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Ethics

Ethics

What would you do?

23 Apr 2020 Robert P Crease
Taken from the April 2020 issue of Physics World.

Robert P Crease examines his responsibility for not exploring one physicist’s treatment of women

Sexual harassment
Question to self: When Robert P Crease wrote about a physicist who was said to have mistreated women, why did he not follow up those remarks? (Courtesy: iStock/Kameleon007)

A few years ago I wrote an account about a physicist, who was then alive but has since died. I won’t reveal who he was. Then last year, a woman sent me a letter saying that the physicist had been abusive to her and to other women, and that they resented my “hagiography” of the man. The women were troubled by my “mansplaining” and by my deference to the man’s reputation. It would have taken me only “a meeting and a phone call”, she continued, for me to realize that I should have nuanced my “worshipful” picture.

Naturally, I was upset. I had indeed spoken with people who had told me privately that the physicist had been a “womanizer”. One of them put it jocularly, saying that the man had had some issues with “the ladies”.

The woman’s letter forced me to face my responsibility for not having followed up on those remarks, as well as my responsibility for what to do now.

Cosby parallel?

As a historian and biographer, I am not alone in facing this difficulty. So are numerous writers and scholars, for instance, who wrote about the beloved American TV entertainer and cultural icon Bill Cosby. In the 2000s several women accused him of drugging and assaulting them. By the 2010s more than 60 women had made accusations, all of which he denied. In 2018 Cosby was tried and convicted of three counts of assault and sentenced to between three and 10 years in prison.

While all this was going on, numerous glowing articles had appeared about Cosby, including one by the bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. In 2008 Coates wrote his first major article for a national magazine – The Atlantic – which happened to be about Cosby’s moral and political influence. In 2014, as accusations against Cosby mounted, Coates wrote another article for The Atlantic asking himself why he had made only a “brief and limp” mention of the accusations in the previous article, despite having known about them and believing the women. In the latter piece, Coates did not seek to absolve himself; instead, he tried to understand why he had been “reckless”, as he put it, for not having paid attention.

One reason, he wrote in 2014, was that the 2008 Atlantic article had been his break-out chance, and Coates was loathe to possibly anger his editors by including material that seemed extraneous to what they had commissioned him to do. He also feared that readers wouldn’t believe that a man who seemed to embody American values and virtues could be guilty. The allegations were hearsay back then, he reasoned, and pursuing them would require a lengthy investigation that he wasn’t prepared to take on. Still, Coates concluded, his not looking more deeply into the allegations was an admonition “to always go there, to never flinch, to never look away”.

So was my case similar? In some ways, no. I had had only vague hints of abusive behaviour, and none of it involved drugs and rape. Also, my subject was a physicist and the context was science.

But those of us who write about science have other temptations. Captivated by brilliant work and professional accomplishment, we concentrate on the accomplishments – not on the personal lives of scientists, which are as messy and complicated as anyone else’s. It’s easy to be blinded by the impression that physicists behave differently from, say, celebrities, media moguls, famous journalists, athletes or politicians. We call it a moral duty not to disparage the reputations of anyone without proof, and know that pursuing such proof can require training that we lack. All that can cause us to overlook the misconduct of individuals whose predatory behaviour becomes public – as has happened in the physics community over the last few years.

Hearing voices

I exchanged a few letters with the woman and went to meet her. I did not defend myself, but relayed my temptations to look away. She seemed to understand. But what was my responsibility now?

After months of brooding I mentioned the dilemma to a science historian. Her response was that it is not up to me to speak for this woman, and that I should try to persuade her to speak for herself. That woman, and others in her position, need the opportunity to have their voices heard and situations known. I followed the suggestion, but the woman declined. She was not a writer, she explained, and it would be a highly personal story that it would be hard to make meaningful to others; besides, who would publish it?

There seems no good place to bring injustice to light, no fair way to put it, no adequate language in which to discuss it

I understood, but was still troubled. I would be irresponsible if I wrote a one-sided account of an episode about which I had only hearsay. With the person in question now deceased, I would certainly end up misrepresenting the situation. I would also be guilty if I ducked or simplified the issue. The woman’s situation seemed impossible for me to reckon with because it was difficult even to frame. There seems no good place to bring what injustice there is to light, no fair way to put it, and no adequate language in which to discuss it.

The critical point

The woman’s letter reminded me of the responsibility that those who write about science – or about any community – have for revealing whole, not partial truths. It also reminded me of the temptations to become complicit. What has attracted us to study the community in the first place, we need to ask, and to what temptations and pitfalls might this attraction lead us to succumb? Writing this column, without identifying the person, is the best way I can think of to be responsible in this case.

What would you do?

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