Addressing the Backlash: Houston, There Really Was a Problem

 One of the consistent tendencies of 2024 was that posts here and conversations elsewhere on online about the Canadian Armed Force's command crisis was the claim that it was really a moral panic, a non-controversy as most of the generals and admirals who had been accused in 2021 were exonerated since then.  One thing I wrote in 2021 was that the opponents to culture change, to addressing the abuses of power and sexual misconduct, had few allies since it was hard to ally with these tainted officers. With the various court cases having been played out with one officer pleading guilty and the rest being found not guilty, the fans of the old ways now are aggressively putting forth the idea that this was all blown up out of nothing.  So, first, I'd like to address this concept of exoneration, then go through the three most important cases, and then conclude with what it means for policy and for Canadian civil-military relations.

First, folks have claimed that the various generals and admirals have been exonerated.  This reminds me of a classic meme:

To exonerate does not mean that a jury could not be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.  To exonerate means: that there was new evidence that essentially proves that the accused could not be guilty.  From one legal website: "The difference is that just because you were found not guilty [an acquittal] doesn`t mean you were not guilty; it means that the State was unable to find enough evidence to convict you. Whereas, an exoneration means, the court has overturned, and dismissed all charges, based on new evidence."  In none of the cases and especially the top three was there any new evidence that proved that the generals and admirals could not have committed the crimes of which they had been accused.

Instead, what happened was that either investigators or courts ruled that there was not sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that these individuals (except for one) to convict or further investigate them.  To be clear, that is a high bar and an appropriate one for when one could be jailed.  It should not be the standard for appointment to the highest positions in the military (or the Supreme Court). It also means that if a court can't find someone guilty, that does that mean that there was not sufficient evidence to try to the individual.  In these cases, there were other factors at work that can also cause us to be at least a wary of thinking that these folks were treated unfairly: the well-documented criticisms of the military justice system by a series of reviews including the most recent by former Supreme Court Justice Fish and that it is very hard to try someone decades later.  There is also the canard that women are so willing to make false accusations--when the opposite is true.

Ok, let's get into the three cases, starting with the Mulligan Man--Vice Admiral Hadyn Edmundson.  He had been accused of a variety of forms of sexual misconduct and ultimately rape.  His court case ended with a not guilty verdict.  This was not the clear, decisive vindication that his lawyer suggested, but instead a problem common to many rape cases--of there being no other witnesses or corroborating evidence. This case is important because Edmundson had an established reputation as being problematic on sexual misconduct issues--his nickname of Mulligan Man--when General Jon Vance named him to be the head of personnel.  To put a man with such a tainted past in charge of personnel at a time where the military was supposed to be addressing sexual crisis in the aftermath of the Deschamps Report speaks to Vance's commitment to addressing sexual misconduct.  It also speaks to the failure of then Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan who should have been overseeing such important appointments.  Chief of Military Personnel should be integral to any effort to fight sexual misconduct since recruitment, retention, and promotion are just a wee bit central to damn near everything including making sure that sexual misconduct is disincentivized.  Plus there are the optics.  More on that below.

The second case is Admiral Art McDonald, who made it to the very top of the Canadian Armed Forces, serving one of the briefest terms as Chief of the Defence Staff.  He was accused of sexual assault at a post-exercise party, and the military investigators essentially said: everyone was too drunk at the time to testify.  Maybe that is what Art McDonald considers to be exoneration, but that ain't exoneration.  Of course, McDonald then demonstrated that he was unfit to serve as CDS since he completely misunderstood civilian control of the military when he sent a letter to all of the Canadian admirals and generals claiming he was coming back to command the CAF.  His replacement, General Wayne Eyre had it exactly right: "We must remember that in a democracy the military is subordinate to our duly elected civilian leadership. This fundamental is paramount to our profession." That Sajjan advised the Prime Minister to appoint a man who clearly out of touch with proper civil-military relations and also having this stain in his past is another strike against Sajjan--that the PM should have turfed him after McDonald was suspended.  Rule #1 of Minister-ness--take the blame for big mistakes on behalf of the PM (who should have also done his homework on McDonald).  

Of course, the case that started the cascade is General Jon Vance's.  In multiple comments on my blog, folks have said that I must be some kind of puritan to be upset by Vance's consensual relationship.  These folks cast many aspersions at the primary (but not only) target of Vance's attention: Major Kellie Brennan.  There are many responses to this, and I will focus on two: first, if there was no problem with this relationship, why did Vance seek to obstruct justice by telling Brennan to lie about their relationship?  Second, relationships between superiors and subordinates are fraught, which is one why norms eventually developed against professors having sexual relationships with their students (which do get violated from time to time).  That Vance preyed upon his subordinates at a time where he was supposed to leading the charge against sexual misconduct showed as much about his judgement and his sense of double standards and abuse of power as his appointment of Edmundson to chief of military personnel.  (Some have said that no one was convicted, but the guilty plea is very much the equivalent of a conviction, even if a judge was willing to ignore years of Vance violating his oath when he slapped him on the wrist)

Over the course of Vance's historically long term as CDS, I talked to multiple CAF officers about Operation Honour--the effort to address sexual misconduct in the aftermath of the Deschamps Report.  I repeatedly heard: "yeah, but that's led by Vance ...."  I never got specifics until Mercedes Stephenson broke the story.  The key is this: Vance's reputation, either from his preying upon subordinates or from his promoting an officer who skated past previous accusations of sexual misconduct, undermined the legitimacy of the effort to deal with sexual misconduct.

So, what should we make of those who argue that this is all overwrought?  What are the policy implications of dismissing the 2021 accusations against an entire command cohort?  It suggests we should toss out the reforms, I guess.  That is, rather than having civilian oversight of promotions and rather than having anonymous reviewers for the 360 degree reviews of senior officers, we should go back to the days where those seeking promotion got to pick their reviewers.  Sure, that's a great recipe for an old boys network, but wheres the harm in that?  Oh, these accusations led to a military that is too woke, too concerned with including Canadians who are not the traditional suppliers of personnel to the CAF: women, LGBTQ, religious minorities, immigrants, etc.  So, in a time of a steep personnel crisis, we should not worry about alienating the 70% of the Canadian population that have generally not been the target of recruiters?

From now on, when I hear folks dismissing the seriousness of the 2021 scandals, I will ask them--what reforms do you want to do away with?  And if they come back with the bullshit that there are quotas limiting white dudes from joining or from being promoted, I can walk away knowing that they don't know what they are talking about.

On to civil-military relations, what can we learn from both the "exonerations" and the backlash?  First, efforts to reform military justice need to continue. If people had more faith in the system, then it might serve as a greater deterrent to those who might abuse their positions and it might also serve to reassure people that they have recourse within the system or a pathway outside the system if they face sexual misconduct. Second, we need to have politicians actually care about their responsibilities as stewards of the military.  That Sajjan messed up his job in so many ways and was kept around in that position for months and months afterwards says a lot about how Trudeau viewed his role as the chief civilian in charge of the CAF.  This leads to a third implication: that civilian oversight of the CAF needs to be the job of more than just one person, more than just the Minister's job.  It should be the job of the Department of National Defence.  DND should not just be a supporter of the CAF but an overseer.  The job is way too big for one person, and, no, the parliamentarians don't think it is their job.  

The 2021 scandals were not just the fault of a handful of senior leaders abusing their power--it was also the fault of a broken system of civil-military relations.  Both civilian and military leadership failed the CAF and failed Canada.  The structures at the time facilitated and incentivized this failure.  Some of the structures within the CAF have changed, but, alas, little has changed on the civilian side.  Denying the problems and wishing for a glorious past where abuse of power and inappropriate relationships were seen as the benefits that came with those positions says much about those making those claims and can only lead to yet more crises down the road.

DND/CAF/Govt Apology for Sexual Misconduct, Past and Present

 Today, the leadership of the Canadian Defence Team apologized for decades of sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination.  This was required by the settlement of a class action suit that had around 19,000 individuals who filed claims.  It was also required by the realities of the past year.  While harassment and assault have been part of the military and defence experience for decades, the past year has seen senior leadership be revealed as abusers of their powers and violators of the trust given to them by the public and by their subordinates.  

I was glad to see Minister of National Defence Anita Anand include abuse of power in her statement, apologizing on behalf of the government.  Each government, not just this one, has failed its people.  She noted that the governments failed their duty to protect them, to provide justice and accountability.  This is not just an historical grievance as recently keeping around a Minister who so badly failed for far too long is part of this record of failure.  Anand has started making decisions that suggest a break with the previous Minister.  The mission she faces is a difficult one with many challenging tradeoffs and complicated situations, and she will face much resistance.  She will have to change the basic pattern of Canadian civil-military relations--she will have to reduce the autonomy the CAF has had for generations.  The military has proven that they can't handle this stuff on their own, and, indeed, its leaders have often demonstrated that they can't be trusted to be left to their own devices.

Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre went second.  The statement he read was quite a good one.  "We have betrayed that trust.... it breaks my heart."  "On behalf of an institution that failed you, I apologize." "“I am sorry. We sincerely apologize for the trauma that you have experienced. To those who suffered in silence, we are sorry. To those who shouted until you could shout no more at great personal risk only to have no one listen to you, we are sorry.”  "Do I have the moral authority to apologize?"  He addressed that the harm continued under his watch.  Once again, he referred to this crisis as existential. The question is whether the folks at lower levels see this the same way.  I am not so sure.  I did like that Eyre noted that the reforms will not always work, that they will make mistakes.  The path forward is not obvious.

 Deputy Jody Thomas went last.  It was important to recognize that the problem is not just within the CAF but also in DND.  It is also important to note that DND didn't do its job to protect those in the CAF.  I still don't understand how the DND/CAF relationship has worked over the years.  Thomas said on our podcast that Vance pushed DND out of implementing the Deschamp Report, but that contradicts what I had heard about how CAF and DND shared the personnel file. 

To address both the sexual misconduct crisis and the larger pattern of abuse of power, the Minister of National Defence is going to have to engage in multiple axes of effort:

• fundamentally re-shape the pattern of civil-military relations so that civilian management of much stuff is normal;
• civilian oversight is also normalized, engaged, and expected;
• institutions governing recruitment, retention, and promotion are changed;
• educational and training systems are revised to remove the sense of entitlement and impunity that certain pathways tend to produce;
• focus more on domestic operations and less on special operations as the model for service;
• military justice should be reformed at least as far as the Fish report recommends and probably further than that;

Well, that's a start.  There is obviously more to do.  This much is going to be very hard, but it needs to be a strong, consistent effort that is not just seen as a blip but a transformation of how the Minister, DND, and the CAF relate to other and how they do their jobs.  Anything short of that will make today's apologies somewhere between a bit and entirely hollow depending on how far the reforms go.  The apologies are important, but they require follow up--changes in how business is done.  

 

Reform is Hard, Abuse of Power edition

 Yesterday, I was a participant in a roundtable organized by the Department of National Defence to consult/report on the sexual misconduct and abuse of power crisis.  I went in with very low expectations as it was very, very large for a roundtable: 90 people split between "stakeholders" [academics, activists, advocates, survivors] and folks in DND and the CAF and other government agencies (Veterans Affairs, Minister for Women and Gender Equality) and very little time allotted for Q&A.  Also, it was announced with short notice and scheduled on a Friday afternoon in the summer, which was not too family friendly.  The event surpassed my expectations but not wildly so as some sessions were informative, and we did get to ask some questions.  In terms of message management/PR effort, it was better than the set up suggested it would be, but I think the reactions of folks depending in part on their priors.

Before addressing the meeting itself, I want to note how much I was reminded of the classic quote by Machiavelli:

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them."  The Prince from here*

Permission Structures Redux: the CAF and Academia

Thanks to a podcast I heard four years ago, the phrase "permission structure" has been on my mind.  It came out of MeToo and the various cases--that in any moment, there is a set of attitudes, norms, and institutions that give permission for certain actors to act in a particular way and deny that permission to others to act in a different way.  In the Hollywood example, for a long time, the "Casting Couch" was normalized--that it was expected and accepted that producers would prey upon actresses (and actors) and that the targets of this behavior had little recourse but to be seen as crazy or "bitchy."  The MeToo movement shifted the permission structures--that the survivors of such abuse could report their experiences and be believed and that there might just be consequences for the predators.  It was both a moment in time where people realized that they could tell what happened to them and a structural shift in the norms as abusive people continue to lose their jobs.  The change in permission structure does not end the predation and other problems, but it raises the costs and probabilities of being awful, and it lowers (but does not eliminate) the costs for the survivors to report on what happened to them.

The Canadian Armed Forces is having a MeToo moment that may shift the permission structure.  A series of women and men have come out and reported that they were assaulted by senior officers.  We knew that the CAF had a sexual misconduct problem--there have been reports and policies and much academic study--but we did not know how far it reached to the top.  One of the consequences of the broader MeToo movement is that we generally believe these women more readily (although I have heard some folks in the military raise doubts).  We have seen a retired Chief of the Defence Staff be investigated, his replacement sidelined, and the Chief of Personnel put on ice.  Week after week Mercedes Stephenson has been interviewing a series of women who suffered awful behavior from their superiors and who did not get any help from their chain of command.  This has shaken the CAF and perhaps the public's confidence in it.  While the survivors now feel a bit more comfortable speaking out, it is not clear yet whether the permission to abuse subordinates has declined.  One would think so after five or six years of Operation Honour and now the Path to Dignity efforts, but, well, not so much.  

This week at the virtual ISA, my profession had a bit of its own shift in permission structures.  A well-known scholar, Mia Bloom, engaged in social media abuse of a younger scholar, one of color, for having the temerity to criticize some of Bloom's work.  I won't get in the details as they are documented quite well here.  In response to her outburst, one person refused to sit on a panel on mentorship(!) that Bloom was on later in the week.  Others came forward on social media to tell their Bloom story.  Bloom has been doing this kind of stuff for years, but was not confronted.  She had, essentially, permission from the profession to be awful, despite earning a reputation for being awful.  Whisper networks only go so far.  

As someone who used to be Mia's friend, I knew about some of this, but didn't say anything.  When this stuff broke out this week, I first referred to it obliquely:

Punching down is never ok
Using slurs is never ok
Overreacting to criticism is never ok.

The first two are simply awful. The third happens.

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) April 6, 2021

 But after Amar's series of tweets, where he said that junior people and people of color tend to be the ones that talk about this, that senior white folks are absent, I realized I should discuss this more directly.  Hence this post here and a series of tweets.  With the ice breaking on this and with Mia's crappy apology, the permission structure has changed partially.  We don't know if there will be consequences for her, but we do know that people feel freer to talk in public about her behavior.  Because she does not have a large posse, the danger of retaliation is modest, limited mostly to the vagaries of reviewing processes.  I have and will encourage scholars (especially junior) to use the part of the forms for article and grant submissions and tenure letters to say that they don't want Mia Bloom reviewing their stuff. 

However, the big question is whether this changes anything for anyone else.  Mia is not the only person who engages in bad behavior in the discipline.  Will others get outed?  Will other people's targets go public?  Will those with power feel less comfortable engaging in bad behavior?  I am not so sure. 

 

More Civvies, Less Mil, Please

Watching Mercedes Stephenson interview yet another survivor of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces [CAF] and ... the Department of National Defence [DND] has caused me to expand my SecDef rant to apply more broadly: it is not good to have the part of the government that is responsible for overseeing the armed forces to have many former military folks staffing it.  

In my various posts about SecDefs Mattis and Austin, I made the claim that it is really hard to erase decades of socialization.  I haven't worked in many different kinds of organizations, but I can tell you from my one year at the Pentagon, the armed forces can be quite effective at socialization--shaping the sensibilities of those working within.  Indeed, unlike most other organizations, the armed forces does this deliberately and thoroughly--from haircuts to language to posture to daily battle rhythms.  To argue that one can simply toss that aside after twenty years or so is just silly.  It is even harder to de-socialize or re-socialize if one's next job involves both overseeing the armed forces and working closely with them.

There is also the networking side of things.  While it might be advantageous for policy-officers in the Department of National Defence to know people in the military, it also raises risks.  That the DND official might worry about the impact of a policy change upon his or her former pals.  

There is also the path dependence of gender thing--that the military is still overwhelmingly male and white and all the rest--so picking people from it to staff DND means that it will make it harder for DND to be more diverse and inclusive and representative of Canada (my friends in DC tell me the preference for veterans has the same impact on civil service jobs).  Plus given that the CAF has a legacy of treating women poorly, importing men from that environment who either participated in such treatment or were complicit, as the woman interviewed by Mercedes testififed, is a bad idea.

Sure, #notallwhitemilitarydudes are guilty, but they all come from an institution that has had pervasive problems of sexual misconduct and abuse of power. 

To be clear, we don't need the civilians and military folks to be at war over policy.  However, some tensions between the civilian side of the house and the military side of the house can be productive.  If the civilians at DND and the military folks in CAF are always seeing things exactly the same way, that is probably a problem.  Because it might just mean the civilians see themselves as allies/protectors/cheerleaders rather than overseers.*  If you want to argue that the military can oversee itself, the past couple of months should make it clear that is a bad argument.  When I talked to parliamentarians long ago, they argued their job was not to oversee the CAF but to hold the Minister to account for his work in overseeing the CAF.  Well, if he isn't doing the job (see my forthcoming editorial on that) and if the parliamentarians aren't overseeing the armed forces, who is?

So, as we move forward beyond the current mess, let's:

a) name a new Minister of Defence who did not serve in the armed forces for decades
b) re-think DND personnel policy as well
c) oh yeah, change the culture of the CAF.

 

* Canada is not alone in this.  Some countries' ministries of defence are entirely populated by active and retired military personnel.  Others may not be staffed that way but still see their jobs as protectors of the armed forces from civilian (legislative) interference.

Gender Violence and the CAF

I went to an event today on Gender Violence and the Canadian Armed Forces.  Why?  Because it was co-run by two organizations--Women in International Security Canada and the Conference of Defence Associations Institute--that are key partners in the Canadian Defence and Security Network and because personnel issues are one of five key themes that the CDSN will focus on (if we manage to get funding).  Going to events like this allow me to catch up a bit with the stuff in an area that is relevant but mostly adjacent to my research.  That is, stuff I am interested in, but don't have time to read.  Like the IUS-Canada conference in October (another partner), I am struck by the intelligence of the folks in the room AND the challenge facing the CAF, DND and pretty much everyone else.

I was also struck by how few men were there.  A room of about 30 folks had four men plus one of the organizers.  A male speaker dropped out due to illness.  My tweeting of this led to much conversing online.  Yeah, men tend to see gender as a woman's issue for which they have little time.  However, toxic masculinity is toxic for men, too, as the raw numbers show more men being sexually assaulted in the CAF than women.  That might be an artifact of the percentages--that there are far more men than women in the military--but the reality is that men pay a price for this.  Also, much sexual harassment may be aimed not so much at the immediate target--a woman--but towards the other men, that men prove their manliness to other men by picking on women.

The first speaker was Dr. Manon Leblanc, a scientist at the Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis (yes, another CDSN partner).  Her focus was on the effort to gather data--what the various surveys caught, what they missed, and the next wave of research.  The findings were largely unsurprising: LGB face more discrimination/assault/harassment (no T in this due to small number of trans gender personnel filling out the surveys).  More work needs to address the behavior of bystanders and more interviews with the targets of abuse.  There was some Q&A and discussion about the best way to describe those who face sexual misconduct--victim, survivor, target, affected personnel.  Which led to a larger conversation of how much of the work talks past each other due to different jargon.  People preferred not to use victim as that is problematic, with target fitting in with military language better.

The next speaker was Lieutenant Commander (retired) Rosemary Park, Director of Servicewomen's Salute. This is perhaps the only organization that represents female veterans as a group in Canada.  She pointed out that we have had repeated crises and not much apparent improvement.  That there has been no little change in the organizational culture.  She did refer to a new documentary coming out next year, Invisible Force, that presents the women who have come out and reported their experiences as targets of sexual assault. (here's the trailer) I will definitely be considering that doc for my Civ-Mil class next fall.

After lunch, which was nicely designed to facilitate some good follow-up discussions/networking, Commodore Rebecca Patterson, Director-General of the CAF Strategic Response Team-Sexual Misconduct discussed her job, her office and her background.  I met her during lunch--she is quite impressive.  She articulated quite well the challenge facing her and what the role of the chain of command is in all of this.  She indicated that they welcomed the Auditor Gener  al's report.  One of the key problems is that there are services for those harmed by se

xual misconduct, but people don't know how to access them--that there are still too many barriers and silos.  She said that the CAF will have a strategic plan in October 2019.  This might seem slow since this stuff got priority after the Deschamps Report in 2015, but she did hit one of my favorite notes--that we need to focus on outcomes, not just outputs. 

The last speaker, Dr. Chantal Ruel of the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, presented the new efforts--more bilingual staff available 24/7.  Many of the calls they receive are from officers asking how to handle complaints they receive.  The hard part is that attitudes about the CAF haven't changed--that those in the military don't yet trust the CAF chain of command to handle these problems well.  So, that might depress reporting.

There was much expertise in the audience, so the questions and comments were quite good.  I didn't get a chance to ask my question as I had to go: while not all misogynists are racists or homophobes, those folks who self-identify as racists are likely to be misogynists and homophobes.  So, wouldn't getting rid of these people and sending messages that this is not to be tolerated work on multiple problems at once?  I guess what is on my mind has been stories of white supremacists in the CAF being identified but not punished and kicked out.  If that stuff is not driven out of the force, how can anyone expect progress on gender?

I did develop some sympathy with the folks on the panels doing the hard work in and around DND/CAF: that much of the effort started only in 2015.  It is unrealistic to explain cultural change quickly.  In the classic argument between my daughter and myself, the question is whether some progress should make us feel better or should we be impatient and demand more progress faster?  I guess at this point, given what is happening in the US, as long as the trend line is still positive, I can't criticize too much.  Still, the folks today all indicated that outside criticism, feedback, insights are welcome, so join in and tell me and them what the CAF and DND should be doing to make bigger, faster, more enduring improvements.

And if you want a more complete version of the conversation, check out  the live tweeting of the event on the WIIS-Canada feed. 

ISA Sexual Harassment in the News

Ah, the ISA never gets in the news in a good way.  Last time, it was my blowing up an ISA proposal on blogging.  This time, it is their reaction to a complaint about sexual harassment at a conference.  I have been reluctant to comment because: a) I am in Korea doing fieldwork and spent most of my typing in poor ergonomic conditions on transcribing notes; b) this is very much a tempest in a teapot kind of thing, getting far more attention than other, more severe problems in the discipline; and c) as a white guy, I am probably not the best to judge whether this joke/complaint/reaction/counter-reaction is problematic or not. 

Having said that, of course, I have thoughts, and as someone who has commented much on sexual harassment in the discipline, folks have asked what I think about this episode.  So, here I semi-spew about this incident.

First, tone matters a great deal, so we don't know how snide or not Lebow's tone was.  But making a joke to the guys at the expense of the women, which is how the story sounds, is not good and not appropriate.
Second, Lebow has a reputation in the discipline which makes it hard to judge things--he is seen as a difficult person, so I am not surprised that he is, in my view, overreacting.  He should have taken his lumps: "I am sorry.  I made a bad joke, and I offended you" and moved on.  Instead, he pushed back and wanted to publicize it all.  Congrats to him on blowing this up. 
Third, hierarchy matters--Lebow is a big name in the field so with great power comes great responsibility.  Contra to Roseanne Barr, punching up with jokes is more acceptable than punching down.  Indeed, that is one way to challenge the powerful. I remember quite clearly that I made a joke about a junior woman's appearance (her height) at a conference, the person called me on it, I felt abashed and ashamed, I apologized, and I don't think I repeated that behavior since.  Would I have behaved differently had it gone directly to an ISA procedure?  I don't know, but I probably would not have been looking for media outlets to air my side. 
Fourth, I feel for the ISA folks, as they faced no good choices in this, and now they look like humor scolds.
Fifth, contra to this piece, yes, one can make jokes that involve sex at conferences but you do it with your friends and not complete strangers.  Context matters and audiences matter.  So, saying you can't joke at conferences and can't joke about sex is simply wrong.  But the content and context of the joke matters. Sure, "ladies lingerie" does not have much content to it, but in a small box full of strangers, it is a bad context. 
Sixth,  I can't really judge Simona Sharoni as I don't know her and have not been in her shoes.  But I have seen enough sexism in academia to understand that senior women are fed up with a lifetime of accumulated grievances and react when they see more of it.  Would this be a hill I would die on?  No, but again, white guy who has faced not much sexism or other identity-based difficulties over my career. 

Most importantly, I worry that this incident will be used to trivialize complaints about sexism and sexual harassment.  I saw this every year when I was at Texas Tech, as the yearly sexual harassment training session turned into a competition among the senior men in the department to undermine the presenter.  As that department was thoroughly toxic at the time due to the sexual harassment by one of my colleagues, this trivialization of the issue was incredibly problematic.  Sexual harassment is real, and sexism matters a great deal (see all of the work on citations, on leaky pipelines, and all the rest), so focusing on whether "women's lingerie" as a joke distracts us from the more serious issues facing women in political science and international relations.  For some, this is an opportunity to do exactly that--distract us from the serious issues.  For others, they see this as part of a larger pattern.  And I stand with the latter, as I have seen the former do too much damage. 

McGill Mess MeToo?

While I was at the ISA, I heard about an effort by the McGill undergrad student society to compel the university to do something about the problem of sexual harassment (Yes, the media are approaching me again since I have been blogging about this for two years).  I was pointed to these reports of the SSMU making public a letter that was sent to the head of the university: "The letter says complaints resurface “year after year” about professors in the departments of history, philosophy, political science, psychology and world Islamic and Middle East Studies."

The university insists that they take this stuff seriously, but they can't provide specifics about complaints or processes.  I think they could provide one stat that would be meaningful: how many professors have been fired for sexual harassment?  If the answer is not zero, then folks might be more willing to buy the assertion that they are doing something.  If the answer is zero, well, that is an answer.

I did tweet that McGill is stuck in a catch-22: that they can't punish without complaints, but why should anyone complain if no one is punished.  The problem that journalists have in covering this is that no survivor is willing to go on the record, and that makes complete sense.  The MeToo movement in Hollywood and now elsewhere broke through this when multiple survivors came out simultaneously.  The women who did come out against Weinstein, for instance, knew they were not alone and that they might be believed BUT they still faced much abuse online and elsewhere.

So, I am pretty thrilled that this student group is focused on this incredibly important issue and providing the collective action that is hard for individuals to organize.  SSMU is putting significant pressure on McGill.  This is a good thing--how does McGill respond to this pressure?  I don't know.  I have kept saying that whatever assertions McGill says about taking this stuff seriously will only believed if they do something very visible, rather than covering things with a cloak of confidentiality.  I have invoked Machiavelli by suggesting that McGill should figuratively take one of the harassers to a public square and, well, draw and quarter them.  In the modern day, firing a harasser would be the visible demonstration that something has changed.

My guess is that this will happen, but not to the guy I know of.  I have heard enough about the stuff at Islamic studies that I would bet one of the offenders there being the demonstration of McGill's seriousness.  But maybe not since the catch-22 might get in the way.

Appalling, Not Shocking, Academic Edition

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a really moving and horrifying story of Jorge Dominguez's career of success and sexual harassment. Dominquez harassed and even assaulted women for decades, for his entire career, and kept getting promoted even as women filed complaints and even as he got minor slaps on the wrist.   Yes, it happened at Harvard so it is more newsworthy, but this is not at all shocking.  Why?  Because universities care more about their reputations than their students until forced to do otherwise.

The harasser I know best started doing what he did before I got to McGill, did it while I was there, and apparently has done it since.  Why?  Because the consequences have been minor.  Why should women risk much stress and further abuse by coming out and filing charges when they see that the consequences for the harasser range from non-existent to not much? 

We have seen some progress in the US because the federal government via Title IX has levied pretty significant threats against universities if they do not deal with the harassment people (mostly women) face. The new budget the Canadian government released yesterday threatens to cut federal funding (which is mostly research money since the universities are run/owned by the provinces) for those universities who do not make progress on combatting sexual harassment.

Of course, universities will say that they do and then continue to do everything behind closed doors.  Yes, it is a tricky legal problem, but until serial harassers are essentially taken out to the university public space (quad, centre, student union, whatever) and drawn and quartered (metaphorically), why should anyone believe them?  To be less dramatic and more direct, until serial harassers face very visible consequences (fired), why should students and governments believe assertions about combating sexual harassment?

Sure, some men will worry about false accusations, but we are not calling for all accused men to be thrown out--just the Jorge Dimenguezs and Rex Brynens--just those who have engaged in harassment repeatedly and will not stop.  The students are simply more important.

On the bright side, stories like the Chronicle's help women realize that they are not alone, that they did experience what they thought they experienced, and it had little to do with whatever they did and everything to do with the harasser.  After posting about Rex two years ago, I have gotten a number of emails from women who were glad I did, that they now know that they were not alone.

Good Politics and the Right Thing To Do, Franken Edition

I have long been a fan of Franken. I have most, if not all of his books.  I really enjoyed him actually doing quite well as a Senator, as he did try to hold government officials/appointees accountable.  He accidentally trapped Sessions in a lie that will keep on dogging the highest law enforcement official in the land.  And, yes, he has to go.  It is both the right thing to do and good politics.

Franken is a serial sexual harasser and perhaps even serial sexual assaulter (groping counts, doesn't it?).  This is not the case of him saying something once or acting inappropriately once--it is a pattern of behavior that he is not denying although he has underplayed what is clearly something quite systemic in his own character.  He does not belong in the Senate, he should not be representing people nor should he be paid by taxpayers with public funds.  Everything he does now is tainted.  The Democratic Party needs to have some core values and treating women decently should be one of them.  Franken may have done good things for women in general, but he has bad for the individual women he has encountered.  Franken leaving or getting kicked out is the right thing to do. 

It is also, conveniently, good politics. Not just that the Governor of Minnesota will appoint a Democrat so it does not affect the balance of political control of the Senate in the short term (that someone has to run in 2018 to replace Franken could be dicey).  It is good politics because the Democrats are increasingly becoming the party of consistent values and the GOP is the party of opportunism.  This ain't bad optics going forward.  More importantly, it is good politics because women are more than half of the electorate, and the gender gap already favors the Dems and will favor them more so.  Sure, more than a few women have other interests/identities that cause them to vote against their interests as women---they may be rich, they may love their guns, they may be racist, or whatever.*  Still, alienating some women by being the party of sexual assault is not going to help the GOP, and by drawing a clear line between the Democrats and the Republicans on this, the Democrats will benefit.  The GOP can suppress the vote of minorities and the young via #voterfraudfraud voter id laws, but how can they suppress the female vote?  I am sure they will find a way, but it is much harder.

* Yeah, I am still bitter about white women voting for Trump, which upset my prediction last fall and gave us this darkest timeline.

Anyhow, I will get over the heartbreak of having a guy I have long favored turn out to be sleazy and hurtful to those who was supposed to be helping. Will the GOP get over being the party that preferred a child molester in the Senate and an admitted sexual assaulter in the White House?  I am not so sure.

Identification and Those We Admire: Sexual Assault/Harassment Edition

One of the most impactful influential books I have ever read is Donald Horowitz's Ethnic Groups in Conflict.  I didn't take any psychology in college to my everlasting regret, so what I have learned about psychology I have gotten from political scientists who borrow parts of it, such as Robert Jervis and cognitive psych.  Well, Horowitz taught me about social psychology, with the key dynamic here is how our self-esteem partly hinges on those we identify with.  As those people and groups do well, our self-esteem goes up and when they do poorly, our self esteem goes down.

Which is one reason, I guess, that people have a hard time when those they admire turn out to be awful human beings.  For me, this week, this is about Louis CK and Kevin Spacey.  I feel awful that these guys treated people so badly.  I had seen stuff over the years that indicated that both did stuff that was problematic, but I didn't want to face the reality because it would diminish not just my view of them but of myself, I think.   I think this is one reason why folks are reluctant to believe.  This, of course, is in addition to rape culture and everything else in our society. 

I think I feel kind of icky--grossed out, a bit queasy, and sad.  Not just because I have some empathy for those who had to deal with the sexual assaults and harassment committed by CK, Spacey, and all the rest, but because I feel bad about myself. 

On the other hand, that Roy Moore is a pedophilia probably elevates my self-esteem as Horowitz also taught me about the logic of invidious comparison.  That when the other group does poorly, I feel better by comparison.  So, the revelations about someone who was already thoroughly awful makes his whole group look bad (and the reactions of much of the GOP make the group look really bad), making my group feel good.  And, yeah, we don't want to hear about Bill Clinton because it will harsh our buzz about Moore and the GOP.  Unfortunately, these awful people are in all groups, parties, vocations, locations, etc.  So, the boosts to our self-esteem are likely to be temporary as we eventually realize that we (whatever the "we/us" is) have our own assholes who hurt people. 

Obviously, there is much more to these dynamics, but I do think that the logic of invidious comparison is at work here as well.  Anyhow, just overthinking the week's events as I remove the works of Kevin Spacey and Louis CK* from my Netflix lists of what to watch next.

* While Louis CK's apology was better than most, it was still forced by the events of the last few days even as he had ample opportunities over the years to come clean.  So, good but not good enough and way too damn late.

Who to Call About McMess?

I got a comment on my previous post about who folks should contact if they want to blow the whistle on McGill's sexual harassers.  I don't know the McG procedures they have these days, and I won't really trust them until we see someone be visibly punished for their behavior (again, confidentiality tends to protect the perpetrator more than the survivors).  So, my response to that comment is to provide a series of names/contact info of journalists of all kinds who have contacted me about this story (you will note that most didn't end up writing much probably because they could not get any survivors on the record).

Anyhow, here's what I got:
McGill Tribute Editor: Alexandra Harvey <alexandra.harvey@mail.mcgill.ca>
McGill Daily News:  <news@mcgilldaily.com>  The reporter was Marina Cupido--I don't know if she is still there.
Vice: Hilary Beaumont <hilary.beaumont@vice.com>

Maclean's: Martin Patriquin <Martin.Patriquin@rci.rogers.com>, 514.843.2964

The first one listed is based on a very recent conversation.  The other ones are older, so they have probably moved on.

Permission Structures and Social Change

Here I go thinking about stuff about which I know not.... I heard the phrase permission structure on a Pod Saves America podcast, which makes sense since it is an Obama thing.  As far as I can tell, it is a social dynamic where expectations/norms/behavior tend to make it easier for people to act.  Like, hey, vote for a Black guy?  Well, maybe now because other folks I agree with say so...

Anyhow, it got in my head when I was talking with Mrs. Spew about the Harvey Weinstein story.  Something may or may not be changing--we shall see if what has happened the past few weeks with Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and others will stick or not.  But it seems to me that two things have changed:

1. While there had been some stories and complaints and even jokes about Harvey Weinstein for years, the big news story that had both a big name or two (Ashley Judd) and breadth (more than a few specific stories) essentially gave people permission to speak out about Weinstein and then other men and the Hollywood culture in general.  I am not saying people need permission to speak out, but the environment became more permissive--that it would be ok to tell one's story and not face as much disbelief or victim-blaming as in the past.  Yes, there is some safety in numbers, with more and more folks telling their stories, sharing their horrific experiences, it became easier (although not easy).  The Metoo stuff online provided some accelerant, so we now have a cascade (I should be citing Timur Kuran here).  The Cosby story didn't have the same effect even though the story generated a mini-permission structure for women to come out about Cosby (the pattern of a few women leading to a cascade of many since now they would be believed) perhaps because Cosby was no longer at the top of the power structure.  Taking down a relatively powerful figure in the industry created a permissive environment to come out against James Toback, Kevin Spacey and others.
2. Maybe, just maybe, a second thing might also be happening: the previous permission structure that made it ok and easy for relatively powerful men to prey upon actresses and others in Hollyood maybe breaking.  For how long was the casting couch an unfortunate but expected obstacle that one had to overcome, one way or another, to get a role and to stay in the business?  The men saw it as an entitlement and the women and men (thanks, Kevin Spacey for reminding us that one can be a creep regardless of orientation) beneath them as legitimate prey.  It maybe the case that these norms--these standards--are changing so that the powerful will not see it as their right, that their companies may be less willing to protect, foster and even feed them.  The economic consequences of harboring these folks may help to break this particular permission structure.  I hope so....

Which gets me to the phone call du jour.  Student journalists at McGill are pursuing the story of sexual harassment there, and wanted to get my take since I have been vocal about it.  One of the challenges McGill faces is this: the current batch of administrators say that they are more serious and will listen to the students who file complaints, but why should students believe them?  Thus far, they have not observed any profs paying any price for their behavior.  The permission structure has not visibly changed: those who complain cannot detect any justice, any ramifications, any consequences for the perpetrators.  Yes, the school will say that folks have faced consequences but it is all confidential, so trust us.  Um, no. Permission structures don't changed based on one set of actors saying "believe me."  People have to see that something has changed.  Weinstein lost his job, that his studio is in deep trouble, that police and prosecutors are looking into him have made a big difference (whether it lasts or not, I have no idea).  If McGill and other universities want to be taken seriously, they may want to fire a serial sexual harasser or two.  Well, if they want to be seen as caring more about their students than about their reputation, which, ironically, would improve their reputation.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this, as I am way outside of my expertise and just thinking aloud.  Does this make sense?

Hostile Work Environments

In this space, I have frequently railed against sexual harassers, including outing one at my old place.  Why?  First, much sympathy for those who are directly victimized as it can derail careers and create great pain.  Second, it is simply wrong.  But third, and the topic du jour, is that it creates a hostile work environment.  That seems abstract, and when I first heard that phrase a couple of decades ago, I had no idea what it means.  Now?  Absolutely, I do.

When I was at Texas Tech, there was an assistant prof who slept with multiple grad students, as in at the same exact time and place.  It poisoned pretty much everything:

• it poisoned faculty-student relations as junior faculty realized that they could not spend any non-office time with students since one of our colleagues was using such opportunities to prey.
• it poisoned student-student relations as students thought that those who were sleeping with faculty were getting special treatment in terms of grades and protection from both the harasser (probably) and the rest of the faculty (probably not).  
• it poisoned senior-junior faculty relations as the seniors were oblivious and wanted to give the guy special treatment that the rest of us would not get (they literally said that) while the junior faculty were outraged both by the predator and the special treatment he was getting. 
• it poisoned the future of the department since getting him fired for being absent without leave took the new department chair's time and health as he had to fight insiders who wanted to keep an AWOL sexual harasser (he eventually was fired, although I am sure he became someone else's problem). 

At McGill, the sexual harassment by one guy over decades:

• derailed the careers of many young women interested in Mideast studies and peacebuilding.
• created tensions among the grad students because some didn't know, some didn't believe and some didn't know what to do. 
• created resentment by those faculty in the know towards the administration that barely slapped a wrist.
• fostered tensions within the faculty between those in the know and the predator that remained inside the department.

My list for McGill is different because the dynamics were a bit less central to everything.  Why?  Because the predator was not an ally of other senior faculty, that the predator involved fewer students in all the stuff he was up to (the students at McGill did not vote in faculty meetings in numbers that were larger than the junior faculty), because McGill was not nearly as poorly administered at all levels as TTU despite my problems with a chair who knew nothing, heard nothing, etc.

So much of the Harvey Weinstein stuff is familiar to me.

• There are folks at McGill who remain silent because of confidentiality agreements that were imposed--so journalists know that something happened (and is still happening) but can't write stories with out names and testimony (I have been approached several times over the past year or two).   As someone who was never officially in the loop, I never had to agree to such a pledge. 
• Others fear saying stuff because of potential lawsuits--my post last year led some folks to speculate when I would get sued.  Not yet.  
• The community of victims is far larger than folks think--I am not surprised that Weinstein did this over and over again for decades.  He felt entitled and empowered by his own impunity.  That is very familiar given that the harassers I have known are not one-time guys who fell in love or in deep like or had crushes on one amazing student.  Nope, they kept preying upon those who were vulnerable because they could. Again, confidentiality does not protect the future victims.

While sexual harassment happens to most women at some point, it may or not happen everywhere.  I wasn't at Vermont long enough to see anything or hear about anything.  On the other hand, I was at McGill for ten years and only now am hearing about other people (thanks to my post of last year).  At Carleton?  So far, so good.  It does not seem to be a hostile work environment.  Sure, we have some faculty members who are less than optimal colleagues, but so far, I have not heard anything.  That does not mean that it hasn't happened or isn't happening because, as I have seen elsewhere, the predators often do stuff outside of view and are often protected by conspiracies of silence.  I hope this bad stuff isn't going on where I work now, but the odds are not in our favor, given that this is more prevalent than I would like even if it is less prevalent than how Hollywood tends to portray academia.

I remember folks saying that universities could not have policies on faculty-grad student romance since you can't legislate against love. So many of our profs were married to other profs who they had met when one was faculty and the other was a student.  I call bullshit on that. Yes, romance can happen, but if one has feelings for a student, wait until they are not a student.  I think general policies in this case are needed because the damage done to individuals and communities can be so deep and so lasting that it is worth deferring or even denying a few real relationships. 

Sexual Harassment and Politics

Upon the anniversary of the Access Hollywood tape that should have ended Trump's candidacy, we have GOP folks criticizing the Democrats for hanging out with and taking money from Harvey Weinstein (not Harvey Feirstein).  Hypocrisy is not new in politics.  Do the Dem's critics have a point?

Probably.  Sure, it is not quite as bad to hang with a sexual harasser than be one, Donald.  But if the the various Dems who buddied up to Weinstein knew of his history of sexual harassment, then they ought to be criticized.  It is not just the right thing to do but also good politics--because the party that says it stands for women should stand for women.  It is pretty simple.  I doubt that Obama knew of Weinstein's history because he sent his daughter to work there, but I have no idea how well known Weinstein's reputation was outside of Hollywood.

The problem is that when someone does this kind of stuff, there is a conspiracy of silence--that many people know but don't tell, so that newcomers don't know and then find out the bad way.  When I outed one of my former colleagues as a serial sexual harasser, a few things happened:

• Plenty of former students registered their non-surprise and shared their stories.
• Plenty of colleagues of the harasser registered their surprise--yep, despite decades of engaging in this behavior and despite many graduate students knowing and warning others about it, faculty were in the dark.
• I started getting stories from students, past and present, about other harassers about whom I had no idea.  

So, yeah, I am willing to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, but I am aware of my party bias.  Still, I am also pretty sure that word about Weinstein was out.  So, I am not giving them much benefit of the doubt.  They should all run away and condemn.  Not just because he is now politically toxic, but also to send a message that even if you are powerful, you are not immune from the consequences.

And, yes, I feel strongly about this because I have seen students harmed by sexual harassment and departments' cultures poisoned by it.  This stuff is not going away, as power -> entitlement --> exploitation/coercion --> damage.  

Oh, and if the GOP folks get high and mighty, it is just a sham given that they ran away from and ran back to Trump in days.  Trump's latest stance on women's issues--allowing states to cut birth control from insurance programs--should remind us that whatever sins the Democrats have on women's issues, they pale in comparison to the misogynist in chief.

McMess McContinues

It has been a year plus since I posted about the McGill mess. Every so often, I get contacted by a journalist who seeks to pursue this story,* but they always come up short because no one will talk to them on the record and name names.

* I also get contacted by students from time to time who say that it has happened to themselves or their friends.  They have been let down by the system again and again.

I was just asked by one journalist what I would ask McGill administrators if I had the chance.  I came up with this:

I’d ask her (the administrator) how she feels about confidentiality protecting the perpetrators more than the survivors.  How can future students protect themselves from being preyed upon by serial harassers if they don’t know who is doing the harassing?  How should students feel when they can never see the profs getting punished, if they ever do get punished, because everything is confidential?

Shouldn’t professors who engage in harassment not be given administrative responsibilities?

Most bluntly: the current system doesn’t protect the students, but does protect McGill’s reputation.  Is that the right set of priorities?

Yeah, I am still pretty angry a year later.