Salk investigated but did not release its findings; Verma denied the allegations. NAS told Coudert it could not take action on the basis of media reports alone. The fourth scientist Coudert named is information theorist Sergio Verdú, who was dismissed by Princeton University after two investigations found he had sexually harassed a graduate student and violated a prohibition on consensual relationships with students. (Verdú has denied both allegations.) NAS told Coudert in November 2020 it was holding off on any action until a lawsuit Verdú has filed against Princeton is resolved. Ipek hopes future NAS cases will be reviewed more quickly, but “given how long Ayala's case is taking … I am not sure if we can hold our breath.” Coudert is also frustrated, arguing that the academy's policy requiring public findings is ineffective. Marcy's expulsion is “a positive step, but a baby step,” Coudert says. “They are allowing bad actors to remain members of the academy.” Marcy, now with Space Laser Awareness, a California nonprofit, continues to publish scientific papers and preprints. Some still include a UC Berkeley affiliation; Marcy resigned in 2015, but university policy allows him to claim emeritus status. A co-author of one paper, graduate student Lee Rosenthal of the California Institute of Technology, tweeted that future papers will recognize any data contributions from Marcy in acknowledgements, not by giving him authorship. “I am so sorry, and heartbroken, that inclusion of Geoff Marcy on this paper has harmed folks that have been sexually harassed,” he wrote. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/360/6388/480
领域	气候变化 ; 资源环境
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文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/329852
专题	气候变化资源环境科学
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Jocelyn Kaiser. NAS ousts member for first time, for sexual harassment[J]. Science,2021.
APA	Jocelyn Kaiser.(2021).NAS ousts member for first time, for sexual harassment.Science.
MLA	Jocelyn Kaiser."NAS ousts member for first time, for sexual harassment".Science (2021).