Zuska sent me an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (behind a paywall, I’m afraid) that’s more than a little connected to the thought experiment I posed earlier in the week.
The article was written (under a pseudonym) by an assistant professor whose nomination for a university award was torpedoed. By a member of his own department. Who was blocking the nomination of the author not out of any particular animus toward the author, but as a way to attack the department chair who had made the nomination.
What fun things must be in that department!
Anyhow, someone on the committee where the disgruntled department member was wreaking havoc on innocent bystanders leaked the information, and eventually the author of the article asked the dean how the disgruntled guy could subvert the process like that (and with no penalty exacted for doing so). The dean’s response: “Well, I guess we’ve always relied on professional integrity and personal ethics.”
And then, the author launches into some musing as to how to feel about all this:
Because our university system is built on the presumption of professional integrity and personal ethics, it is eminently exploitable by those without integrity or ethics.
That susceptibility is glaringly evident in the difficulty we have detecting, proving, and punishing professorial misconduct. My nomination-blocking colleague was only outed by accident (long past the point at which his malfeasance could have been remedied), and he escaped scot-free, without so much as a slap on the wrist. We just don’t have effective means for dealing with rascals in the professorial ranks.
At first, I was infuriated by our collective helplessness. (“Can’t we do something?!”) But as time has passed, I’ve found a certain amount of solace in our susceptibility.
In many ways, our vulnerability to those with bad motives verifies that most of us are good. Even though we have precious little oversight and absurd amounts of autonomy, almost all of us strive to do the right thing. We teach good classes, behave like good citizens, and do good research. Our time-honored reliance upon integrity and ethics is perhaps outdated or ill-advised, but the fact that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has suggests that, by and large, we are an honest and upstanding bunch.
I’m glad the author has found solace, but criminy!
I’m very worried here that too much is being conceded to the bad actors. As I’ve noted before, if there is no real penalty for being a bad actor (or if the chances of having to pay a penalty are slim), what’s the impediment to the bad actors? What’s to keep them from riding roughshod over all the good actors? What’s to keep some of the good actors from deciding that loosening their ethics is the only reasonable survival strategy, or others from deciding to leave the community in disgust?
Being vulnerable to bad actors sucks. And, to my mind, professional integrity and personal ethics don’t forbid pushback. Indeed, they may require it.
Even if there is nothing in the procedural rules that forbids a committee member from rejecting nominations for an award for any reason he chooses to reject them, it seems like other members of the committee ought to be asking questions about why the choice is to reject them rather than sending them on. If the reason offered seems to be a petty one — one likely to undermine the workings of the community, and to erode trust — they ought to try to persuade their fellow committee member to act differently. Appeals to a sense of fair play ought not to be out of bounds.
Bad actors should be confronted. They should be shamed. They should be shunned. Members of academic communities should speak out against bad behavior, both publicly and privately. And, administrators who seem to make it their business to stay out of the way when bad actors work the system should make sure they at least stay out of the way when responsible and ethical actors in the community stand up to call out bad behavior.
If they can manage it, the administrators themselves might even take a stand against the bad actors.
To be honest, in my experience, fewer than 1 in 6 academics (I’m an academic by the way) has even a vague idea that there even is something called “professional behavior.”
There is an assumption that if you are smart enough to achieve (fill in the blank: get a PhD, get a job, get tenure, whatever) then you must be good at pretty much anything you try. This, of course, is a delusion.
When I read this, I wondered if it had been me, I think I would have been a lot more bitter about things still. And I think my bitterness would include some annoyance with the administrators who claim that there’s nothing that can be done about the bad actor. It seems to me that there are always ways to punish people in academe, or at least to withhold rewards…I’m sure a creative department head or dean could figure something out. At the very least a summons to the dean’s office for a nice chat about professional ethics??? Just letting it go because “there’s nothing we can do” doesn’t sit well with me because, as you say, bad actors should be confronted.
Were in not for the anonymity, one could potentially use the technique of naming and shaming…
From what I’ve seen, It’s the job of creative department heads to bury that stuff, not recognize it as problematic.
Some years ago (there was a difference then) I worked at a museum of about 450 staff.There were problems with a supervisor (others recognized his personality problems) and in a meeting with the dept.head I was told to work it out with him! I left the job and he was gone within the year. I was younger and more cavalier about life then, but it does happen.
This comment
“My nomination-blocking colleague was only outed by accident (long past the point at which his malfeasance could have been remedied)”
is rather telling, because it raises the very real possibility that, rather than there being only a handful of serpents in the academic Eden, a lot of bad actors probably escape notice altogether due to the lack of oversight – aided and abetted by the fact that their victims naively imagine that they don’t exist.
Well, in two days I’d decided to post/not post this three times each. My reaction while reading this, likely odd to many, is possibly relevant tangentially and I decided to share it. I hope the wandering logic chain is understandable. It’s clear in my mind, if nowhere else. Any reactions, of course, are appreciated.
“I’m very worried here that too much is being conceded to the bad actors . . .What’s to keep them from riding roughshod over all the good actors?”
Stop worrying, you’re correct. And you’ve hit an important nail on its head.
If we move your insight to the larger world, especially politics, it shows the dynamics, and potentially the origins, of science’s current two big “failures” there. IDers and GW skeptics are Operation Roughshod writ large. Both crews are not only bad actors, they are amoral actors who lie whenever they calculate they can get away with it.
Fundamentally, we are in a market-induced-free-for-all of a society in which there is only minimal rule enforcement. Hence, only minimal structured penalties. There are ways, however. I’ll suggest your thinking is too limited here. It’s not always smart to overtly take these things on, overt pushback is often countered by covert means. And such approaches can also be very inefficient, ergo . . .
“. . . someone on the committee . . . leaked the information”
Self-protection, institutional protection, etc. are very worthy of effort. Is it possible many in academia have elevated some form of “manners” into ethical guidelines? Being covert, indirect, even applying levers to reputations, etc. can be quite ethical if done correctly. Or am I missing something fundamental getting this far?
This faculty perp’s actions border on adversely effecting someone’s career. Yet some people in the department were aware of the situation. Do they have some moral obligation to intervene? This question too, can be taken to the larger world. [Note: “perp” is accurate. It’s alieness to that environment might make it an effective tool. A simple abstract example of bringing in a larger world.]
When I read this post, Exxon’s GW skeptics campaign immediately came to mind. I’ve yet to see mentioned at sciblogs that Exxon is likely one of the largest employers of scientists and engineers in the world. Many must understand how dishonest and damaging to U.S. institutions their employer’s skeptics campaign is. What moral obligations do they, and their professional colleagues outside the company, have?
What interests me about that and what I see as relevant to your post is the omission, perhaps inaccessibility, of that subject here at sciblogs, probably everywhere, not the moral issues involved.
It amazes and frustrates me that so many scientists, environmentalists, etc. continue to throw science data at a campaign specifically designed to convert such into public inaction. Essentially they are feeding the beast.
But, screw up Exxon’s relationship with it’s employees and it’s no longer just spending $8-figures per annum on a disinformation campaign. It’s also in damage-control mode with every financial assets it has, real or symbolic, under a potential threat. Exxon can’t mount an aggressive campaign against it’s own employees. And imagine how Wall Street would react to front-page stories of such. No company so large and complex can be operate efficiently with an ultra-sophisticated work force morally conflicted over their own actions. Exxon is run by brilliant tacticians and they would quickly re-evaluate their options. I’ll emphasize that I’ve suggested nothing, nor mean anything, illegitimate.
Contemplate, for a moment, the reaction in it’s executives’ offices to even simply a public discussion of mounting such a campaign.
So, [finally!] your topic here could suggest the good guys, in a variety of situations, are constitutionally incapable of thinking like this. However, this is exactly how the bad actors think and operate, Exxon being an example of both bad actors and their vulnerability. I’ll use a war metaphor. Ignorance of your enemy’s motivations and plans can be fatal via all sorts of avenues. Whereas knowledge of such can be the key to victory, often a victory with reduced casualties on both sides.
[Hopefully this paper is acceptable for the ethics class. 40 years ago and surprising to me, I aced a ethics class based on the last of the semester’s three papers. All I remember now is an all-nighter keyboarding about the, uh, Skeptics.]
Hip Hip Array has a great nom de net. I’m uncertain of it’s reference[s], which makes it even better.