The Guardian wrote an editorial on the Tim Hunt question…a shockingly misleading one for the first two paragraphs. Wouldn’t you think newspapers would manage to get the basic facts right, especially three weeks in?
Those first two paras:
It is three weeks since Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel prize winner, shared his sexist opinion of female scientists – distractingly sexy, prone to weep when criticised and best segregated at work – with a room full of science writers. His remarks were relayed into the Twittersphere by several of those present, including British-based science writer Connie St Louis. At once, he came under global and sometimes viciously personal attack on social media. He delivered a non-apology on BBC radio. According to his wife, also a senior scientist at UCL, it was made clear to her that to protect UCL’s reputation, he had to resign.
Within 24 hours of his after-dinner speech, he had gone. By the weekend, he was complaining to sympathisers that he had been hung out to dry, unleashing a wave of support that included famous colleagues such as Richard Dawkins and Brian Cox. Today Jonathan Dimbleby joined the protest. Next week, UCL’s council meets and the Hunt affair will once again be on the agenda. This bitter mix of resentments amplified by the polarising environment of social media should have met a calmer official response. But the professor still had to go.
Unbelievable, isn’t it? It sounds as if UCL told Mary Collins that Hunt had to resign from an actual job at UCL. It sounds as if Tim Hunt had a regular academic job at UCL that he was forced to resign. No one who didn’t already know could possibly tell from that opening that the Guardian is talking about an honorary professorship, one explicitly held at the pleasure of UCL and subject to withdrawal at any time – not a regular tenured job with a contract and salary. It would be interesting to know how much of this ridiculous fuss has been caused by the abject failure of news organizations to make that clear from the beginning.
Only in the third paragraph does the Graun admit that it was an honorary post that Hunt was pushed to resign (assuming it’s true that he was pushed). That’s three paragraphs too late.
It goes on to say grudgingly that sexism in science is bad ok, but all the weight was put on the bogus claim that Hunt was forced to resign. Nice job, Guardian.
I’m finding it hard to understand why everyone thinks UCL forced Hunt to resign. UCL said in their statement,
Unless there’s a good reason to believe UCL are lying, and I haven’t heard one, it seems that people are (as in so much of this story) writing their own narrative without paying any attention to the actual facts.
Hrm, those look pretty fair to me overall. His opinions are labeled sexist (they are!), his “apology” not actually an apology (it wasn’t!), and the characterization of UCL attributed to Mary Collins. My biggest issue is that Collins is first identified without her name, simply as “his wife”, which is sexist (the man is a named, independent person; the woman is defined only by her relationship with a man). Not characterizing his position at all is bad form: indeed, it’s not even called a “position”, nor is Hunt’s association with UCL referenced directly at all, only obliquely by saying he was forced to resign and that UCL is discussing him (in some unnamed capacity). Part of me wonders if an earlier draft of the article had better clarification from the start and some copy editor stripped it out for brevity; it’s just poor writing to reference something you haven’t yet defined.
UCL is concerned for its reputation? It recently featured near the top of the list of most craven universities, being willing to disinvite absolutely anybody rather than risk a moment’s discussion of any topic that might offend anybody. I’m really ashamed of it.
Link, RossR?
My impression is that it’s pretty much accepted that UCL forced Hunt to resign his honorary position. His wife said in an interview that someone contacted her and told her! that he had to resign. UCL’s response was that his resignation was received before anyone from UCL had spoken to him. Not at odds with what Collins said. Why they forced him to resign (his comments or the response to his comments) is of course subject to interpretation.
Am I the only one who finds the implication that casting aspersions on someone’s reputation by forcing them to resign is okay as long as it doesn’t affect their paycheck just slightly offensive?
Chris61 @5
UCL says otherwise:
Given the choice between what you “understand” and what UCL actually says, your understanding comes in second place.
Al Dente @6
Dr. Mary Collins, Hunts wife and a senior faculty member of UCL says that she was contacted by a senior person at UCL and told to tell Hunt that he should resign. UCL’s statement doesn’t deny that. Until UCL specifically denies that anyone contacted Collins, I will continue to believe that Collins is likely telling the truth.
But what you said is that it’s your “impression is that it’s pretty much accepted that UCL forced Hunt to resign his honorary position” – and that’s nonsense. That claim is “pretty much accepted” by the people who think Hunt was wronged, but not by anyone else.
It’s something a journalist – Robin McKie, science editor of the Observer – reported Mary Collins saying to him in an interview. That’s the only source for that claim. It’s not corroborated by anything else.
Only in the third paragraph … That’s three paragraphs too late.
They should have placed that information in the zeroth paragraph?
YES. Smart ass.
Or the title. Or a subhead. Or a footnote moved to the top.
@8 Ophelia Benson
The UCL comment was made in response to the interview with Collins and Hunt. So although Hunt and Collin’s claim is not corroborated by UCL, it’s not denied either. The UCL statement agrees with Collins’ and Hunt’s that no one spoke to him before accepting his resignation but clearly side steps the question of whether someone contacted Collins. If it’s not true that someone contacted Collins, why didn’t the UCL statement explicitly state that?
Chris 61 @ 5 “Am I the only one who finds the implication that casting aspersions on someone’s reputation by forcing them to resign is okay as long as it doesn’t affect their paycheck just slightly offensive?” You’re dissembling.
I’m not aware of any aspersions cast other than that Hunt made a well-considered, idiotic and sexist statement (masquerading as a joke) in front of a roomful of journalists.
Perhaps if Hunt had immediately, and sincerely, made a real apology, instead of getting all butt-hurt and defensive, the results of this probably would have been much less traumatic for him.
Whether the UCL (who don’t appear have have many friends around here anyway) forced him to resign is, IMO, moot. Usually giving someone the opportunity to resign, even if strongly “encouraged”, instead of firing them is considered to be the more gracious of options. Granted they would probably have been most concerned with covering their own collective asses, but as noted, he was serving at their pleasure as a figure-head. It is non-controversial to assume that they might have withdrawn their support when he turned out, instead, to be a dick-head
marcus@13
Really? You don’t think that forcing him to resign on the grounds that what he said is so harmful to young women in science that he shouldn’t be allowed to serve as a science advocate or on committees that decide awards isn’t casting aspersions on what is by all accounts a reputation of promoting young scientists, including women?
Our views on the matter obviously differ.
chris61 @ 12 –
No it wasn’t.
First, it wasn’t a comment, it was a published statement on the UCL website. It was a statement by the President & Provost. Second, it addressed what Hunt and Collins said, at one point, but the whole statement is far from being just a response to the interview with Collins and Hunt.
Chris61 @14 –
Well obviously not “by all accounts” – far from it. That’s rather the point.
And no – given that UCL clearly states that it can withdraw honorary positions at any time, I don’t consider it “casting aspersions” when they do just that.
@16 Ophelia Benson
I posted my comment inadvertently on another thread but the tl;dr version is that withdrawal of an honourary appointment isn’t casting aspersions but to do it accompanied by the third paragraph of UCL’s statement, is.
That comment:
@15 Ophelia Benson
We appear to be talking about two different statements. The first statement published on the UCL website said:
I’m not questioning that an honorary position can be withdrawn at any time for any reason but to accompany the announcement with the last paragraph of this statement is to me clearly “casting aspersions”. It implies that Tim Hunt doesn’t value equality and diversity. When I say by all accounts he’s got a reputation of promoting young scientists, I mean by all accounts that I have seen made by people who have worked with him. If you’ve seen something else, I’d be interested in the link.
Considering that Hunt hasn’t disputed UCL’s version of the story, I think I’ll go with UCL rather than what you “uinderstand.” I know, it’s very trusting of me to accept an official statement from one of the parties concerned rather than your “understanding” but them’s the breaks.
Al Dente @18
What’s to dispute? He said they never contacted him directly and they said they never contacted him directly. Do you think Mary Collins lied? It’s her story, not Hunt’s, that she was contacted by a senior UCL official.
No, I don’t think Collins lied. However I do think that Hunt resigned before UCL asked him to.
Both sides could be telling the truth if some official at UCL jumped the gun by contacting Collins without any formal authority to do so. In any case the whole affair makes UCL look bad because it makes it look as if rather than give a member of their organization a fair hearing, they responded to the media frenzy. I know they say they didn’t but the timing sure makes it look that way.
No it doesn’t, because there was no “media frenzy” at that point.
You’re right but there was the start of a twitter frenzy.
Actually it really doesn’t matter if Hunt resigned before or after being asked to. The important point, and the one you Hunt defenders keep avoiding, is that Hunt made sexist remarks to a group of women and, instead of apologizing, doubled down. I’m sure that I would find Sir Tim Hunt to be a convivial, interesting person to talk to. But I’m a man. Hunt wouldn’t go out of his way to be rude to me. Hunt did go out of his way to be rude to those women in Korea.
Talk of “a twitter frenzy” is somewhat meaningless, because it’s just in the nature of Twitter that lots of people comment on certain things. There was an excellent comment about that on Athene Donald’s post that I keep meaning to find again and share somewhere…
Hunt did apologize to the Korean women when their organization asked him to. But then he also did a lot of complaining and poor me-ing, which kind of undercut his own apology.
@26 Ophelia Benson
The request from the Korean scientists (assuming you are referring to the letter that you linked to in a previous post) was dated 4 days after the interview in which Hunt and Collins claimed to have been “hung out to dry” was published. I haven’t seen anything from him since apart from his apology to the Koreans. Have you?
Yes, although I forget where. It was another interview or convo with a journalist, a week or more after the first wave of reporting. He said his career had been finished by this, but also that it meant he could relax and focus on his garden.
Oh, no, derp, that’s the same interview, the one with McKie. So no, I haven’t.
Yes I have. June 20 – it was Wimbledon he was glad to have more time for. The garden part was in the first interview, with Collins.
He actually said something more generous than what his more enraged supporters have been saying:
So how about doing that instead of wasting all this energy on minimizing what he said at that lunch?
Fair enough. But if energy is being wasted on minimizing what he said I think energy is also being wasted in blowing what he said out of proportion.
No, it really isn’t. If there had been no backlash, no one would still be talking about it. It would have been dropped three weeks ago. It’s the ridiculous, tendentious backlash that has kept it going and going and going.
Look at you for example – you’ve never commented here before, but you’ve lavished 13 comments on the matter of Tim Hunt. You must be very motivated.
I suppose I have rather taken an interest. Motivated I suppose by being a woman in science. And I have been looking around for other places to comment. But if you’d rather this not be one of them I’m happy to scamper off again.
No, it’s fine. Feel free to broaden your scope!
Well I agree that the whole thing would have died down three weeks ago if a backlash hadn’t arisen but I also think the backlash wouldn’t have arisen if UCL and the Royal Society had just held off on doing anything until they’d talked to Hunt. Dawkins and the Nobels (almost sounds like a rock group) wouldn’t have commented just based on the social media comments, their beef was with UCL and the Royal Society.
Possibly. On the other hand UCL had reasons to act quickly. There are reasons in both directions – reasons to wait and talk to him first, and reasons to act promptly to distance themselves.
And you don’t know that Dawkins and the Nobels wouldn’t have commented just based on the social media comments. You especially don’t know that about Dawkins, given his history of rushing to comment on what he takes to be Bad feminism.
I really don’t see any reason UCL had to act quickly. Talking to Hunt first would have been the professional thing to do, if not for him because his appointment was honorary at least out of respect for Collins who is an employee of UCL.
Obviously we’re both just speculating but you may be right that Dawkins would have commented anyway since his comment seems to have come in response to an article in the Guardian.
I didn’t say UCL had to act quickly, I said it had reasons to, and that there were reasons both ways. I was careful to limit it.
Whatever their reasons were, I wonder how they feel about their actions now since apart from pissing off at least one senior faculty member (Collins) they seems to have also resulted in dissension among the UCL council.