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NYU quietly got rid of the late archaeologist Randall White nearly 30 years after he did serious damage to women in the field. A new obituary does serious damage to that truth.

Randall White

I’m going to admit right off that I cannot be objective when it comes to former New York University archaeologist Randall White, who died in July of last year. When I was a newly minted archaeology/anthropology writer for Science, in the 1990s, White was one of the first experts I got to know. I learned a great deal from him, and often quoted him in my articles about human evolution, a field that later became my primary beat for the journal.

In 2007, I wrote a glowing profile of White for the New York Times, after spending time with him in France, where I was then serving as Science’s Paris correspondent. At that time I considered White to be a friend, or at least we were on very friendly terms. Thus I was shocked when a colleague emailed and upbraided me about the Times article, accusing me of hagiography and telling me that White had been suspended from NYU in the early 1990s for sexual harassment. I reacted very defensively, even saying that this had nothing to do with his scientific contributions—something I would never say today.

That was nearly a decade before I became a #MeToo reporter, a new beat I took on after Science assigned me to investigate sexual assault allegations against a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History. That abuser was forced to resign some months later, and I have continued to investigate sexual misconduct and bullying allegations ever since.

I wrote nothing about White, however, until 2019, when I learned that New York University was quietly forcing him to resign his long held position there. White’s misconduct, and the failure of NYU to fire him at the time—which certainly would have happened were it today, post Harvey Weinstein and the explosion of the #MeToo movement—were well known in the field, although still the subject of whispers rather than open discussion.

At that time I did a brief Facebook post about the damage White did to so many at NYU. You can read it here, and I will get back to it in some detail in a moment.

But first I want to discuss what prompts today’s newsletter post. There have been very few obituaries of White so far, but a very important one was published earlier this year in the journal PaleoAnthropology. I have just now been made aware of it. The authors are Christian Tryon, now at the University of Connecticut, and John O’Hara, now at NYU (White was O’Hara’s primary PhD advisor, according to the obit.)

This obituary spends two pages describing White’s research and accomplishments, which I still think were considerable. But here is all it has to say about his misconduct:

“While Randy could be a generous and supportive mentor and colleague, he was also not always the easiest person to work with. Randy was a complicated person, with his own share of personal issues that could intrude upon the workplace and those in it. His dedication to research could lead to an obliviousness to those around him, and over a long career, he built many bridges, but also burnt others. During the early 1990s he was placed on academic suspension for actions that drove several students to leave the field, and severely impacted faculty colleagues.”

I suppose, in the “thank God for small favors” department, one could commend the authors for mentioning White’s misdeeds at all. Many hagiographies would not do so. But if they are to be mentioned, then the truth should be told in full, and the severe and persistent sexual harassment that White visited on vulnerable female students—and the huge damage that did to their careers and to White’s fellow faculty, who had to deal with the fallout of his behavior—should not just be hinted at by the one word “actions.”

In other words, the authors, and the PaleoAnthropology journal, have told a half-truth, or even less than a half-truth. In my view (I know I am not alone in this) a half-truth is still a lie. Why did they do this? I think they need to tell us. Did they say more in their original draft and the journal editors told them to tone it down? Or, as a former student and a former colleague of White’s, did they feel the need for “discretion?” Were they trying to protect White’s widow and child in France, which might have been the noblest explanation?

All of these might be understandable excuses. But PaleoAnthropology is a flagship journal in its field. Scientists should be not shirking from the truth, they should be telling it.

Let’s go back now to my Facebook post, which I did not update after White’s death. Here is what I said:

“I’ve known NYU archaeologist Randy White more than 20 years, written about his work, quoted him in my stories. I think it would be best for him and everyone if he came clean about the serious sexual misconduct cases against him many years ago—admitted the damage he did, and apologized to his victims and his colleagues before he officially retires. That would save a reporter who has admired him as a researcher from having to tell the story for him.

I profiled Randy for the New York Times in 2007 (see below.) At that time I knew nothing about his past history. It was pointed out to me after the story was published. I was shocked but could find no way of dealing with my feelings of guilt until I became a #MeToo reporter. It’s long past time.

NYU is dealing with this now, but quietly. The university (which I myself worked for over six years) should opt for transparency; in the past they have done their best to cover it up. Secrecy denies survivors the reality of their experiences, but they do not need to be named of course.”

In response, some very well known researchers in anthropology and archaeology weighed in with testimony. For example, the legendary archaeologist Alice Kehoe wrote:

“For years, Rita Wright and the other women faculty in NYU's anthropology department told administration, and told colleagues in Soc. for American Archaeology at meetings, that Randy White pressured women students using the department's Archaeology Lab to sleep with him. That it got to the point that no women would go into the lab, and students had no recourse to other labs for their work. At last, NYU put White on paid leave for 2 years, putting temp faculty James Delle in charge of the lab, which finally gave women students access again. After the two years' paid leave, NYU reinstated White with a better, luxury office, Rita Wright informed us. She and the other NYU women were still bitter.”

Pam Crabtree, a professor in NYU’s anthropology department, added this comment:

“I have been reluctant to comment here, but let me add a few things to set the record straight. White was given his fancy lab before he was disciplined for misconduct. Rita and I also have labs, but they are far smaller and less well-equipped. The former chair of the department told me that Randy might lose his lab as part of the disciplinary process, but (of course) he did not. White's misconduct had a devastating effect on our graduate student population. A number of students changed advisers. Others left, and a number of wonderfully talented women never finished their PhDs. There was a lot of collateral damage that hurt many folks' careers including Rita's and mine. I will have much more to say about this in the future.”

And my good friend Olga Soffer, now emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, commented simply:

“Thanks Michael for focusing attention on this case, one too long kept sotto voce in prehistoric archaeology.”

White did a lot of damage while at NYU. Many of his victims, students trying to pursue careers in anthropology and archaeology, ended up quitting the field entirely. The university, however, kept things as quiet as it could. After his suspension, White came back stronger than ever—he even got a profile in the New York Times, thanks to my ignorance and naivete.

I liked Randy White a lot personally. Of course, that’s because he never sexually harassed me, so I was able to live in blissful ignorance of his terrible behavior for so many years. Finally, after a long career, he was forced to leave NYU, and went to live in France, where he had a wife and child. He was warmly welcomed by many researchers there, as the obit in PaleoAnthropology describes.

But White destroyed a number of lives and careers. Any obituary that fails to tell that story fully and honestly is dishonest. Remember him for his contributions to the understanding of human evolution, sure; but also remember his victims, who might also have made many contributions of their own had they not been forced out by White’s misconduct.

As for me, I’m still mourning the loss of a friend I once had, a man I could no longer be friends with once I knew the truth about him.

Most importantly, don’t cover up the truth when you write an obituary about a colleague. Truth is supposed to be science’s rightful aim. Anything less compromises that aim, and constitutes a crime of its own.