7 ms·

Top geneticist loses 3.5M grant in first test of landmark bullying policy

43 points by digital55 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
eahman03 8y ago
If a top scientist loses a grant, science loses.
- fastball 8y ago
  The money from the Wellcome Trust will undoubtedly still be funding cancer research, it just won't have a bully at the head.
- gavman 8y ago
  If a top scientist bullies many other scientists working under them and drives them away from their field, leading to fewer great minds working on important problems (like cancer research), science loses far more in the long term than if one scientist loses a grant (that presumably is now going to another scientist working on cancer research).
- arghwhat 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      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.
  - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
    >call her in for a meeting A meeting? Like a disciplinary hearing? >the ICR’s independent investigation deemed some of the allegations serious enough to warrant consideration at a disciplinary hearing”. However, Rahman resigned and the disciplinary hearing did not take place.
    - arghwhat 8y ago
      > Like a disciplinary hearing? No, a face to face meeting between adults. Not hiring lawyers to do background research and pulling her in in front of a committee. Like you would in case of such a situation in a normal company. Once you pull an "independent investigation", you're far beyond taking things like adults anymore. I wouldn't want to work at a place where I get inspected like that. She might have been an asshole, but this is a childish way of dealing with things, and at the cost of bloody humanity.
      - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
        Why do you assume a face-to-face meeting wasn't tried? The exact details are confidential, for the protection of both accused and accusers. Neither one of us knows what really happened. But I can say from experience that someone who is habitually a jerk to their subordinates is not likely to change their habits when called out face-to-face by the same subordinates. They're likely to react with the same hostile dismissiveness that they normally use. This is not just about saving someone's tender feelings. People with a hostile supervisor are afraid to ask questions and afraid to take risks, and the quality of their work suffers. Bullying your subordinates is irresponsible management and should be treated as such.
        arghwhat 8y ago
        I assume that she was not called in by her superiors due to an "independent investigation" being started. There would never be a need for such thing. If her superior receives complaints from her employees about her, then they already know that she has problems. In management and human psychology, evidence does not matter—if her employees are all dissatisfied with her, then that is all you need to know. They can then either correct her or fire her. The presence of an "independent investigation" seems to look like someone didn't want to deal with the situation, and instead have an external party be responsible for it. That is irresponsible management from her superiors. Now, again, she might have been a prick worth firing, but I certainly do not find this response to be sensible, nor is her resignation proof of anything as any sensible person would quit a workplace that runs "investigations" against them (just like you are likely to quit a place where your boss is a bully).
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Apparently, she could have followed disciplinary measures such as going for meetings, but chose to resign instead. ‘the ICR’s independent investigation deemed some of the allegations serious enough to warrant consideration at a disciplinary hearing”. However, Rahman resigned and the disciplinary hearing did not take place.‘
    - arghwhat 8y ago
      She chose to resign after having a bloody independent investigation started against her. She might have been a prick, but that's far beyond taking something face to face (i.e. someone above her taking her in to discuss the situation). I would certainly quit any position where an investigation is started against me, regardless of reason. This is a flat out childish way to deal with the situation.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- chomp 8y ago
  Are you saying that the ends justify the means? I think that's a dangerous frame of mind. Do you think these scientists will be putting their best work forward in a hostile work environment? Do you think they will have enough mental capital to focus on doing good science when they are spending part of that mental load on worrying about being bullied?
- lordnacho 8y ago
  You'd think some other scientist could use the money for the same purpose?
- fatbird 8y ago
  Then perhaps that top scientist should reflect on how her behaviour cost her vocation and primary cause a large grant.
- epistasis 8y ago
  There are dozens to hundreds of capable scientists ready to step into the same place. The role of PI is a lot like that of a CEO, mostly organizing and executing and pulling in grants. They rely on the brilliance and work of their students, though they often contribute ideas. Cancer research is limited by funding, wall time, and communication bandwidth between scientists, not by talent.
  - fastball 8y ago
    Cancer research is definitely not limited by funding.
    - epistasis 8y ago
      Of course it's limited by funding, there are far more proposals than what gets funded. You may be trying to say that it's very very well funded compared to most science, especially basic sciences, and with that I would agree.
- _Wintermute 8y ago
  Toxic environments and abuse in academia causes science to lose. How many great minds have quit science because they decided the pathetic salary isn't worth being harassed at work?
HarryHirsch 8y ago
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.
jbob2000 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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.
orasis 8y ago
Will someone please legally define "bullying" and "abusive"? This seems like another kangaroo court system in the making.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  Considering this had nothing to do with the legal system there is no need to definition these terms legally here.
- shaggerty 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    How can we be sure it wasn't just a few disgruntled people who wanted to just put a spoke in her wheel?
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      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.
mherdeg 8y ago
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.
dopamean 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      Regardless of what she chose (resign or be disciplined), her career may never recover. I meant "punishment" in a more abstract sense.
      - Someone1234 8y ago
        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 8y ago
acqq 8y ago
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.””
dang 8y ago
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.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kapauldo 8y ago
The world is changing.

43 points by digital55 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

eahman03 8y ago

If a top scientist loses a grant, science loses.

fastball 8y ago
The money from the Wellcome Trust will undoubtedly still be funding cancer research, it just won't have a bully at the head.
gavman 8y ago
If a top scientist bullies many other scientists working under them and drives them away from their field, leading to fewer great minds working on important problems (like cancer research), science loses far more in the long term than if one scientist loses a grant (that presumably is now going to another scientist working on cancer research).
arghwhat 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  >call her in for a meeting A meeting? Like a disciplinary hearing? >the ICR’s independent investigation deemed some of the allegations serious enough to warrant consideration at a disciplinary hearing”. However, Rahman resigned and the disciplinary hearing did not take place.
  - arghwhat 8y ago
    > Like a disciplinary hearing? No, a face to face meeting between adults. Not hiring lawyers to do background research and pulling her in in front of a committee. Like you would in case of such a situation in a normal company. Once you pull an "independent investigation", you're far beyond taking things like adults anymore. I wouldn't want to work at a place where I get inspected like that. She might have been an asshole, but this is a childish way of dealing with things, and at the cost of bloody humanity.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      Why do you assume a face-to-face meeting wasn't tried? The exact details are confidential, for the protection of both accused and accusers. Neither one of us knows what really happened. But I can say from experience that someone who is habitually a jerk to their subordinates is not likely to change their habits when called out face-to-face by the same subordinates. They're likely to react with the same hostile dismissiveness that they normally use. This is not just about saving someone's tender feelings. People with a hostile supervisor are afraid to ask questions and afraid to take risks, and the quality of their work suffers. Bullying your subordinates is irresponsible management and should be treated as such.
      - arghwhat 8y ago
        I assume that she was not called in by her superiors due to an "independent investigation" being started. There would never be a need for such thing. If her superior receives complaints from her employees about her, then they already know that she has problems. In management and human psychology, evidence does not matter—if her employees are all dissatisfied with her, then that is all you need to know. They can then either correct her or fire her. The presence of an "independent investigation" seems to look like someone didn't want to deal with the situation, and instead have an external party be responsible for it. That is irresponsible management from her superiors. Now, again, she might have been a prick worth firing, but I certainly do not find this response to be sensible, nor is her resignation proof of anything as any sensible person would quit a workplace that runs "investigations" against them (just like you are likely to quit a place where your boss is a bully).
- code_duck 8y ago
  Apparently, she could have followed disciplinary measures such as going for meetings, but chose to resign instead. ‘the ICR’s independent investigation deemed some of the allegations serious enough to warrant consideration at a disciplinary hearing”. However, Rahman resigned and the disciplinary hearing did not take place.‘
  - arghwhat 8y ago
    She chose to resign after having a bloody independent investigation started against her. She might have been a prick, but that's far beyond taking something face to face (i.e. someone above her taking her in to discuss the situation). I would certainly quit any position where an investigation is started against me, regardless of reason. This is a flat out childish way to deal with the situation.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
chomp 8y ago
Are you saying that the ends justify the means? I think that's a dangerous frame of mind. Do you think these scientists will be putting their best work forward in a hostile work environment? Do you think they will have enough mental capital to focus on doing good science when they are spending part of that mental load on worrying about being bullied?
lordnacho 8y ago
You'd think some other scientist could use the money for the same purpose?
fatbird 8y ago
Then perhaps that top scientist should reflect on how her behaviour cost her vocation and primary cause a large grant.
epistasis 8y ago
There are dozens to hundreds of capable scientists ready to step into the same place. The role of PI is a lot like that of a CEO, mostly organizing and executing and pulling in grants. They rely on the brilliance and work of their students, though they often contribute ideas. Cancer research is limited by funding, wall time, and communication bandwidth between scientists, not by talent.
- fastball 8y ago
  Cancer research is definitely not limited by funding.
  - epistasis 8y ago
    Of course it's limited by funding, there are far more proposals than what gets funded. You may be trying to say that it's very very well funded compared to most science, especially basic sciences, and with that I would agree.
_Wintermute 8y ago
Toxic environments and abuse in academia causes science to lose. How many great minds have quit science because they decided the pathetic salary isn't worth being harassed at work?

HarryHirsch 8y ago

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.

jbob2000 8y ago

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.

orasis 8y ago

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

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
oh_sigh 8y ago
Considering this had nothing to do with the legal system there is no need to definition these terms legally here.
shaggerty 8y ago
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 8y ago
  How can we be sure it wasn't just a few disgruntled people who wanted to just put a spoke in her wheel?
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    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.

mherdeg 8y ago

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.

dopamean 8y ago

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    Regardless of what she chose (resign or be disciplined), her career may never recover. I meant "punishment" in a more abstract sense.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      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 8y ago

acqq 8y ago

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.””

dang 8y ago

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.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kapauldo 8y ago

The world is changing.