Crosspost: UF files motion to dismiss complaint of former astronomy Ph.D. student in ongoing lawsuit

Update: In April 2022, the university’s internal investigation found that the allegations were unsubstantiated and no sanctions were issued against the faculty member. The allegations on Twitter have since been deleted.

Written By: Grace Blair for WUFT News

<embedded tweet deleted, 7/12/2023>

The University of Florida filed a dismissal on Thursday afternoon to a complaint made by former astronomy doctorate student Sankalp Gilda in an ongoing lawsuit regarding Gilda’s reported mistreatment by his former program supervisor.

The legal complaint was filed by Gilda on Sept. 6 based on “unpaid overtime wages,” according to the complaint obtained through public records. UF filed a motion to dismiss the complaint after citing failure to state a claim, according to the dismissal.

Gilda, who worked under assistant professor Zachary Slepian for three years in the astronomy program, discussed some of his experiences in a tweet made on Sept. 15. In his post, which consisted of 24 tweets, Gilda described multiple instances of Slepian engaging in during his time as Gilda’s adviser, as well as the circumstances that led Gilda to sue UF for improper overtime compensation.

Gilda also announced through Twitter that he filed charges against the UF astronomy and astrophysics department on the basis of “racism, harassment, and retaliation.” Gilda filed a case through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) about Slepian’s behavior. The report consisted of Gilda’s experiences as a doctoral candidate from August 2015 to August 2021 and the various forms of “harassment and discrimination” that he faced during that time based on “national origin, race, and disabilities, unpaid wages, ADA violations, harassment, promissory estoppel, and intentional infliction of emotional damage.”

<edited, 7/12/2023> Read more about the case here:

https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/10/18/uf-files-motion-to-dismiss-complaint-of-former-astronomy-ph-d-student-in-ongoing-lawsuit/ 

The Price of Stories

Do you believe that racial discrimination and harassment occur in your department? Do you believe that sexual harassment has impacted the careers of its victims? Do you believe the climate in your department is safe for our LGBTQIA colleagues and students?

Your belief is irrelevant. We have facts at our disposal. Yet we extort a high price from those who experience harassment and assault in our community. 

Women of Color in Astronomy and Astrophysics

"Women of Color in Astronomy and Astrophysics" was a joint effort of the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy (CSMA) and the AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA). It was written by Dara Norman, Jedidah Isler & Hakeem Oluseyi (CSMA) and Nancy Morrison, Caroline Simpson & Laura Trouille (CSWA). It is especially powerful because it describes strategies for overcoming the barriers that have kept the percentages of Women of Color in the sciences so low.

 

This document is part of the 2013 conference entitled, “Seeking Solutions: Maximizing American Talent by Advancing Women of Color in Academia.” It is reprinted here with permission from the National Academy of Sciences, Courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.

 

Introduction

 

Women of color (WoC) are at the intersection of race and gender. While they experience issues that arise for both women and minority groups, they are often overlooked in efforts on behalf of either category, to the detriment of their persistence in academia [1]. The next section of this article enumerates barriers that face WoC in astronomy, starting with those that particularly affect career establishment (early graduate student to postdoctoral) and moving to those that impact later career stages. Later sections describe steps toward solutions to these problems, measures taken by the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and lessons learned from academic programs.

 

On Being a Transgender Astronomer

Today's guest post is by Jessica Mink, a positional astronomer and software developer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, who has written the commonly used software packages WCSTools and RVSAO and worked on a variety of astronomical projects over 40 years. Much of her story is told in this interview with the American Astronomical Society's Working Group on LGBTIQ Equality (WGLE). 

While I consider myself to be a woman astronomer, I have not always been one. Since I made much of my reputation with a different gender expression and remain in the field, I have to accept the fact that I am also a transgender astronomer, and as a representative of that small group, serve as an ambassador to the rest of the astronomical world.

While gradually (over 40 years!) transitioning from male to female, I have thought a lot about gender and its various facets, but when I volunteered to write a blog entry representing my gender minority for the Women in Astronomy blog, I realized that I hadn't been very systematic about it. It is likely that most readers don't have any trans* friends (that they know about), but this far into the 21st century, most thinking people are aware of our existence and might even know of one of us.

How Workplace Climate Changes the Knowledge We Generate

Reproduced from the June 2014 Issue of STATUS: A Report on Women in Astronomy.  The article below is written by Meg Urry, Yale University, Department of Physics and Department of Astronomy. Based on a keynote address given at the University of California ADVANCE Roundtable in April 2014, at UC Davis

Some years ago, at a major US university, a visiting faculty candidate was told by a senior colleague – an influential, Nobel prize-winning director of a major institute at that university – that she would not be welcome to work with him, that he would not allocate his institute’s resources to her, and that his research group would be reluctant to talk to her because they were basically in competition with her.

She wisely decided to build her career elsewhere, but not before describing the problem and leaking his email to others at the university. The ensuing scandal created a classic conflict between bad behavior and first-rate science.

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: The Solutions Series

The Fed Up with Sexual Harassment series included some of the most viewed posts in the history of the Women in Astronomy blog. In the wake of this series, those involved in its production wanted to follow up with a second series focused on solutions.
 
Since blogging about my own sexual harassment experience and talking with many of you about yours, I have been amazed to learn how common harassment remains in the astronomy community. Of course there can be a whole range of sexual harassment experiences – from a one-time creepy encounter, to surviving in a toxic environment, to career threatening repercussions. I personally came all too close to having my career destroyed because of sexual harassment.

Two questions always seem to drive the discussion following one of these posts. The first is why victims don’t just file a formal complaint and let the system handle it. The second is why we don’t name the harassers. One commenter sums it up: “This is criminal behavior no less serious than abuse or assault. We don't slink around giving perpetrators of assault a pass, so why do it for serial harassers? Why protect them at the expense of their prey? If someone assaults someone else on the street and the assaulter is called to account for his/her actions, their name is given. Same here.”

In an ideal world where the complaint process was well laid out and the system actually worked, I would agree. But the world is imperfect, the process is murky, and the system is broken. In a sexual assault case, there is indeed a he said/she said, but there is often forensic evidence as well. This helps tips the scales of justice. Assault can also be student on student, so the victim and assailant have relatively equal status in the community. Victims of sexual harassment often have no forensic evidence, no witnesses, and the harasser has much more power. When it comes right down to he said/she said, the burden of proof is on the victim. If that burden can’t be met, victims often remain silent. If they choose to tell these horror stories to people they trust, it is still their story to tell. It is their option to name the harasser, but given the burden of proof and the retaliation experienced by those courageous enough to come forward, this is often a difficult decision to make.

Why So Few? Department Climate and Culture II

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), investigates the effects of college climate on female faculty in STEM fields. This chart shows the percentage of tenured and nontenured faculty who are women in selected STEM fields. First, we see that women make up a smaller share of faculty in engineering, the physical sciences, and computer and information sciences compared to the biological/life sciences (which is shown on the bottom of the graph). Second, we see that women make up a far smaller share of the tenured faculty in all these fields. This is significant because tenured positions are the more secure, higher-paying, and higher-status positions in higher education. Overall, there are fewer women in tenured positions in STEM fields than one would expect given the number of women earning Ph.D.s in these fields.

Why So Few? Department Climate and Culture I

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), investigates climate and culture in science and engineering departments at colleges and universities. These areas are especially important for women - both students and faculty.

The graph shows that among first-year college students, women are less likely than men to say that they are interested in majoring in a STEM field. The difference is most pronounced in engineering (shown in green) and computer science (shown in red). However, women are more likely to major in the biological/agricultural sciences.

Working Toward the Ideal Astronomy Department

 

Today's guest blogger is Bruce Balick. Bruce is a former member of the AAS Council, a former department chair, and the past Chair of the Faculty Senate at the University of Washington.  He has been interested best practices for recruiting and retaining outstanding young faculty with long and productive academic careers ahead of them.

There comes a time in the lives of some academics when they wonder whether they are a happy fit into the their department (or similar professional unit).  To quote from an article in STATUS by Meg Urry, "Many of us have worked in unpleasant environments. What happens? You spend a lot of time thinking about the sources of friction, complaining to yourself and to others about the bad things that have happened, trying to calm distraught colleagues so they won’t leave."

Frustrated department members must wonder whether they or the larger unit are to blame.  Then they ask whether there are some objective standards that they are useful for answering this question. 

Yes, there are. 

ADVICE: Affordable Suggestions for Department Chairs

This Department is Under Construction

Fran Bagenal from the University of Colorado started this list of suggestions for improving the department climate and helping with the recruitment of students from underrepresented groups.  Readers* of the “Diversity in Physics and Astronomy” Facebook page made addition contributions.

1 - Once a month or so invite about 4 students for lunch/tea in your office and ask them (i) what's going well, (ii) what could be improved in the department. More than 3 less intimidating, less than 6 allows everyone to speak. Pick specific groups or mix them up. 

2 - Make a study area that is inviting & comfortable. Challenge the students to come up with ideas for wall hangings celebrating scientific achievements from a diverse group of achievers.

3 - Pay senior students to hang around the study area as informal "study buddies" to the junior students. This not only helps the younger students get over the common road bump where they are discouraged by their first challenging physics course - but there's nothing like teaching for mastering the basics.

CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - A Department Chair's Perspective

In 2009, the MIT Physics Department hosted a Climate Site Visit for Women and Minorities from the APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics and Committee on Minorities.  As a relatively new department head with interest in improving the status of women and minorities, I thought it would be a good practice.  I was unsure how it might be regarded by the faculty, but I paved the way by getting from buy-in from my department's Visiting Committee.  The procedures followed were very similar to those described in the earlier blog post CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - Procedure.  The main difference was the presence of a member of the Committee on Minorities, so that the site visit also assessed the climate for minorities.  I had specifically requested this addition and was very pleased it could be accommodated.

Our site visit experience was excellent: several esteemed physicists, both women and men, spent a day in my department meeting with faculty, staff, students and postdocs.  They came prepared with the results of the survey, so knew some of the issues facing the department and hence were able to focus their efforts effectively.  The private report-out to me was valuable in emphasizing some of the challenges we faced as a department, providing me with honest feedback and constructive advice.  This is often hard for a leader to get those who are treated unfairly don't always speak up, and it is impossible for one person to hear equally from everyone in a large organization.  Even internal surveys have limited success because, despite assurances of confidentiality, some respondents may be concerned about retaliation.  They may be more willing to speak to outsiders.  The site visit committee gave me another set of eyes and ears to the department.

CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - Benefits

As a graduate student, I participated in a Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) joint site visit of the physics departments at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and University of California, Berkeley. The site visit was very valuable for both departments in highlighting not only the areas where we could improve in creating supportive environments for women, but also areas where we were doing quite well.

First I'd like to say that site visits create a better department for everyone.  Women (and other underrepresented groups) tend to be disproportionately negatively affected by general climate issues within departments.  For instance, graduate student salaries effect everyone, and having higher salaries helps with recruitment and retention for both genders.  However, we found at Berkeley -- a public school that tends to pay graduate students less than our private school competitors -- that admitted female graduate students were disproportionately more likely to reject our offer based on salary than male students.  Perhaps this is because women are more likely to anticipate having a family while in graduate school, and are more concerned about finances than their male counterparts?  I don't actually know the reason.  All I know is that increasing salaries disproportionately increases the acceptance rate of women graduate students.  So even if you are a person who doesn't think you are affected by the "climate for women" and that these site visits are of no benefit or interest to you, that simply isn't true.  Most likely the outcomes of the site visit will be a better department for everyone.

CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - Procedure

CSWA Climate Site Visits for Astronomy Departments will be initiated by an invitation from the department chair and will ordinarily last one day. The CSWA chair and the department chair will decide upon a convenient date for the visit. The CSWA chair will select a visiting team of three senior astronomers, usually from among current and former CSWA members.

Prior to the visit, CSWA will administer survey questionnaires to department members and alumni. Surveys will be done using SurveyMonkey. The results of the surveys, as well as any written comments, will then be provided to the site visit team to assist them in preparing for the visit. All survey results will be confidential. CSWA will model their surveys on those of CSWP.

CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - Policy

At the AAS meeting in Indianapolis, IN in June 2013, the AAS Council approved a proposal by CSWA to implement Climate Site Visits for astronomy departments. These site visits are modeled on the highly successful visits done by the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) for physics departments. The CSWP index, procedures, and summary web pages formed the basis for the CSWA proposal. Among the positive outcomes of the CSWP visits are:

• Increased efforts to recruit women faculty members;
• Increased efforts to recruit women graduate students;
• Improved communications between women and department chairs;
• Increased numbers of invitations to women speakers;
• Improved safety of the department;
• Improved facilities for students: lounges, computers;
• Improved advising and mentoring.

The goals of the CSWA’s visits are to: increase the committee’s knowledge about problems experienced nationally by women students, postdocs, and faculty in astronomy; work with departments to identify problems; suggest means by which the department might solve those problems; and improve the climate for women generally.