{"id":1277,"date":"2024-12-15T13:31:34","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T13:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2024-12-16T10:17:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T10:17:24","slug":"good-citizens-or-useful-idiots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1277","title":{"rendered":"Good Citizens or Useful Idiots?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There’s been a Grievance raised against a Professor. The Human Resources (HR) division of the University is indolently carrying out an investigation. This might be done by a group of internal academics, advised by HR. Or sometimes the University uses an outside ‘dispute resolution’ company, or a solicitor\/barrister, who write a report that is considered by an academic. No matter who does it, the investigation will be contrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s give some evidence of recent extensive use of ‘whitewash’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example is the claims of the discovery of the first room-temperature superconductors by Prof Ranga Dias, an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester.<\/a> Not merely was the research later shown to be fraudulent, but the postdoctoral researchers and graduate students working under him suffered threats and intimidation as reported here<\/a>. They were not allowed to access the experimental data or critique the research results on papers which carried their names. Remarkably, Rochester University carried out not one, not two, but<\/strong> three <\/strong>internal investigations into Prof Ranga Dias. He was exonerated all three <\/strong>times. Finally, following retraction of a number of Dias’ papers by the journal Nature, <\/em>three external investigators commissioned by the University of Rochester revealed the true facts about the scale of the fraud and abusive supervision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Magdalen Connolly<\/a> was an Early Career Researcher at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies<\/a>. She made allegations of bullying and plagiarism against one of her advisors, a more senior academic. The Daily Telegraph identified the alleged plagiarist here.<\/a> Cambridge University’s HR department lumbered into action. They appointed an academic to superintend the investigation (a ‘Responsible Person’) and assembled an internal committee to consider the matter. Predictably enough, the internal committee did what internal committees always do and whitewashed the senior academic. Dr Connolly appealed. HR plodded into action again, weighed down by sluggishness and inertia. Eventually, four years after the original complaint, a panel of external experts finally concluded that plagiarism had indeed taken place. Dr Connolly was vindicated. At the end of the lengthy investigation, she was also jobless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even this shocker is dwarfed by the case of Professor William O’Reilly<\/a>, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the same university. He plagiarised a student whom he was tutoring. Chunks of the undergraduate’s essays appeared uncredited in one of Prof O’Reilly’s papers. This was a clear case of cut-and-paste copying from a student. It was also a very serious breach of trust. Cambridge University’s HR department slunk into action, and eventually it was determined that this was not plagiarism, but the “product of negligent acts”. The rationale is nonsensical: “it was an accident” is not and never has been a defence against plagiarism. The panel members of the University Tribunal who rubber-stamped this ridiculous decision are listed here<\/a>. As they say in Cambridge, “we’ve investigated ourselves and found ourselves innocent”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another ongoing investigation at a Russell Group university, a whistleblower made disclosures about a health and safety emergency at his department. Given what we know of ‘campus justice’, it is no surprise to learn that the whistleblower was immediately attacked by HR and made the subject of a prolonged two-year investigation. HR conned a naive and young Professor to act as Responsible Person to superintend matters. However, retaliation against an individual making a whistleblowing or ‘protected’ disclosure is actually illegal and contrary to the Public Interest Disclosure Act. So the young Professor was actually hoodwinked by HR into placing herself into a difficult and ambiguous legal position. As she became aware of her compromised position, she resigned as Responsible Person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internal university investigations require academics willing to serve — either to adjudicate or to act on tribunals or to assess external reports. Perhaps many do this because they believe they are being ‘good citizens’. It needs to be clearly stated that they are not. They are ending up complicit in corrupt investigations. Rather than good citizens, they are useful idiots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rochester University Professors who exonerated Ranga Dias three times, or the Cambridge academics who denied plagiarism in the case of Prof O’Reilly, just look ridiculous. Academics participating in such charades demean themselves, perpetuate a broken system of justice and can even place themselves in legal jeopardy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21 Group believes such cooperation from academics should cease. We should be refusing requests to legitimise these investigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There’s been a Grievance raised against a Professor. The Human Resources (HR) division of the University is indolently carrying out an investigation. This might be done by a group of internal academics, advised by HR. Or sometimes the University uses an outside ‘dispute resolution’ company, or a solicitor\/barrister, who write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1296,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}