How could Krauss have thought this was ok?


BuzzFeed News reports that Lawrence Krauss will retire from Arizona State University in May 2019, following the many charges against him for inappropriate sexual contact that the university investigated and found some of them credible. The dean of his school had earlier called for him to be fired, which made his future at the institution untenable.

The full nine-page report that you can see at the above link provides other incidents that had not been made public before.

The report also substantiates multiple allegations against Krauss made after the BuzzFeed News article appeared. The most significant, according to Searle, are the charges that Krauss suggested a threesome to a woman discussing employment at the Origins Project, and that he touched the thigh of a woman at a meeting in Switzerland in 2011. The woman, an atheist activist named Cristina Rad, described the incident in a YouTube video posted in March.

Searle’s report indicates that Krauss characterized the comments about a threesome as a joke, a defense he used repeatedly.

The report also described how Krauss and an employee, whose name is redacted, “engaged in conduct towards one another — hugging, touching, kissing — in the presence of staff, giving the perception to current and former staff members that they were involved in an intimate relationship.” Krauss and the employee denied there was an intimate relationship, and stated that the interactions were “a form of greeting.”

Searle described how Krauss discussed strip clubs with employees, encouraged staff to view fan mail including nude photos, and showed them a cartoon of a person bent over with their pants down, revealing their bare buttocks.

The “it was just a joke” excuse has long since worn thin, like its companion “I was drunk”. As the university’s provost said, “It is inconceivable how a faculty member in the course of carrying out his work responsibilities could believe that the conduct would ever be appropriate.”

Comments

  1. deepak shetty says

    @2 Mark
    That assumes he thought that it was wrong. I think there is a good chance that Krauss doesnt think he did anything wrong Free Speech absolutists and boundary pushers and libertarians generally- think that they can say anything anytime anyplace irrespective of circumstances, without consequence and that is the way how the world should be., Wasnt it one of the Pauls who said something to the effect that if you dont like sexual harassment on the job you should just switch your job.

  2. Silentbob says

    The woman, an atheist activist named Cristina Rad, described the incident in a YouTube video posted in March.

    On FtB, no less.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/cristinarad/

    You kids of today probably don’t know that Rad was briefly a blogger on this site circa 2012, and although she’s long since gone from the sidebar, her pages remain.

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