This post is the thirteenth post in a series of stories that, taken together, might help explain why I decided to take early retirement from UCI. My point in posting these stories is to say "This happened. It shouldn't have. Can you learn something from it, so you can prevent such things from happening where you are (or at least not be complicit)?"
Hot Potato
Jocelyn Bell Burnell gave a Women in Science talk in a large auditorium at UCI on March 14, 2019.
In the Q&A, someone asked the moderator (a UCI physicist) what UCI was doing to counter the discrimination against women in science. The moderator said she'd hand it off to the experts, and quickly handed the mic to the Equity Advisor for the School of Physical Sciences. The Equity Advisor worriedly said it's an institutional question. She ran over to the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, who was seated in the front row, and handed him the mic.
It looked like a game of hot potato.
The Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion stood up, faced the audience, and gave a variant of his usual spiel that came across to me as meaningless public relations for UCI (my contemporaneous notes used a less flattering term for it).
I turned to K and asked him if I should raise my hand and say that UCI has a hostile climate and I'm taking early retirement due to the bullying and sexism.
He said he was pretty sure I shouldn't say that.
I raised my hand.
They eventually called on me.
I said, "in response to the question about what UCI is doing, I'm a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at UCI, having been here for 15 years, with 20 years before that at a different state university. UCI has a serious problem with the climate and it's getting worse. I've been talking to more and more senior women around the campus who say they are considering taking early retirement because they don't feel they should have to put up with what they've been putting up with. This will be a problem for hiring women, since women considering job offers from UCI will talk to the senior women, and after talking to them, they'll go elsewhere. UCI needs to listen to the women. We know what's wrong and how to fix it, and we've been offering you advice and trying to get you to listen, but you aren't listening to us or taking our advice. [If you want to solve the "women in science" problems you're talking about here,] you need to listen to us."
My Dean and Associate Dean were at the far end of the row in front of me, and at least the Associate Dean turned and looked at me as I spoke.
No one offered any follow-up.
I turned to K and said "I was channeling Vera."