Yesterday I gave a talk at the UK Euclid Consortium (EC) Meeting in London in my role as Chair of the ECDC (Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee). I didn’t actually go to London, but delivered my talk virtually (not without a few hiccups, but I won’t go into that). My presentation was just a short one, outlining some of the things the ECDC does and encouraging others to get involved. One of the matters arising was the EC Code of Conduct, which has recently been updated. This document covers work within the EC generally, as well as specific rules governing EC-sponsored events, such as the meeting I spoke at. Incidentally, one of the latter rules is that organizers should facilitate virtual attendance at meetings, which they clearly did for me yesterday!
Coincidentally, there was a news item in Nature today that reminded me of a post on this blog from a couple of years ago. That was when news first broke of a bullying scandal at the University of Lund, specifically in the historic Lund Observatory, home of the Astronomy Department. Two professors were involved, Sofia Feltzing and Melvyn Davies. As far as I understand the situation, both are still employed by the University, in the Department of Geology and the Department of Mathematics respectively.
The latest news from Lund is that in the aftermath of this scandal, the Astronomy Department has been closed and the staff previously in it subsumed into Physics. That’s a pretty drastic step. In my experience forced mergers of departments, though popular with autocratic managers, are usually counterproductive from the point of view of staff morale. Precisely what the closure of the Lund Observatory after 350 years is meant to achieve is beyond me, but I assume that the atmosphere there had become so toxic that the authorities couldn’t think of anything else to do.
This is a demonstration of something I’ve often said in talks about EDI work. When matters come to formal disciplinary process – if they ever do – the outcome is almost never satisfactory in any respect, not least because the outcomes are often concealed by Non-Disclosure Agreements. The only really hope of creating an inclusive workplace is to ensure that bullying and harassment don’t happen in the first place, or are snuffed out very early on. Early intervention, mediation and conflict resolution are far more likely to provide a successful outcome than formal processes. The problem is that junior members of a department, who are most likely to be the target of bullying, do not feel empowered to make a complaint until it’s too late.
A binding Code of Conduct is one thing, but in order to work it has to be able to be enforced. That is why I agree with the approach suggested by the 21 Group, namely that there should be independent investigators for such matters whose conclusions are binding.
In the Dark 