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A thank you to Michael for the reporting and the brave souls who shared their stories to bring the unethical behavior of Jetz to light. I was someone bullied by Jetz as a young faculty member at another institution. A trend that was, and likely still is, common for him. I want to emphasize that Jetz’s toxicity and unethical scientific practices reach beyond his lab. He bullies and belittles junior faculty probing for situations where he can exploit individuals for their data, ideas, and forced collaboration. Beyond individual cases, he influences and gathers scientific output of other researchers in his positions of power through the broader scientific enterprise. He reviews grants for the National Science Foundation, other funding agencies and foundations. He is an editor at multiple high-profile journals and reviews (very harshly with long delays) manuscripts that he later publishes on very similar topics. I no longer submit papers to journals at which he is an editor despite these journal’s statements on confidentiality, because Jetz does not adhere to ethical practice. Not only has behavior like this damaged individual lives and careers, but it has led to a general distrust of our scientific institutions from funders to publishers as they struggle to protect the less powerful or even acknowledge the potential for internal injustices.

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Apr 3, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

Many around the community in which Jetz works have long suspected that his lab would be quite a toxic place. So sad to see that those suspicions are indeed true, and that Jetz’s ego is damaging the careers of young scientists.

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Apr 4, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

Sadly what you found also extends to companies and corporations.

Those who try to work in supportive, collaborative and ethical ways are bullied/ignored. They then have to leave because life becomes intolerable.

This increases the proportion of people acting in a similar manner and promotes further the bullying, aggressive culture. It encourages others to behave that way in order to 'get on'.

I suspect that one of the problems is that many of the established theories are just wrong and so we have large numbers of people desperately trying to keep the lid on the truth. This also requires a less than desirable set of behaviours.

I can't decide whether it will take decades to rectify or whether, like the Berlin Wall, it will collapse at speed. I will visualise the latter!

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Apr 4, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

Wilson's ideas on Half-Earth have been contested in the scientific literature, e.g. "How to protect half of Earth to ensure it protects sufficient biodiversity" https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat2616

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I too was part of a lab where my supervisor was dating the postdoc in the lab and still living together. He is actively practices favoritism, has a lot of ego and loves to feel powerful.

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Great article!

Not long before his death, I was "arguing" with David Graeber on twitter about anarchy and asking him how serial killers and the like could be dealt with under hypothetical left-anarchy. His response (paraphrased) was that literally any way would be better than the way we do it now, which is to allow the sociopaths the climb to the highest levels of authority in our hierarchies and institutions.

While I still don't think left-anarchy is a realistic political program, I'm constantly reminded of the wisdom of Graeber's observation, that hierarchies do tend to self-select for antisocial personality types when it comes to the attainment of positions of power.

How to deal with that tendency is an open question. Working towards and advocating for more accountability and transparency might be our best bet. I wish it didn't feel like a losing battle, but knowing other people are at least aware of some of the problems does give me hope.

I found the old convo, in case anyone wants to see it, btw.

(RIP, David. You are sorely missed, but your insights live on.)

https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1290271085233991680

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Apr 5, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

I left academia because of the exact statements here of a broken system. I realized if I tried to remain ethical and caring, I would quickly fall behind. And God-forbid I wanted to have a family and be a present mother. Took a pay cut to work for the government as an entomologist and I love every minute of it.

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Apr 5, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

I also work as a postdoc in a lab where the PI created an incredibly toxic atmosphere for the rest of the team. Reading this makes me hope and dream that someday, karma will hit them back and that they will also find their picture and name pinned on top of such an article reporting their misbehaviour to the wider public. It also saddens me to hear about such stories and experiences way too often in academia...

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Apr 6, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

The EEB Department at Yale is welcoming and supportive. The problem is not in the department as a whole, but in Jetz's lab in particular. Anyone interested in EEB should not be deterred from applying. Most of the faculty in the department are excellent biologists and good people.

Here also are excerpts from the Yale Faculty Handbook relevant to this case. It has been updated since the events described in the timeline.

"The integrity of the teacher-student relationship is crucial to the University’s educational mission. This relationship vests considerable trust in the faculty member, who, in turn, bears authority and accountability as mentor, educator, and evaluator. When acting in their role as teachers, members of the Yale faculty treat students and trainees with respect. They set an example of academic integrity and educate their students and trainees in the requirements of honest scholarship. They evaluate their students’ and trainees’ work solely on the basis of its intellectual merit and adherence to course or program requirements. They maintain proper professional boundaries and never exploit the unequal institutional power inherent in the relationship between faculty member and student or trainee."

"To protect their colleagues, their students, the University, and the record of knowledge in their field, and to preserve respect for scholarship in the larger community, members of the Yale faculty conduct and publish their research and writing with scrupulous honesty, and they do not allow pecuniary or other improper influences to compromise the integrity of their scholarship."

"In furtherance of Yale’s mission, [faculty] have the right and obligation to criticize their colleagues, staff members, and the University, but they endeavor to do so without personal animus and without seeking to intimidate or coerce. "

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Apr 6, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

It is always heartbreaking to hear stories like this. There are many bad actors in science, but there are also very many more faculty who behave respectfully and appropriately with collaborators of all career stages.

The vast majority of scientists are in it not for fame, for glory, or for money, but to advance knowledge. They love the highs of discovery and of solving a problem. They know the work is collaborative, and should not be hierarchical, and they know that mentorship is a fundamental part of the job. For many senior faculty, success is measured in the number of great scientists they helped mentor, and not in citations or number of grants.

Unfortunately, as in every profession, there are people whose ambitions lead them to behave badly. They exploit early career researchers to their own ends. In my experience, these researchers lack empathy, do not value successful mentorship, and do not take on citizenship roles such as journal editing, reviewing, or playing a role in academic societies. They also fail to accept they do anything wrong. Success for them is in dollars and citation metrics.

These people remain in academia because removing them is difficult. Most universities are sufficiently fearful of legal action or claims of unfair dismissal that they do not engage as quickly or effectively in dealing with abuses of power as they should. Many faculty in departments with misbehaving professors know there is a problem, and they intervene and help, but the senior administration often fail to act as appears to have happened at Yale.

We do need to move towards valuing good mentorship more than we currently do, and downplaying the importance of citation metrics. If promotion included assessments from past group members, provided in confidence, this would be a step in the right direction.

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Apr 6, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

Great job, Michael! It's been really interesting both reading this and seeing people's reactions. Your piece has sparked a much-needed discussion about toxic organizational cultures and individuals and the human cost of their impact on the academic side of the fields of conservation and ecology. Your unwavering support for the underdog is truly inspiring - thank you for making a difference.

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Apr 13, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

The part of this story that felt like a gut-punch is the letter from the provost to the department stating "that faculty conduct should not be considered in such cases." Again: "faculty conduct should not be considered in such cases." In evaluating the promotion of an ostensible scholar, mentor, and educator to full professor, the provost of Yale University believes that "conduct should not be considered." There is nothing anyone could say to any grad student or postdoc--nothing--that could possible convince them that this is a safe place to work, let alone pursue the scientific endeavor. For shame.

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Sep 5, 2023·edited Sep 12, 2023

I have reported the unethical behavior of Walter with a written complaint to the Deans and to the Provost before the Walter promotion in 2014, but my complaint was simply ignored.

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Oct 10, 2023Liked by Michael Balter

This story sounds remarkably similar to the series of events that resulted in the resignation of the entire staff of the Yale University Libraries' Map Collection, one of the great antiquarian research collections ever assembled, under the mismanagement of Jill Parchuk in 2014/15.

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