Monday in Morris

Our local high school has been trying to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance group for several years, and somehow it always gets squelched. They’re trying again, and a vote of the school board is coming up soon (isn’t it astonishing that we require a bunch of old fuddy-duddies to approve a simple meeting of gay and straight students?). They’re holding a rally on Monday. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by and represent! The more people show up, the more pressure the board might feel.

Here’s a description by the students of the Morris Area High School.

As a diverse group of students with varying genders and sexualities who understand the need for an organization that educates advocates and supports the LBGT+ student body, we promote diversity and equality. We are the Morris Area High School Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). Even if our meetings seem crazy, we do get things done with our talented and energetic members. Of utmost importance is our desire to help change the culture and climate of the school to be accepting of all sexual orientations, genders and gender expression.

As you may have heard, the Morris Area High School Gay Straight Alliance has been seeking school sponsorship for several years.  Finally, after much dedication from parents and support from community and organizations, the issue of the GSA’s school recognition will be on the October school board agenda to be presented to the school board members for a vote.

The GSA members are asking for the presence of supporters at a Pre-Vote Rally on Monday, October 19 at the Morris Public Library Community Room at 5:15 p.m. and/or the school board meeting at the Donnelly City Hall at 7:00 p.m. During the Rally, you will hear the experiences of current and past MAHS students, parents of GSA members, and a representative from OutFront MN, whose mission ‘is to create a state where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are free to be who they are, love who they love, and live without fear of violence, harassment or discrimination.’

Bracelets with the inscription MAHS GSA; COURAGE will be available at the Rally.  Be sure to ask for your complimentary band to wear proudly in support of our GSA.

Thank you for your continued support of our sexually diverse and gender encompassing group.

Any atheists out there should make a special effort to attend. You realize we godless tend to make common cause with the LGBTQ community, right?

I await the angry letters in his defense

Yet another sorry story of a prestigious man with a disgusting habit.

John Kearsley, the director of radiation oncology at St George Hospital and conjoint professor of medicine at the University of NSW, gave depressant drugs known as benzodiazepines to the 32-year-old and touched her inappropriately.

That’s the sanitized, softened-down version of what he did — you’d have to read the whole thing to get the details.

But look (he says, sarcastically), this is a MAN who dedicated his LIFE to FIGHTING CANCER … I’m sure someone somewhere would like to argue that we ought to cut him a little slack, and allow him to occasionally slip a mickey to women half his age and drag them into bed for a nice fondling. Won’t medicine grind to a halt if we don’t?

Less sarcastically, I wonder how one gets to be 63 years old, at the top of their profession, director of a major subdivision of a hospital, and still think one can get away with drugging women for sex. These kinds of behaviors don’t just suddenly manifest in a one time accident — I bet he has a long history of these or lesser transgressions, yet no one had qualms about promoting him ever upwards.

Generically full of win

Maki Naro has done something very clever: he has created a generic comic that we can use over and over again every time a Famous Scientist does something bad.

Read the whole thing. Every panel encapsulates perfectly the standard reaction we always get.

In other, related news, UC Berkeley announces that they did too do enough.

The university has imposed real consequences on Professor Geoff Marcy by establishing a zero-tolerance policy regarding future behavior and by stripping him of the procedural protections that all other faculty members enjoy before he can be subject to discipline up to and including termination, the university said in a statement Monday.

Right. Over a decade of bad behavior that affected multiple women and generated multiple complaints, and now their response is to say One more time, and you’re really gonna get it!.

I am also unhappy that their solution is to strip him of “procedural protections that all other faculty members enjoy”. That’s not right. He should have a reasonable defense against future accusations; I also don’t believe the university, because from their current procedures, their default is always to doubt the accuser’s claim. They aren’t suddenly going to change their mode to disciplining a professor if a student says anything.

Besides, he was already wrung through their “procedures”, and found to be in the wrong. He ought to be disciplined for what he has done, and what has been determined by their process.

A good pledge

We shouldn’t need to ‘pledge’ to do this, but it seems decency is not all that common.

If you know someone in academics who hurts other people because they think (or more likely, know) they can get away with it, I'll use whatever voice I have to call them out. I will believe you. I will support you. I'm not afraid of what these guys will do to me -- I'm afraid of what they're doing to all the women and underrepresented minorities and members of LGBTQ communities who deserve to belong and are made to feel less than human by people who are protected by those more concerned with status and grants than decency. I have no idea who will listen to me, but I will not be quiet.

If you know someone in academics who hurts other people because they think (or more likely, know) they can get away with it, I’ll use whatever voice I have to call them out. I will believe you. I will support you. I’m not afraid of what these guys will do to me — I’m afraid of what they’re doing to all the women and underrepresented minorities and members of LGBTQ communities who deserve to belong and are made to feel less than human by people who are protected by those more concerned with status and grants than decency. I have no idea who will listen to me, but I will not be quiet.

(via Nicole)

I have to add a comment, though. This looks easy, but it’s not. Here’s what will happen to you if you follow through on that commitment:

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How deep does the rabbit hole go?

Hey, gang, I’ve been offline for a while — it’s a week for getting caught up with my grading (I’m still behind. I’m always behind). So I’ve been letting the commenters do the talking for a few days, and there are some good words in the thread about Geoff Marcy.

Here’s one.

I work in UC Berkeley’s astronomy department. On Friday, during my lab’s lunch, the professor I work for announced this to us. I was not at all surprised by Geoff being the one found guilty. What’s even worse is that the Title IX office concluded their investigation three months ago and just sat on it without telling anyone. I wasn’t aware of the full extent of Geoff’s behavior (I knew of women that were creeped out by him), and lots of people are furious about how both the university and the astronomy department handled this. The whole situation is just fucked, and it’s really shameful that no substantial punishment is being handed out for this.

Geoff’s wife said some awful things:

“The punishment Geoff is receiving here in the court of hysterical public opinion is far out of proportion to what he did and has taken responsibility for in his apology,” Dr. Kegley wrote.

There’s been no regard for the victims from the department or the university. The way this has been handled is a total shitshow.

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Everyone has these sexist jerks

I remember when I learned that the skeptic/atheist movement was full of harassing jerks — I was shocked. And then these people started getting exposed in every discipline, from literature and philosophy to physics, and it started to sink in that the entire world is a playground for assholes, which might have been a relief (whew, it’s not just my communities!) but is incredibly depressing instead.

Now add astronomy to the list. One of their most prominent representatives, Geoff Marcy, has been revealed to be a serial sexual harasser, someone who has wrecked women’s careers in astronomy. And it’s a familiar story: the women in that community all knew of his reputation, and it was an open secret.

“He’s had a long history of behaving inappropriately, especially with undergraduates,” said Kirkpatrick, who at the time was a graduate student at Berkeley studying astrophysics. “Women discouraged other women from working with him as a research advisor. It was just something that was talked about pretty frankly among the women in the department.”

Kirkpatrick, who has since left academia, continues to run the Women in Astronomy blog, through which she says three other women have approached her with accounts of their experiences with Marcy.

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Bill Nye and abortion

Bill Nye talks about the realities of reproduction, and the right wing completely loses its shit.

It is not Nye at his most eloquent, but…he’s actually right about everything important. Read this title for an example of the inanity of far right responses, titled WATCH: Bill Nye, Science Guy Makes An Idiot Of Himself On Reproduction. Nye is clearer and more correct than whoever wrote that, making it particularly amusing. It makes a lot of claims.

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How can you not be filled with fury when listening to Republicans?

Watch Jason Chaffetz (Smarmy Slimeball, UT) introduce the hearings with Cecile Richards. See PZ Myers (Godless Atheist Biologist, MN) splutter with rage.

He went there. His whole argument is that we don’t spend enough on cancer (1500 deaths per day!), therefore…we should defund Planned Parenthood and make cuts in women’s reproductive health. He’s a lying liar trying to mislead everyone into being as stupid as he is.

I can go one better.

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