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/ 

AASWomen Newsletter for October 30, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of October 30, 2020
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]

Elizabeth Yeampierre, item 2

This week's issues:

1. SGMA Committee Opening

2. A power list of the LatinX scientists who are changing the world

3. Coming soon: PI Launchpad 2021

4. One in five Australian scientists planning to leave the profession, survey shows

5. Equality and diversity efforts do not 'burden' research - no matter what the UK government says

6. Untapped computer scientists

7. AAAS drafts plan to address systemic racism in sciences

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

Cross-posting: Solidarity from APS COM & AAPT COD

7/8/16
Dear Members of the Physics Community,

We, the undersigned, members of the American Physical Society’s Committee on Minorities (APS COM) and the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on Diversity (AAPT COD) stand with Black physicists and all members of the Black community in the U.S. as we are faced with the recent killings, within 36 hours, of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police. Although Sterling and Castile are referenced here and are the impetus for this statement, we note that their names add to a long list of police injustice against Black people as well as other people of color.

Last night, during a protest in Dallas affirming the value of Black lives, snipers unaffiliated with the protest killed 5 officers, and wounded 7 officers and 2 civilians, further highlighting the violence and tragedy that systemic racism can bring about.

These events affect the physics community. Safety, justice, and equality underlie our ability to succeed at all endeavors, including physics. Systemic racism exists. Systemic racism exists in physics. And we all must work tirelessly to challenge the structures that allow it to exist.

The APS COM and AAPT COD are dedicated to building a community where people of color can learn and practice physics free from racial harassment, bias, and fear. We are alarmingly far from this goal and we call on the entire physics community to join us in making this endeavor a reality. One way to move toward this goal is to engage in self-education and anti-racism training to build understanding in the ways that power structures combine with bias and racism to differentially impact physicists of color. This understanding is critical to our ability to affect change. We must create a climate that encourages and supports people of color in their pursuit of physics and physics careers.

The undersigned affirm our commitment that Black lives matter and that racial justice matters, in our society and in the physics community.

Nadya Mason, Chair, APS COM
Edmundo Garcia, APS COM
Angela Little, APS COM
Marie Lopez del Puerto, APS COM
Jesús Pando, APS COM
William Ratcliff, APS COM
Luis G. Rosa, APS COM
Dimitri Dounas-Frazer, Chair, AAPT COD
Ximena C. Cid, AAPT COD
Abigail R. Daane, AAPT COD
Deepak Iyer, AAPT COD
Mamadou Keita, AAPT COD
Geoff Potvin, AAPT COD
Mel Sabella, AAPT COD
Monica Plisch, APS Director of Education and Diversity
Asmaa Khatib, APS Bridge Program Coordinator
Arlene Modeste Knowles, APS liaison to COM
Kathryne Sparks Woodle, APS Education & Diversity Programs Manager

Please reach out to APS COM and APS COD for strategies and resources on working toward equity in our field.

This statement is an unofficial statement by members of the American Physical Society Committee on Minorities and the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on Diversity. These are our personal views and the statement has not been officially endorsed by the APS, APS COM, AAPT, or AAPT COD formally.

"Phynd the Physicist": A Game to Open Dialog About Inclusion in Physics

Today's guest blogger, Misty Bentz, is an Assistant (nay, Associate!) Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University. Misty is an expert at making black hole mass measurements using reverberation mapping techniques, which she uses to study the broad line region and the relationship between AGN and their host galaxies. Misty's post is the second in a new series of blogs (the first is here) that describe how instructors tackle social justice issues in their physics and astronomy classrooms.

For the past few years, I have been teaching a required course for entering physics majors, “Gateway to Physics”, at Georgia State University. The course is intended to introduce students to the wide world of exciting physics research and (hopefully) kindle their enthusiasm for studying physics even as they work through their introductory courses.

To this end, we don’t spend time solving problems about balls rolling down inclined planes. Instead, the course is formatted as a seminar that meets once per week for 2 hours and is centered around visits from physics and astronomy faculty, each visitor spending an hour discussing their research and their physics subfield. The students also have semester-long group projects where they independently explore a physics topic to learn the current state of the field (past topics have included wormholes, spacecraft propulsion, extremophiles, quantum computing, biomimicry, and skyscraper design). The last meeting of the semester is a “behind the scenes” tour of several physics research labs.

Social Justice in the Physics and Astronomy Classroom

At the beginning of this winter term (in Montreal we don't even try to call it the "spring" term), I tried for the first time to directly address social justice issues, including racism and harassment, in my physics classroom.

In the months leading up to this attempt, I read that having diverse role models in the sciences is a good place to start, but not a replacement for an open, candid conversation about bias in STEM. (If you have a reference for this study, please contact me. I can't relocate it!) I'm a white women and a physics professor and perhaps that's a useful combination for some students to experience, but my mere presence doesn't prompt them to think about the core issues that lead to bias in physics and astronomy. Me standing there doesn't openly challenge them to consider racism, ablism, unconscious bias, or even gender discrimination. My desire to talk about these issues crystallized at the end of last year when Justices in the US Supreme Court used the physics classroom as an example of a place where diversity couldn't or shouldn't matter, to the outrage of many physicists and astronomers, outrage also articulated eloquently by Jedidah Isler in her NY Times Op Ed, The ‘Benefits’ of Black Physics Students.

With considerable trepidation, I tackled this the way brand new faculty tackle most things, I just tried something. And yes, it was clumsy. I share my experience here because I want to embolden other junior (and senior) faculty to take a stab at this conversation and because I would like to learn from those of you who have made (or will make) similar attempts.

Here's what I did:

1. On day one, near the start of class, I gave a short anonymous survey:

Find a piece of paper, DON’T write your name on it. 

Answer these simple questions:
   –  Take a moment to look around at the members of our class. Does this class look normal to you? In what ways yes, and in what ways no?
   –  What are you most excited about learning in this class?
   –  What is your greatest anxiety about this class?
   –  What are your greatest excitements/anxieties outside of this class?

Pick one answer and share it with the person sitting in front of or behind you...

Turn your questionnaire in when you pick up PS #1 at the end of class.

2. Then I introduced myself, talked about my research interests, told them about my unlikely career path, and also about my attempts to learn about and work toward equity and inclusion in STEM. I used both my non-traditional career path and my own commitment to equity to segue into a description of the fraught comments from the US Supreme Court.

3. As a part of the latter bit, I read out loud Sarah Tuttle's essay, Racism Doesn't Belong In My Classroom.

At the end of this 1-2-3 my classroom was dead silent. If you could look at my slides, you'd see that the next one features a linearly polarized plane wave. Seriously. The transition was just about that abrupt. I desperately wanted to bring this conversation to my students, but I didn't manage to make it a conversation at all. I could hear them thinking, "We're in Canada, what does the US Supreme Court have to do with us?" "Why are we talking about this?" "Are we ever going to talk about Optics?" "Does she even know anything about Optics?" "Is this going to be on the exam?" And I wanted to scream, "Didn't you hear the part about training revolutionaries?"

It was awkward. You can see my impostor syndrome kicking in as I struggled to express how much this conversation meant to me and how clearly I saw that I hadn't approached it well.

After that, I provided my students with several excellent suggested reading lists from Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and John Johnson (here and here; which mercifully do include some discussion of race and racism in Canada). And I dropped it.

My actual, real, live discomfort with talking about discrimination in a physics classroom manifested in me: (1) not making it a real conversation with my students, (2) not having a plan to meaningfully integrate either the student surveys or the concepts themselves into future discussions, and (3) not returning to it as a theme over the rest of the term.

Which doesn't mean that I won't try it again.

As I finally sat down to write this post, I rediscovered an excellent set of blogs from Moses Rifkin. He describes a rich 6-day curriculum which draws from his training as a physicist and teacher. The AIP also has a nice set of Teaching Guides on Women and Minorities in the Physical Sciences. And I'm sure there are other great resources out there.

My first foray was not a smashing success, but I remain committed to this endeavor. It's too important to the future of physics and astronomy, and for people inside and outside of STEM, for me to drop it altogether. These actually are our future leaders. So, if you have additional resources and/or have tried to facilitate a similar conversation in your physics classroom, please contact me. I would like to learn, to learn from, and (if you're game) possibly to share your story.

Further Reading:

1. An open letter to SCOTUS from professional physicists drafted by the Equity & Inclusion in Physics & Astronomy group and signed by over 2000 astronomers and physicists

2. The ‘Benefits’ of Black Physics Students by Jedidah Isler

3. Racism Doesn't Belong In My Classroom by Sarah Tuttle

4. A U.S./Canadian Race & Racism Reading List by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

5. Required reading for those who prioritize diversity by John Johnson

6. Teaching Social Justice in the Physics Classroom by Moses Rifkin

7. Teaching Guides on Women and Minorities in the Physical Sciences from the American Institute of Physics

What a Just Response to Oppression Can Look Like

The below guest post by Dr. Sarah Ballard has been reproduced (with permission) from Prof. John Johnson's blog: Mahalo .ne.Trash.

“What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face?” – Audre Lorde

I’m writing this piece to say things women of color have already said, and better than I could have. Please read their work.

Our community has suffered a traumatic upheaval this month. I won’t attempt to link to even a representative sample of the articles, think pieces, and anti-harassment policy documents that circulated among astronomers. Trusted colleagues and friends urged folks to care for themselves. The groundswell gave rise to a “widespread ripple of PTSD (or something close to it) through women in the field,” as Lucianne Walkowicz put it. I saw other male astronomers I deeply esteem publicly grappling with feelings of complicity. Every day brought fresh distress as the extent of harassment, and the secrecy and protection of it, became apparent at every level within our academic institutions.

Colleagues had urged me to prepare, before the publication of the Buzzfeed story (both emotionally and with respect to my internet presence), for a GamerGate-like backlash.  

#StandWithChanda

The below is a guest post by Dr. Sarah Tuttle, a research associate at McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the instrument scientist for VIRUS, a massively replicated spectrograph being built for HETDEX (Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment).

Background: Campus Reform is a news organization website connected to the Conservative right “Leadership Institute”.  They describe themselves as a “watchdog to the nation’s higher education system”, exposing “liberal bias and abuses at universities” (from their author bios). They have aggregated a collection of tweets by an astrophysicist discussing the prevalence of systemic racism and the issues of white supremacy in our society which has led to personal attacks against her.

What are Microaggressions?

This past week I attended the Inclusive Astronomy conference in Nashville and there was an incredible talk by Kenjus Watson about microaggressions. This term gets brought up frequently in feminist and equity conversations, but a lot of people I've talked to don't really understand what it means, or how microaggressions manifest in everyday life. In fact, I was guilty of one of the microaggressions that Mr. Watson highlighted, when I recently asked a trans* woman what the trans* community thought about Caitlin Jenner's transition.

Some examples of #microaggressions via @kenjuswatson #IA2015 pic.twitter.com/6HUfveQJ9d

— Dr. Jess Kirkpatrick (@berkeleyjess) June 17, 2015

Confronting My Own Racism

I am a white woman, and I have spent most of my life not thinking about race. Not in a "we live in a post-racial America" type of way, but just that on an everyday level it didn't really come up that much. Of course when something overtly racist happened, I would notice and be upset by it. I knew that people of color (POC) are underrepresented in STEM, I thought this was a bad thing, and I wanted to increase the number of underrepresented minorities (URM) in Astronomy and Physics. But overall, race and racism was an occasional thought that would briefly come to my mind, and then quickly leave.

Source: Washington Post 

Homework for Those Seeking to be Allies

The below by Dr. Sarah Ballard is cross-posted (with permission) from John Johnson's blog, Mahalo.ne.Trash.  Dr. Ballard is a Carl Sagan postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, and soon-to-be Torres Fellow at MIT.

The writer and activist Janet Mock describes the idea of an “ally” as more of an action, and less of an identity. “Ally” is something that we actively do, not something that we can ever passively be. I found this conception very helpful to hear because it posits “ally” within the context of hard work. Being an ally is hard work. It is similar to my other kinds of work (in astronomy and elsewhere) in that (1) improvement is not only facilitated by criticism from respected peers and colleagues, it relies upon this criticism, and (2) it’s characterized less by large leaps and bounds, and much more by constant and small day-to-day efforts.

Statement affirming respectful debate during current TMT protests

This was submitted to the WiA blog by leaders on diversity issues from within the AAS community. There has also been a statement from AAS President Meg Urry.

The last few weeks have brought to a head a confrontation between Native Hawaiian protesters and the Thirty Meter Telescope project. There are varied perspectives on all sides of this issue, amongst supporters and opponents, Hawaiians and mainlanders, astronomers and the general public, and all intersections of these groups. Events associated with the protests, including some cases of violence or threats of violence, have created significant divisions within our community, divisions which have manifested themselves in heated debates and discussions both in person and over social media.

Unfortunately, recent rhetoric in our community has crossed the line into racism and hostility, with language (e.g., describing Native Hawaiian protestors as a “horde” or other people of color as “snakes”) that dehumanizes individuals who oppose the placement of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna a Wakea. This language is a painful reminder of past acts of violence perpetrated against native people and others, and only serves to inflame rather than bring about understanding and resolution. In many cases, apologies have been issued, and these have been appreciated. Still, that this language was used in the first place by highly esteemed members of our community is troubling, because the effects linger, are particularly harmful to junior researchers and students, and create an environment of hostility and exclusion.

Inclusive Astronomy 2015: Update #1

This guest post is composed by the organizers of the Inclusive Astronomy meeting.

The inaugural Inclusive Astronomy meeting is coming up in less than three months: June 17-19, 2015 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee!  This meeting is being planned in response to the reality that marginalized people face -isms and -phobias which function as barriers to their participation in astronomy.  As organizers, we are excited for this meeting and hope that it will be the first of many.  

The content of the meeting is being organized under four broad topical areas:

• Barriers to access;
• Inclusion and access to power, policy, and leadership;
• Creating inclusive climates; and
• Establishing a community of inclusive practice.  

Each broad area will contain plenary presentations, breakout sessions, and workshops.  Some of the topics to be addressed are: intersectionality between racism, ableism, cissexism/transphobia, heterosexism, and sexism; campus/workplace climate; accessibility; addressing harassment and sexual violence on campuses and in workplaces; allyship; strategies for developing bridge programs; developing the skills to influence astronomy policy; and the societal boundary conditions that impact work toward equity and inclusion in astronomy.  The plenary presenters include Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on intersectionality; Kenjus Watson on creating inclusive environments; Lydia Brown on disability justice, autistic self-advocacy, and the intersection of ableism with racism; David Helfand on why policy matters; Rachel Ivie on demographics; and a panel discussion by Ebony McGee, Casey Miller, and Richard Pitt on science identity in students, problems with the GRE, and stereotype threat.

Why I think diversity is good, but the wrong target

There have been many posts on this blog and elsewhere calling for increased diversity in astronomy. I've written about it. My student has written about it. Diversity has many benefits, and we're missing out on those benefits by not having a more diverse field of science. However, I'm becoming less and less enamored with diversity as a target or goal in and of itself.

This stock photo shows more diversity than exists in astronomy today, but illustrates
what counts as diversity in most campus discussions. The out-of-focus Black person
is particularly apropos to this discussion.

Short Version

If we only focus on diversity, we'll be like a CEO saying that her goal is to "make money." Ohhh-kay. But how, specifically? By what strategy and mechanisms will the CEO make money? 

It'd be like a coach of a sports team saying, "Our goal is to score more points than our opponents!" By what strategy? What offensive and defensive approach will you use? "Nope, we're just focused on scoring points!"

Diversity is something we should strive for. But how will we get there? I contend that we'll only get to diversity by attacking the power structures that hold us back and stand in the way of diversity. For gender diversity, the roadblock is sexism. For racial diversity, the roadblock is racism. 

So rather than focusing on diversity as a target, we should instead aim at equal opportunity. Sexism and racism aim to deny equal opportunities to those outside of the white-male power structure. White women have made gains by directly attacking sexist power structures. But this process has left women of color behind. Gains for women (and men) of color will only be made once organizations such as the CSWA start taking an intersectional approach that recognizes that women of color face not only sexism, but racism as well in their daily lives (note how this direct attack on power structures contrasts with "multiculturalism"). 

Long Version

How to Apologize

The astronomy community has been reeling this past week from the aftermath of the Rosetta #ShirtStorm incident. The scientist who made this mistake has apologized -- which is very difficult to do -- and I applaud him for doing that.  Even people with the best intentions mess up and make mistakes; it is a great opportunity to reflect and learn. Here is a video by Franchesca Ramsey on how to apologize when you've been called out.  She uses an example from her own life where she was transphobic, got called out, and how she responded.