
Two CMU Computer Science Professors Resign, Citing “sexist management” - crsv
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2018/08/14/lenore-manuel-blum-carnegie-mellon-university-school-computer-science-project-olympus/stories/201808140055
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geofft
The two professors are Lenore and Manuel Blum:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenore_Blum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenore_Blum)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Blum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Blum)

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yodon
And their Wikipedia entries don't begin to convey what super nice people
Manuel and Lenore are

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quxbar
This is far more damning than any puff piece I have seen in years.

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jjoonathan
Yep. Combined with the earlier news that they removed demonstrated interest as
an admissions criteria (too far in the other direction IMO), CMU is starting
to look like a warzone.

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azhenley
What was removed??

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sp332
Edit2: See nv-vn's comment below.

They won't consider how much you "demonstrated interest" in CS to get into the
program.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446996)
[Edit: this isn't only for the CS program, and it's not only about women, but
you can fill in the blanks I guess]

I think it makes sense if you think women (IIRC this was about the gender gap
in CS) tend not to be directed toward CS as much as men are in middle/high
school, or if you think their accomplishments might have been downplayed or
not played up as much due to someone else's sexism. After all when you're
recruiting for college you don't care so much about a person's past
accomplishments so much as future potential.

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emddudley
How can you possibly judge future potential without looking at past
accomplishments?

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TheCoelacanth
"Demonstrated interest" in college admissions means that they attended an
information session or visited the campus or something else like that. Maybe a
reasonable thing to consider in admissions decisions, but hardly what I would
call an "accomplishment".

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vowelless
Manual Blum is the B of the BFPRT algorithm ("median of medians"). He got a
turning award for contributions to complexity theory.

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raincom
Many rock stars in theoretical computer science, including theoretical
cryptography, are linked to Blum either directly (advised by him) or
indirectly (advised by his students).

He left Berkeley to CMU to stay close to his son, Avrim Blum then at CMU, and
grand kids. Avrim moved to Toyota Technological Inst, Chicago for greener
pastures last year.

It is kind of expected of Prof Blum couple to leave CMU to Chicago to stay
close with his son. Wish they had given more substance to their claims of
'sexist management'.

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jimbokun
" Wish they had given more substance to their claims of 'sexist management'."

Just because they didn't share the substance with you, doesn't mean they
didn't share it with CMU administrators.

~~~
rndmwlk
What's the point of a very public resignation if you're just going to silently
pass off the issues to the people you claim are doing nothing about said
issues?

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viirii
She was very engaged with women@scs when I was at CMU ... I wonder how things
got so bad that they are resigning rather than retiring

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yodon
In a setting like that, retiring would be giving up. Resigning doesn't
directly change things but is a far more active response than retiring.

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Svoka
Reading article still no idea what happened. Two scientists resigned at age 75
and 80 after year sabbatical. No specific reasons or issues named.

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lukejduncan
> “So we are resigning. We are not retiring, we are resigning,” she wrote. “No
> parties please.”

I don't know how academia works, but what is the implication of "resigning" vs
"retiring"? Does that change what happens with pensions or is it just a
semantic difference used for emphasis?

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PAClearner
think 'quitting' vs 'retiring'. no idea about pensions etc. I would be
surprised if CMU offers pensions and not a normal 401k.

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greglindahl
... 403b.

~~~
PAClearner
so 401k for tax-sheltered institutions? nifty!

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azhenley
I always thought CMU was immune to this type of stuff. It is very
disheartening, but I hope it gets better.

Is there any news out there with info on whether this is a long-term or
widespread issue at CMU or is it more of a localized problem?

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ssohi
glad they are still listed as instructors for a complexity theory course next
semester

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utopcell
Still no idea what happened.

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cmu-pro
This all falls on Dave Mawhinney. He’s a sexist power hungry joke. Acts like a
big deal saying he sold a company to LinkedIn. LinkedIn acqui-hired one guy
and Dave pretends he had something to do with it. Treats women and anyone
beneath him like garbage behind their back and plays Bro with everyone else.
He’s a cancer at cmu. They need to toss him out.

~~~
sagebird
Isn't this sort of culture poisoning to be expected when a flourishing
university CS department invites the creation of a center for
entrepreneurship? Have you seen this sort of arrangement work out before when
you invite 'VC' personalities into academia? Maybe it is rare to find non-
asshole VCs.

It's incongruent to see these two figures share the same podium. (See it while
you can: [https://www.cmu.edu/swartz-center-for-
entrepreneurship/about...](https://www.cmu.edu/swartz-center-for-
entrepreneurship/about/staff.html) )

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a13n
Is there something I can install to block ad blocker blockers? In this case it
looks like Admiral is the culprit.

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viirii
use incognito mode for that link

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kangnkodos
I think the ad is just taking too long to load. So the web site assumes you
are using an ad blocker, and doesn't let you see the article. Just keep trying
again and again, and eventually, the slow ad will load.

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bitmadness
Manuel Blum is my academic great grandfather, i.e my advisor's advisor's
advisor. He is a legend. Very sad to see this happen.

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Kenji
Copy-paste of article because this website is pure utter shit and requires you
to disable adblocker.

 _Lenore and Manuel Blum — both longtime professors of computer science at
Carnegie Mellon University — have submitted their resignations.

In a Monday morning email blast to staffers in the School of Computer Science,
Ms. Blum, founder of the university’s Project Olympus business incubator, made
accusations about “professional harassment” and “sexist management” on the
school’s Oakland campus over the last three years.

In the email obtained by the Post-Gazette, she pointed specifically to changes
made in recent years under a “new entrepreneurial management structure on
campus.”

Monday evening, Ms. Blum confirmed the resignations, noting they will take
effect Aug. 31, 2019, as the couple have been on sabbatical for the past year.

“Carnegie Mellon University is saddened by Lenore and Manuel Blum’s decision
to resign from the university. We recognize their lasting contributions to the
university, the City of Pittsburgh, and to the field of computer science,” CMU
spokesperson Abby Simmons said in an emailed statement.

“Lenore and Manuel raised some important issues in the email announcing their
resignation,” she continued. “Please know that we are committed to examining
them, and acting accordingly on our findings.”

The Blums have compiled impressive resumes.

Ms. Blum, 75, who earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1968, has been a professor of computer science at
CMU since 1999.

She is the founder and faculty adviser for the university group “Women@SCS,”
which has a mission to empower women's academic, social and professional
opportunities in the computer sciences.

In 2007, she founded CMU’s Project Olympus startup incubator, which has
supported a number of successful companies on campus. For example, portfolio
company Safaba was acquired by Amazon in September 2015 for its automated text
translation software and Facebook bought Faciometrics in November 2016 to
boost its facial recognition algorithms.

Manuel Blum, 80, who also holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT, has been a
professor of computer science at CMU since 2001.

In 1995, he received the Turing Award — the highest honor in the computer
science field, often likened to the Nobel Prize — for his contributions to the
foundations of computational complexity theory.

Ms. Blum, in her email, did not detail specifics as to what drove the decision
to resign beyond describing an atmosphere that she felt put up roadblocks and
kept her out of major decisions, including refusals to answer her emails. On
numerous occasions, she wrote, she tried to resolve troublesome situations,
but they have not been resolved.

“So we are resigning. We are not retiring, we are resigning,” she wrote. “No
parties please.”_

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amaccuish
Thanks. It's managed to freeze a VM I tried to use to read it.

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rwcarlsen
They have been at the university for nearly 20 years and are 75 and 80 years
old respectively. At first I was impressed that some professors were making
huge sacrifices standing up for what they believe. But at age 75 and 80, they
aren't really risking any sort of career or financial stability. I'd like to
give them the benefit of the doubt, but it is hard not to feel like maybe they
just saw a convenient moment to try to make a statement when they were about
to retire anyway?

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beat
In the letter, they do address that the problems leading to their resignation
are recent.

~~~
rwcarlsen
I saw that - but in their position I would be much more likely to do seemingly
drastic things to send a message that I otherwise would not be willing to do
if I had more to lose.

To me, what they have done by resigning is not more significant than someone
young in their career simply speaking out. It is commendable that they spoke
out, but I don't see the resignations as adding much punch.

~~~
PAClearner
idk man they are hugely famous in computer science and are also both renowned
for being very kind and well known in the community. they aren't randos
getting in a fight with their department. they are academic royalty so their
actions are by default assigned a lot of credibility.

as a someone in graduate school for computer science [not cmu] I find this
shocking and am INTENSELY curious about the details. hard to imagine a more
effective resignation.

imagine if steve jobs resigned from apple because the boards was being sexist
or something-I think that resignation would get a LOT of attention. that might
be sorta similar to this situation.

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rwcarlsen
I personally choose to place more emphasis on the sacrifices of individuals
than on their position of prominence when determining how important an issue
is. I would personally find an average-joe resignation more interesting than
one from anyone who had much less to lose in terms of livelihood.

~~~
PAClearner
I was sorta thinking about like raw empirical impact ya know? like normative
vs descriptive.

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rwcarlsen
I'm more after looking for ways to get a qualitative feel for how big a deal
the issues are that caused them to resign rather than how big an impact their
resignation is. But I guess it seems the HN community has pigeon-holed me here
and prevented me from getting much discussion about things. Maybe another day
:-/

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rectang
I think the reason you're taking fire is that your posts have questioned the
sincerity and commitment of the Blums. Many people on HN would rather assume
good intent, for two reasons.

First, because of their gravitas as prestigious researchers. (I'm actually a
bit uncomfortable about that -- most people who experience gender
discrimination haven't won Turing Awards, but we should still listen to them.)

Second, because sticking your neck out about gender issues guarantees a
ferocious response and will make your life hell, so nobody does it
whimsically. So what if they're not 35? Doing this at 75/80 is still
incredibly unpleasant.

Like I said in my other post, I think we as members of the public do not have
enough information to pass judgment. But if the Blums choose to say more, I
hope we will all give them a fair hearing.

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PAClearner
1\. I am also uncomfortable about this

