
Top geneticist loses 3.5M grant in first test of landmark bullying policy - digital55
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06009-9
======
dopamean
I think many people here are caught up on the word "bullying" and think that
perhaps her actions weren't very serious. The reality is that none of us here
know what she did. I'm just going to go ahead and trust that the granting
organization knows what they're doing with their money.

~~~
rwcarlsen
In the absence of information, I default to siding with who I see as the
recipient of the final punishment/jab who never got a trial. The resigned
researcher may have just lost her entire career without a trial. Maybe she is
guilty - maybe not. And I do not consider knowing how someone reacted to
information equivalent to having that information.

~~~
ipioxu15
Wrong.

According to the article, the "punishment" on table was a disciplinatory
hearing. The PI decided to resign rather than undergo that.

The situation is not materially worse than someone getting fired for a reason,
and I don't see many stories on HN about that.

~~~
rwcarlsen
Regardless of what she chose (resign or be disciplined), her career may never
recover. I meant "punishment" in a more abstract sense.

~~~
Someone1234
You complained they never got a "trial." The person you're responding to was
quite correctly pointing out that was completely their choice, a disciplinary
hearing would allow all sides to present information, but she effectively
plead guilty instead (i.e. take the ultimate sanction).

~~~
rwcarlsen
That isn't necessarily true. Even being accused of things can cause
significant damage. Also, a huge grant organization had already pulled their
funding.

~~~
dopamean
So you're arguing for not accusing people of things?

------
HarryHirsch
Hopefully the institution will support Mrs Rahnan's graduate students,
postdocs and technicians. Not only did they suffer while working with an
abusive advisor, they are suffering again because a lot of funding went away.

------
mherdeg
Interesting to contrast this reaction with what felt like a shrug at MIT in
response to allegations in 2006 that a prominent neuroscientist "bullied" a
prospective hire -- see
[http://tech.mit.edu/V126/N52/52tonegawa.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V126/N52/52tonegawa.html)
,
[http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/191/tonegawa.html](http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/191/tonegawa.html)
,
[http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/191/to_hockfield.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/191/to_hockfield.pdf)
,
[http://tech.mit.edu/V126/N30/30tonegawa.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V126/N30/30tonegawa.html)
, and so on.

------
orasis
Will someone please legally define "bullying" and "abusive"? This seems like
another kangaroo court system in the making.

~~~
shaggerty
The article links to another article discussing Wellcome's policy.

"The policy defines bullying as a misuse of power that can make people feel
vulnerable, upset, humiliated, undermined or threatened. It says harassment is
unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct that has the purpose or effect
of violating someone else’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile,
degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them."

~~~
Avamander
How can we be sure it wasn't just a few disgruntled people who wanted to just
put a spoke in her wheel?

~~~
HarryHirsch
From the article: _After receiving a complaint in November, it immediately
commissioned an independent investigation by a law firm into the allegations.
The intention was to establish whether the allegations were substantiated by
evidence — rather than to determine a disciplinary outcome._

ICR were playing by the letter of the law - as they ought to - and sound
properly contrite. There must have been a lot of substance.

------
dang
Since no one here has the facts, people are mostly just arguing about their
different associations with the word "bullying". That makes the thread
basically about nothing. This is an example of how an intellectually curious
discussion requires a minimal level of information. We don't have that in this
case.

------
acqq
So “Wellcome Trust“ doesn’t have ebough information (1) but acts based on..
something?

1) “Wellcome bemoans the lack of information available on the affair. “We have
been working with the ICR to understand more about their investigation and the
allegations that were made against Professor Rahman,” says the statement.
“Unfortunately, we do not have the full details of the case because they have
not been shared with us.””

------
eahman03
If a top scientist loses a grant, science loses.

~~~
arghwhat
A top scientist working with cancer research, losing a grant because of
_bullying_.

Someone must have some really twisted priorities to consider cancer research
so meaningless.

Sure, the bully should get corrected, but through normal corrective measure
such as _calling her in for a meeting_. This is just absurd.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_Sure, the bully should get corrected, but through normal corrective measure
such as calling her in for a meeting. This is just absurd._

The only thing that works is meaningful consequences. This includes
consequences for the institution - it's clear that there was a litany of
complaints about the person, all of which went unheeded.

~~~
arghwhat
If her work is valuable, you'd try to get the behavior corrected rather than
burning the witch immediately.

She might be an asshole, but this is not how you would deal with the situation
in a normal company where someone has an important position.

------
jbob2000
Well I'm of two minds about this.

Linus Torvalds is, by all accounts, a bully. But that's how science goes
sometimes; it is unforgiving and will make you feel stupid and inadequate, why
blame the messenger? And science is hard! People regularly get in your way
with shitty ideas, especially when you've hit upon something great like Linux
or cancer gene discoveries.

I kind of dealt with this at work recently. We were asked to disable the right
click menu on our website. A business analyst thought that it would solve a
session management problem and instead of asking us how to solve the problem,
thought that they would prescribe this solution to us. I tried to kill this
right out of the gate; "This is a bad idea, it doesn't do what you want, if
you want better session handling we don't do it this way, so let's close this
story and discuss a better approach". Nope, that wasn't good enough. Cue 2
weeks of meetings explaining what the right click menu does and how it doesn't
even come close to solving the real problem. I really just wanted to call this
BA an idiot and bully the problem away, it would have saved a significant
amount of time and frustration for multiple parties.

So I'm imagining this geneticist in similar situations. "Hey, I heard that
vitamin C can splice this gene better than how you're doing it, why don't you
try?". _Cue angry response that could get construed as bullying_.

All that being said, there _are_ mean people who just fumble about destroying
everything in their wake. So lacking any information about this person's
bullying... who knows.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_Linus Torvalds is, by all accounts, a bully._

Not that again. Some people will defend him because the people he really lets
loose on is not newcomers but very experienced contributors from whom he
expects better.

It's a cultural issue. Recently I spoke to a US general, who as a young
officer served as a liaison officer in Germany. He found the German directness
"refreshing".

~~~
gameswithgo
You can be linus style direct, more efficiently, by removing the irrelevant
insults and swearing.

They really serve no purpose other than to make linus feel good and others
feel bad. So its not net good for the world.

You can say "This commit is garbage I am really angry about it and expected
better from you" and not add "you are a fucking abortion" or whatever.

~~~
dbcurtis
Even that is not helpful to the recipient of the feedback.

How about:

"Here is a list of standards every code check-in is required to meet. Here are
the standards that your current P/R fails. Try again. Do you need help with
anything specific? When can you have a new P/R ready?."

If applicable: "This delays the schedule, what is your recovery plan?:

And occasionally: "At your pay grade, you are expected to know these
standards."

~~~
tbrake
I find this kind of dispassionate feedback both condescending and nauseating
tbqh.

A few f-bombs let me know you care.

~~~
dbcurtis
Dispassionate? Let me tell you, if you have ever had an ex-commando officer
from the Israeli Defense Force as a boss, you will know with every fiber of
your being that those words can be delivered with passion.

A passion that leaves no doubt in your mind that "What is your recovery plan?"
is not a soft-ball question, and that a soft-ball answer will be promptly
discarded. In my case, said boss took part in Operation Entebbe. He ran a very
low-BS engineering organization. It was refreshing in a very good way.

