Excerpt from "A Major Scientific Society Says Harassment Derails Women’s Careers. Critics Say the Group Hasn’t Done Enough," posted on The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 2018.
Sexual harassment is derailing the careers of far too many women in science, engineering, and medicine. That’s the central message of a searing new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in those fields.
The report estimates that half of women in science experience some form of harassment. “What is especially discouraging about this situation is that at the same time that so much energy and money is being invested in efforts to attract and retain women in science, engineering, and medical fields, it appears women are often bullied or harassed out of career pathways in these fields,” the report says.
The document, the result of a two-year study, aims to send a clear signal that the three honorary societies are taking harassment seriously amid a growing conversation about how to combat such behavior in academe.
But it comes as the academies themselves are being roiled by a debate about whether or how to kick out members who harass. Academy members are chosen by their peers, and membership is for life.
In recent weeks, the National Academy of Sciences, in particular, has come under scrutiny for lacking policies and processes to expel people like Inder Verma, a cancer biologist who left his position at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on Monday after facing harassment accusations, and Geoff Marcy, an astronomer who resigned under pressure in 2015 from the University of California at Berkeley after being found responsible for unwanted kissing and groping of female students. (Verma has denied the allegations; Marcy has acknowledged most of the behavior but said he stopped years ago.)
And the person taking much of the criticism for the academy’s inaction is Marcia McNutt, its first female president.
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