More of ancient philosophy dudebro Colin McGinn’s emails have emerged as his harassment victim brings suit against him. The former student’s responses are consistent: he makes advances, she says no.
On May 18, he texted
I feel like kissing you.She responded, “You can’t do that.”
But at the same time, you can tell she’s conflicted: this guy is part of her pathway to a career in philosophy, and she can’t afford to just tell him to fuck off. So she gets more and more email like this one:
Need to avoid the scenario I sketched: you meet someone else, I broken hearted, our relationship over (except formally). This follows pretty obviously from current policy. To avoid my heart break I need to prepare myself mentally, which means withdrawing from you emotionally–not good for either of us. Also no good to just have full-blown relationship–too risky and difficult in the circumstances. So need compromise. Many are possible. Here’s one (I’m not necessarily advocating it): we have sex 3 times over the summer when no one is around, but stop before next semester begins. This has many advantages, which I won’t spell out, but also disadvantages, ditto. I am NOT asking you to do this–it is merely one possible compromise solution to a difficult problem, which might suggest others. It has the FORM of a possible solution. Try to take this in the spirit in which it is intended. yours, Colin
Jebus. She finally had enough, and resigned. And then, finally, the university administration leapt into action…and did their very best to keep everything on the down low. Of course.
She resigned her position as his research assistant on Sept. 11, 2012. Two days later, McGinn emailed her, stating “you are much better off with my support than without it. So please think carefully about your actions.” On Sept. 14, Morrison made what she believed to be a formal sexual harassment complaint and provided some of McGinn’s messages to university administrators, hoping to be protected from retaliation. However, UM routed her complaint through an “informal process” pressing the professor to resign, according to reports, because it was quicker. (McGinn denies on his blog that he was forced out.)
UM lawyers have said they chose to pursue this informal route to achieve an immediate resolution. Isicoff echoed the comments in conversations with HuffPost. Morrison said she had a right to choose between a formal or informal complaint process.
Keeping it informal, quiet, and private allows the university to hush up the misbehavior, but notice — it does not provide the victim the support and protection she needed and wanted.
Just once in my lifetime I’d like to see university bureaucrats come down on harassers like a swarm of vengeful angels in nice conservative suits and dresses. I know, it’s strange to see a call for more wrath on university professors from a university professor, but these people are not my kind. They are exploiters who damage the reputation of my profession, and if only these administrators would see it, the reputation of the universities they nest in.
Just like the Catholic Church: keep things quiet, excert pressure on the victims, gaslight them, quietly ship the perpetrator off to fresh hunting grounds…
Right, right…he’s NOT asking, nope, not at all. He’ll just keep sending you creepy emails and texts, that’s all. Oh, with the extra bonus of pointing out that by allowing this non-stop abuse, it will be so much better for your career!
Why in the fuckety fuck do institutions of all kinds insist on covering these predators?
We had a young female engineering student working with us over the summer. My role was to get productive work out of her, but I also sought to mentor her, for her future benefit. Even if I were much younger, I couldn’t imagine behaving like that asshole McGinn. That is just basic human decency.
So, these creeps lack basic human decency. It’s been shown, by experimental philosophers, that our moral values can be changed, for the better. Perhaps large employers should institute programs to do that for employees who use their position to prey on those more vulnerable, the cost of this to come out of their salaries? Is that impossible?
Where is he now? And who is he harassing? This shit is three years old…but probably hasn’t changed much. Ugh. Creepy old man, indeed.
rabbitbrush @ 4:
Yes, it’s old, and it isn’t, because of the suit. First sentence of the post:
Caine @2
I strongly suspect that there’s a certain amount of bro-code going on: the people doing the cover-up have also engaged in similar behavior. Or that there’s simply the idea that when you have a famous, well respected person on your team, you’re just supposed to tolerate the occasional “indiscretion” from him.
is there any institution or organization that is immune from this kind of “scandal” of abuse and cover up?
uncle frogy
Microraptor @ 6:
Yes, I’ve run into this one personally. That time, “oh, artistic temperament, you know!” was the going excuse for sleazy, harassing behaviour.
I find the idea of compromise as used here leaves me speechless!
uncle frogy
It’s hard to even believe that a human being wrote that email.
Well you got men judging men about their sexual conduct with women, how could that go wrong?
rabbitbrush #4
As far as I can tell he is in his home, hopefully harassing no-one. There was an invitation from East Carolina University, but it was reversed.
McGinn did write a book recently (published by MIT), but he doesn’t seem to be employed there either.
I’m glad that McGinn has been ousted and I think I might be misreading this sentence (I’m tired) but
“ancient philosophy dudebro Colin McGinn’s emails ”
McGinn didn’t really work in ancient philosophy. He worked in the philosophy of mind. Minor point but I wanted to point it out.
@3 Dick
‘It’s been shown, by experimental philosophers, that our moral values can be changed, for the better.’
Would you be so kind as to direct me to some citation please? This is something I need to know about.
Mike Smith @13
I parsed that as “Colin McGinn is a philosophy dudebro who is ancient.” Don’t know if that was the intent.
NYC, there was a recent article in New Scientist magazine. (26 Sept, 2015)
My analysis of Berkeley’s actions and the mismatch with Berkeley’s stated goals/motivations seems relevant here.
Yeah, how is that different from Berkeley & Marcy? Marcy who, if you remember, resigned. He had the privilege of resigning because, in Berkeley’s opinion, his behavior wasn’t egregious enough to make worthwhile taking his sexually abusive history to the faculty. The faculty might not even be comfortable with the level of “punishment” the university planned to inflict (a level which could be described as, “We really really mean it this time: don’t do that again”), if you believe Berkeley and disbelieve, say, the official statements of the Astronomy faculty, the Astronomy undergrad & grad students, and statements made by other faculty bodies.
McGinn is a jerk. I don’t think that I’ve always handled myself perfectly when in positions that have differential power but not nearly THAT much differential power*2 but holy fuck, even when I inquired if I was interpreting expressions of interest correctly, I never suggested any courses of action and always coupled those questions with statements that answers would be respected. I didn’t fucking follow up after someone said “No”. Ugh.
Why can’t people just respect a fucking no?
Why can’t people just fuck off when they have make/break power over someone’s career?
Why can’t this shit ever be simple?
I’d say philosophers find ways to make everything complicated, but, seriously, if it’s happening in Astronomy you really can’t chalk it up to the academic specialization.
==============================
*1: is it really capitalized in this case since it’s the department name and not just an adjective? it feels weird. I’m not a whack-a-loon, I promise. Or I am, but I’m merely the same whack-a-loon you’ve known for years, not newly brain-corrupted.
*2: never someone I was grading or someone who reported to me that I could hire/fire or do anything other than use my position to state an opinion on that person’s performance to someone who did actually grade or hire/fire or what have you
PZ,
This reminds me of the situation you yourself faced.
I’m not going to step into the whole “tone” debate, but one of the things that I saw thrown at you was (and I am operating from memory here) you were faced by a student who was making allegations against you. You left her in your office with some company and then reported the allegations to your management. This was thrown at you as if your reaction was in some way reprehensible and didn’t act to protect the person making the allegations.
This confuses me greatly.
I’ve spent the greater part of my life working in very large organisations, and your behaviour in this case would seem to me to accurately reflect best practice. Allegations of this nature are very serious indeed, and you removed yourself from the process while escalating it on behalf of yourself and the alleged victim. Yet I’ve seen it thrown at you and mischaracterised.
I said “best practice”, but I really should have used the word “model” in there.
Any hint of an allegation of sexual shenanigans should be dealt with in precisely the manner that you did. The matter shouldn’t be resolved between the people directly involved; it should be escalated to a third party (and very often there are formal channels created for that specific purpose). There needs t be independent forensic examination of the situation.
As I say, I don’t want to get into the debate about tone, but in all of the noise surrounding it this one point jarred with me – that this incident was being used against you. That seemed dangerous to me. The thought that some might take away the lesson that you had handled it other than scrupulously correctly creates the risk that others in similar situation will behave differently.
You did the right thing and your actions and consistency in this regard give you some additional weight in commentating on cases such as the one described in this thread.
@16Dick
Thank you
The guy is not only creepy, he seems to have grossly impaired social skills and a complete lack of empathy. Does he actually think this bizarre line is going to work, that this woman has some sort of affection for him? He’s just weird.
This will practically never happen, because there are many benefits for siding with the powerful abuser who brings in grant money, and essentially no benefits for siding with the powerless nobody who is the victim. People who act against self-interest are extremely rare.
“Creepy ol’ Colin McGinn” sounds like the first line of a rhyme I wish we could teach children so that they can sing it underneath his window forever and ever.
Creepy ol’ Colin McGinn
Doesn’t think that harrassment’s a sin
He sent pervy texts
In the hope he’d find sex
But if not he’ll just try it again…