MIT cuts ties with Walter Lewin

[russ_watters]

My confusion about the lawsuit issue comes from the difference between "without having to" and "did". In a case of sexual harassment, the reason for termination is clear, so no guesswork is requried. Even if they don't have to state a reason for firing the person, but they do state one, is that still acceptable if the reason for firing them is unjust?

 

[edward]

I noticed that the videos were removed indefinitely. That doesn't necessarily mean permanently.

Judging by the "report a bad guy" information located at the bottom of this link MIT has a sexual misconduct problem in general that goes far beyond Lewin.

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208

 

[DarthMatter]

Well, I don't want to be disrespectful to either Walter Lewin or the students he supposedly harassed, but maybe he is just getting old. My grandfather did similar things as he was developing Alzheimer. Can someone who cannot control himself be a professor at MIT? No. Should someone who cannot control himself because of an illness be drawn into publicity as a 'sexual harasser'? The answer to me also is no. Is Walter Lewin losing his mind because of his old age? I don't know.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Hi everyone, I'd really love to read what Walter did write to the girl.

 

[DarthMatter]

I guess it will not be published. You could give NSA a call though.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

As a matter of fact, almost all old men (those of over 70) can't have sex anymore. Walter is over 80, the story that tells he got hit on a young student sounds odd enough to me. The complainant might be acting as an innocent cute girl though I think she could definitely hurt him with her push.

 

[DarthMatter]

All people deserve protection from harassment, and I would not assume the girls/women complained with no reason. It does not really matter if you can physically have sex. A professor-student relationship is also one with a very profound difference in power, which will naturally make you feel forced to agree to whatever the powerful person wants to do. But you also never can read someone's mind. I think talking to each other, making things clear often does more good than brutal punishment. While the consequences may be the right ones to draw, the public announcement goes too far for me.

Since it was not said what he did exactly, people will make up their own fantasies now. Which can be far worse than what actually happened.

 

[Medicol]

As a matter of fact, almost all old men (those of over 70) can't have sex anymore. Walter is over 80, the story that tells he got hit on a young student sounds odd enough to me. The complainant might be acting as an innocent cute girl though I think she could definitely hurt him with her push.

Using authorized or unauthorized power and even physical strength to control (physically or mentally) people of lower positions or smaller body sizes is also considered sexual harassment, irrespective of gender in general.

 

[lisab]

As a matter of fact, almost all old men (those of over 70) can't have sex anymore. Walter is over 80, the story that tells he got hit on a young student sounds odd enough to me. The complainant might be acting as an innocent cute girl though I think she could definitely hurt him with her push.

Sexual harassment has nothing to do with how well a man's penis works.

 

[logan3]

The last place I worked had a 'zero tolerance' rule. one of our best trainers was fired because a new hire he was training was about to be fired, so the new hire complained that the trainer had made a joke that he found inappropriate, it wasn't inappropriate at all (I don't remember it now, but the other students in the class told us the joke and it was fine. But the company was afraid of trouble caused by the new hire, so they fired the manager. He did nothing wrong. And the new hire was fired a few weeks later, he didn't pass training.

Just saying that we cannot assume that Lewin actually did anything that was intentionally offensive, but they don't want to risk a lawsuit.

I agree. My first reaction was of disgust over his actions. But recalling the nature of how outlandish online discourse is these days combined with ultra-PC and zero-policy attitudes, I have no idea how bad any of what he actually did was.

 

[dipole]

Whew. Not sure where to start...

It's not only possible, but common to sexually harass someone online, using sexually suggestive emails or private messages, for example. I take it you're not female if you've never received one. It happens frequently, and it's pathetic.

But it leaves a trail, of course. So it would be trivially simple to obtain evidence.

I agree harassing underage people is especially heinous, but there is no age at which a person loses protection from harassment.

You think the proper way to handle this is to require the student to stop taking the class or pursuing that line of knowledge, and the professor should be allowed to stay and carry on? Well, students aren't there to be some professor's "prize", and I don't care how famous or well-liked the professor, or how great he is as a lecturer.

Ruin the man's life? If there is such strong evidence that school administrators 86'ed Lewin, it's a good bet he ruined his own life.

So suppose some old man made a flirtatious comment to a young girl, as old men occasionally do. Say a cute girl at the check-out line. Should he immediately be arrested? Suppose this check-out line was at the cafeteria at work, so the girl was technically an employee, should he immediately be fired for sexual harassment?

You position seems to indicate you think "yes!" to both. What if that old man was you grandfather (or even father depending on how old you are). Do you honestly think no one in your family, or even your own son/husband (if you're married/have children) has never done or said something that could technically be viewed as sexual harassment? Do you think they deserved to be fired for it? After all it was their own fault!

You come across like you're assuming Walter Lewin viciously and lewdly molested some girl verbally through the internet, and that he deserved what he got. My guess, based on the nature of many physics professors I know and the way Lewin comes across in his videos, is he probably made some playful/flirtatious remarks to a female student, possibly without even fully realizing what he was saying since physics professors are not always the most socially aware people, and given the current ultra-liberal, P.C., and frankly spineless environment that exists in many academic circles, he was axed for it. Until I see a transcript of the e-mail, I will have a very difficult time believing that a highly respected and frankly beloved aging physics professor is some kind of sexual fiend creeping out on young students. And that position is, at worst, no less baseless than whatever position you've taken where you seem to support destroying a man's career so freely.

 

[DarthMatter]

If it wasn't something really severe, a more sensible approach may have been to just force him to retire completely silently, for 'personal reasons'. His career was nearly over no matter what. But since we don't know what actually happened we can only guess.

 

[russ_watters]

So suppose some old man made a flirtatious comment to a young girl, as old men occasionally do. Say a cute girl at the check-out line. Should he immediately be arrested? Suppose this check-out line was at the cafeteria at work, so the girl was technically an employee, should he immediately be fired for sexual harassment?

You position seems to indicate you think "yes!" to both.

Dipole, your description/example for both the law and corporate rules bears little resemblance to the reality of how sexual harassment works and your assumption about Lisa's position doesn't follow at all from what she has said in the thread. Basically, anywhere you could have softened the action and hardened the reaction, you did. I think you need to reboot and try again from scratch.

 

[zoki85]

So much babbling and nobody knows what exactly has happend

 

[WannabeNewton]

Until I see a transcript of the e-mail, I will have a very difficult time believing that a highly respected and frankly beloved aging physics professor is some kind of sexual fiend creeping out on young students. And that position is, at worst, no less baseless than whatever position you've taken where you seem to support destroying a man's career so freely.

People like you are the reason so many women have a hard time coming forward with sexual harassment claims against "reputed" individuals like Lewin. That I've personally known a handful of girls who have been victims of sexual harassment frankly makes your attitude just infuriating.

You certainly don't understand how sexual harassment works if you think it can't happen over the internet but the least you could do is give the woman the benefit of the doubt so that more women actually gain the confidence to report people like Lewin in the face of comments exactly such as yours.

 

[WWGD]

People like you are the reason so many women have a hard time coming forward with sexual harassment claims against "reputed" individuals like Lewin. That I've personally known a handful of girls who have been victims of sexual harassment frankly makes your attitude just infuriating.

You certainly don't understand how sexual harassment works if you think it can't happen over the internet but the least you could do is give the woman the benefit of the doubt so that more women actually gain the confidence to report people like Lewin in the face of comments exactly such as yours.

As Zoki 85 says: do you know the details of what happened? How about false reports of sexual harassment because of people
who encourage them to believe that harassment is under reported. Both are problematic.

There is an element of subjectivity to harassment that few seem to take into account. I am
not saying the real thing never happens, but there is room for misunderstanding and crossed
signals too.

 

[russ_watters]

As Zoki 85 says: do you know the details of what happened? How about false reports of sexual harassment because of people
who encourage them to believe that harassment is under reported. Both are problematic.

Ask yourself which is easier.

 

[jack476]

I am deeply sad that it would have come to this. Walter Lewin was something of an idol to me when I was in high school and watching his physics lectures. He was such a fantastic teacher and he was instrumental in my decision to study physics. I still look up the cat fur trick he did in his electromagnetism course for laughs, our Society of Physics Students chapter does it for touring high school students and every time it gets a great reaction.

If they went so far as to pull his OCW videos the nature of the complaint must have been very bad. I have deep respect for Dr Lewin, but when I volunteered with my college's crisis hotline last year I had a few anonymous callers who were female students who had been hit on by professors, and the fear it caused was very real. I'm not sure if pulling the videos was a good move given how many people use them, but I can only say that I am very upset that this could have happened.

 

[WWGD]

Ask yourself which is easier.

While I oppose rape and I don't deny the real thing happens, I don't want to get into another argument on today's feminism. But I think the issue is more complicated than you believe:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-19/how-many-rape-reports-are-false:

"...If a rape kit shows evidence of sexual intercourse, however, all that tells you is that … something happened..."

"... Feminists would like to rectify that unfairness by treating rape accusations as presumptively true, making it easier for victims to come forward. That’s understandable. But there’s a risk that this makes it easier for false accusations to get through the system, resulting in destroyed lives for men such as Brian Banks. Men’s-rights activists would like to make it harder for innocent men to get caught in a web of lies, so they want rape accusations to be interrogated with deep suspicion..."

Or
http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl..._why_must_be_pretend_they_never_happen.2.html

Neither source being an advocate of men's rights.

 

[Mmm_Pasta]

I think Lewin said things that can be taken as sexual harrassment online, but probably not in person. A lot of times it is the way you say something. It is hard to know someone's tone of voice online. Unfortunately, people do overreact to things and it's hard to say if the students who complained did.

 

[WWGD]

I think Lewin said things that can be taken as sexual harrassment online, but probably not in person. A lot of times it is the way you say something. It is hard to know someone's tone of voice online. Unfortunately, people do overreact to things and it's hard to say if the students who complained did.

I agree, I think a healthy skepticism towards both sides is the healthiest and most defensible position one can take.

 

[jack476]

I agree, I think a healthy skepticism towards both sides is the healthiest and most defensible position one can take.

Yes, but skepticism is not denialism. I'm pretty sure if MIT (one of the most prestigious institutions in the world) would go so far as to not just disavow themselves from Dr Lewin (one of the world's most esteemed educators and one of MIT's most well-known figures, and in some places even a minor celebrity) but to effectively commit damnatio memoriae against him, they must have had a very good reason.

There is an element of subjectivity to harassment that few seem to take into account. I am
not saying the real thing never happens, but there is room for misunderstanding and crossed
signals too.

This I find flagrantly offensive. As I said above, last year and the year before I volunteered at my college's anonymous crisis hotline. There were a few calls I received from female students who had been harassed by professors or TAs. There was nothing subjective or misunderstood about it. I heard stories about emails soliciting sex, professors and TAs making passes at students, and one girl who was even groped by a TA. Before I spoke with that last person I thought mostly what you seem to think, that a lot of this is just blown out of proportion misunderstandings, until this girl barely coherent from crying told me she had been fondled by a piano tutor at 11 at night in the music hall. Many of these people were telling me that they had been skipping classes and review sessions because they were afraid of another crude joke, or even going so far as to talk about dropping out because of it. These people aren't just bullshitting or blowing simple lapses of professionalism out of proportion into full-on harassment.

 

[WWGD]

But you do not know (or at least you have not provided evidence to this effect in your post) whether: 1) These stories were true. You are referring to stories you heard. Can these be verified? 2) If they are true, they are representative of the majority of cases. I am not callous, but falsely accusing someone of rape is as bad as not accusing someone who has raped, so it is a delicate issue to deal with. I think the cases should go to court before one makes a decision either way. Maybe w should focus our efforts on creating an environment where actual victims feel safe taking a case to trial.

Maybe to balance your post, you should mention cases of men falsely accused of rape; a false positive is as bad as a false negative.

 

[jack476]

But you do not know whether: 1) These stories were true. You are referring to stories you heard. Can these be verified? 2) If they are true, they are representative of the majority of cases. I am not callous, but falsely accusing someone of rape is as bad as not accusing someone who has raped, so it is a delicate issue to deal with. I think the cases should go to court before one makes a decision either way. Maybe w should focus our efforts on creating an environment where actual victims feel safe taking a case to trial.

The help line wasn't with the police, or the academic ombudsman, or anyone related to the disciplinary process, and we did not report anything we were told to anyone or keep anything recorded, and this was something we made very clear when people called with problems that were potentially criminal in nature, the very most we could do was encourage students who felt it might be necessary to contact the police. There would be no reason to lie to us, there would be nothing at all to gain. As for the second point, I can't say anything about information I don't have, but my point was that, for those who have been harassed to the point where they do feel they need help, it's no longer a matter of subjectivity or misunderstanding, or taking an off-color joke out of context, they are very clear about what has happened and there is no ambiguity in what they were relating to us.

But I agree with you on the last point though, far too few cases are investigated and taken to trial, especially among students.

 

[WWGD]

...(snip). As for the second point, I can't say anything about information I don't have, but my point was that, for those who have been harassed to the point where they do feel they need help, it's no longer a matter of subjectivity or misunderstanding, or taking an off-color joke out of context, they are very clear about what has happened and there is no ambiguity in what they were relating to us.

But I agree with you on the last point though, far too few cases are investigated and taken to trial, especially among students.

Yes, but how do you tell apart , other than by having a helpline as in your case, those who have been harassed from those who have not, or those for whom there are crossed signals?

 

[WannabeNewton]

There is an element of subjectivity to harassment that few seem to take into account. I am
not saying the real thing never happens, but there is room for misunderstanding and crossed
signals too.

I'm going to have to step out of this conversation because very, very close female friends of mine have been sexually harassed by authority figures (including TAs) and as a result I find comments like yours deeply offensive.

 

[WWGD]

I'm going to have to step out of this conversation because very, very close female friends of mine have been sexually harassed by authority figures (including TAs) and as a result I find comments like yours deeply offensive.

Why are you offended by my comments? How does your experience imply that my statement is false? I am sorry your friends were harassed, but that does not imply that there are not cases where there is room for subjectivity.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think Lewin said things that can be taken as sexual harrassment online, but probably not in person. A lot of times it is the way you say something. It is hard to know someone's tone of voice online. Unfortunately, people do overreact to things and it's hard to say if the students who complained did.

Do you have any evidence that this is what happened? Or did you just make this up?

If it is unfair to convict someone based on something that is made up, is it fair to acquit them based on something that is made up?

 

[russ_watters]

But you do not know (or at least you have not provided evidence to this effect in your post) whether: 1) These stories were true. You are referring to stories you heard. Can these be verified? 2) If they are true, they are representative of the majority of cases. I am not callous...

Yes, you are being callous and you didn't answer my question. The answer is that it is a lot harder to be the vicim than the perpetrator. Even just calling jack's hotline is an incredibly difficult thing to do because of the huge gap in power between the victim and perpetrator. While false accusations may sometimes happen, it is not common. And logically, your assumption of Levin's innocence requires both that the victim lied or misinterpreted and MIT failed to recognize it. Possible? Sure. But it isn't likely.

All we know for sure here is that MIT was satisfied that what happened met the definition of sexual harassment to whatever level of proof they require. That's enough for me. It makes little sense - and has no basis - to assume they were incompetent in that judgement.
And ot reiterate:

Maybe to balance your post, you should mention cases of men falsely accused of rape; a false positive is as bad as a false negative.

But in order for that to add balance, the false positives would have to be as prevalent as the false negatives. They aren't. According to reliable statistics including from the FBI, the rate of false rape clames is between 1.5% and 8%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

And the rate of unreported rapes is a whopping 68%.
https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

So, yes, this is a lopsided issue: but you're focusing on the wrong side of it.

 

[russ_watters]

Do you have any evidence that this is what happened? Or did you just make this up?

If it is unfair to convict someone based on something that is made up, is it fair to acquit them based on something that is made up?

And to amplify/reiterate from my last post: in this case, there has already been a "trial", so we know someone has already looked at the evidence. So the made-up assumption that the victim misinterpreted the situation isn't enough here. It is also required that MIT misinterpreted.

 

[Mmm_Pasta]

Do you have any evidence that this is what happened? Or did you just make this up?

If it is unfair to convict someone based on something that is made up, is it fair to acquit them based on something that is made up?

Someone has already shared an example of one thing Lewin said, I can share the link where such info was shared. I can't verify if the info is correct or whether there were more interactions. As for the third question, if something is just made up then sure it can be unfair. You have to determine which side is making things up, though.

 

[WWGD]

Ask yourself which is easier.

And another reason I have for doubting the accusations is that Lewin, at 78, has no prior record, at least
nothing known. How many people do you know that commit their first crime/misdemeanor/misconduct , etc. at
the age of 78? If by, around age 40, you have not committed a crime, the chances of your committing a crime
after that greatly decrease (the chances decrease even if you have committed a crime):

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/60294_Chapter_23.pdf

And, I know of many false accusations by women's groups on claims of sex discrimination as the reason
why there are so few women in teaching positions in Mathematics. A lot of these women's rights groups are way too
radical for me to not doubt their claims. And many of these groups repeat these claims even after the claims
have been clearly refuted. And then you have these groups broadcasting these made-up statistics, which
may lead women to lower their threshold for what they consider to be harassment. If I was repeatedly told
stories of how I am being abused and taken advantage of, I would pretty likely start seeing abuse everywhere.
Consider even how the media talks about 'rapes' even before the cases go to trial.

And the two links I pasted, both reliable too, disagree with your claim that it is easier to ignore an accusation than
to make a false one.

 

[WWGD]

And the rate of unreported rapes is a whopping 68%.
https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

So, yes, this is a lopsided issue: but you're focusing on the wrong side of it.

This is on itself problematic. AFAIK, 'rape' is a legal term, to be determined/decided by a court. Until the case has been tried,it is not called 'rape'. This carelessness use by RAINN's --hardly an impartial site -- makes me question their conclusions.

EDIT : The case of hotlines is a special one; in that case there is little reason to doubt the accounts. But outside of this, the hysteria and extremism of an important portion of the feminist movement seriously makes me doubt the truth of many of the reports.

And, again, you have not replied to me either: how many people do you know of, who commit their first 'misconduct' , for lack of a better term, at the age of 78?

 

[Vanadium 50]

And another reason I have for doubting the accusations is that Lewin, at 78, has no prior record, at least
nothing known.

Strictly speaking, nothing public. And, as mentioned previously, we don't know whether this is because of better behavior in the past, or if it is because Lewin intimidated women into not reporting him.

At least,though, you have a consistent position - given a complaint against an old beloved professor by a woman, the woman is lying and the committee who investigated it was fooled by her. Without any actual evidence, just "common sense". While consistent, I prefer evidence.

 

[WWGD]

Strictly speaking, nothing public. And, as mentioned previously, we don't know whether this is because of better behavior in the past, or if it is because Lewin intimidated women into not reporting him.

At least,though, you have a consistent position - given a complaint against an old beloved professor by a woman, the woman is lying and the committee who investigated it was fooled by her. Without any actual evidence, just "common sense". While consistent, I prefer evidence.

How about providing some actual evidence yourself? EDIT: Other than something like
MIT has investigated and concluded he was guilty, so he must be guilty.

And the case I am trying to make is broader than the specific case against Levin; it is
a general case re allegations of rape of harassment. Notice the use of the word 'allegations'
EDIT2 that many forget to use in this area, referring automatically to every report as a rape .