This year, high-profile cases of sexual harassment and discrimination continued to roil the scientific community, as female scientists went public with allegations of horrific behavior. In September, two senior female scientists filed a lawsuit against the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, alleging that an “old boys club” steered institutional funds and research space away from women. In a case publicized in October, a former graduate student accused Boston University geologist David Marchant of misogyny and serious sexual harassment during a field trip in Antarctica in the late 1990s. A university investigation upheld some of the charges; Marchant is appealing. And in December, nine linguists filed suit against the University of Rochester (U of R) in New York, saying it had retaliated against them for their complaints about linguist T. Florian Jaeger, who was accused of preying sexually on students. U of R initially cleared Jaeger, but has opened a new investigation.
Scientific organizations are finally giving the problem some high-level attention. The National Academy of Sciences plunged into a study, due out next year, on the impact of sexual harassment on women’s careers. And in September, the 60,000-member American Geophysical Union made sexual harassment a form of misconduct on par with research fraud, and established a mechanism for investigating claims and sanctioning offenders.
“This is the reckoning stage,” said anthropologist Kate Clancy of the University of Illinois in Urbana, who has studied harassment during fieldwork. The unfolding of case after case brought “a weird mix of emotions,” she said. “Satisfaction that we’re moving in the right direction, and frustration that it took so long.”
A rally at Boston University against sexual harassment.
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