X points us to this news article by Mark Reid and Susan Wichgers, which “reads like a murder mystery, the victim being the best stats department in the Netherlands.”
It’s a horrible story involving what appears to be the intentional destruction of data—a true statistical crime.
Speaking as a political scientist, I’m reminded of an earlier discussion of academic misconduct, where I wrote:
Academic and corporate environments are characterized by an executive function with weak to zero legislative or judicial functions. That is, decisions are made based on consequences, with very few rules. Yes, we have lots of little rules and red tape, but no real rules telling the executives what to do.
Evaluating every decision based on consequences seems like it could be a good idea, but it leads to situations where wrongdoers are left in place, as in any given situation it seems like too much trouble to deal with the problem.
An analogy might be with the famous probability-matching problem. Suppose someone gives shuffles a deck with 100 cards, 70 red and 30 black, and then starts pulling out cards, one at a time, asking you to guess. You’ll maximize your expected number of correct answers by simply guessing Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, etc. In each case, that’s the right guess, but put it together and your guesses are not representative. Similarly, if for each scandal the university makes the locally optimal decision to do nothing, the result is that nothing is ever done.
This analogy is not perfect: I’m not recommending that the university sanction 30% of its profs at random—for one thing, that could be me! But it demonstrates the point that a series of individually reasonable decisions can be unreasonable in aggregate.
Anyway, one advantage of a judicial branch—or, more generally, a fact-finding institution that is separate from enforcement and policymaking—is that its members can feel free to look for truth, damn the consequences, because that’s their role.
> But it demonstrates the point that a series of individually reasonable decisions can be unreasonable in aggregate.
What’s the point in calling that “unreasonable in aggregate” if a more reasonable solution doesn’t exist?
Agreed. In the paragraph on the probability-matching problem, OP writes “In each case, that’s the right guess, but put it together and your guesses are not representative.” What does “representative” mean in this context?
Thanks for posting — this is a fascinating story.
Thanks for sharing!
Maybe in line with the recent discussion of “rational” behavior, I’ve always been perplexed by how universities “circle the wagons” whenever one of their faculty screws up. The consequence is often a terrible work environment, leading to departures, loss of reputation, and even the destruction of entire departments without any real ability to recover (because of that lost reputation). So I’m confused about why universities even think these kinds of decisions are reasonable/rational even in a specific instance.
While a different kind of misconduct, another example is the University of Rochester’s shitty response to allegations of sexual harassment (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/she-was-a-rising-star-at-a-major-university-then-a-lecherous-professor-made-her-life-hell/) which was only “settled” last year for nearly $10 million (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00937-1). If the University had just taken the issue seriously to begin with, that seems like it would have worked out considerably better for everyone (except maybe the offender). Instead, they not only lost a bunch of money, they destroyed one of the best Cognitive Science departments in the world and, because of how much they tainted their reputation, there’s no way they will be able to recruit quality people to rebuild. And this says nothing of the harms to the people who were actually abused.
So my question is, why did Rochester think their strategy was rational? Why did Leiden think their strategy was rational? Putting aside the direct harms to people who get abused, from a purely “rational” perspective, wouldn’t the University have done better for itself in both cases to conduct a real investigation and throw blame on the offenders? That way, the harms are curtailed, the University gets to claim credit for moral rectitude, and the department can even use that to recruit quality people to replace the bad ones they got rid of (“we take your concerns seriously”).
Greg:
I agree. This comes up not just with harassment, embezzlement, and toxic behavior, but also about research misconduct of the Pizzagate or Why We Sleep variety, where the person doing the misconduct is pleasant on a personal level but is using scientific credentials to muddy up scientific and public discourse.
Here’s my frustration with Cornell University for trying to avoid the implications of Pizzagate and here’s my frustration with the University of California for trying to avoid the implications of Why We Sleep.
I guess I understand why universities defend their faculty: they figure that the negative publicity from someone getting fired or rebuked will be worse than the negative publicity from the wrongdoer remaining on campus. Another possibility is that the kind of people who are willing to cheat are the kind of people who are willing to play hardball, sue the university, whatever. It often seems cheaper to buy people off than to confront them.
But, yeah, it frustrates me a lot that institutions show loyalty to people who abuse the system. For one thing, it creates perverse incentives; for another thing, it ignores externalities such as destroying one of the best cognitive science departments in the world.
gec –
I would add another, potentially less dubious rationale, to those Andrew offers below.
I know it often seems otherwise, but I would imagine that at least sometimes administrators actually do think it’s important for faculty to believe the administration has their back. Sometimes that might be because of personal allegiances – which of course can be a problem. But it could also be because administrators are trying to put a limit on the impact of disruptive/divisive dynamics.
Lets assume that (1) they are well motivated and (2) they actually aren’t going to act any differently than I/You might act in similar circumstances (i.e., even if we wouldn’t ultimately act in the same way we could see reasons to do so).
I think trying out “cognitive empathy” can have benefits. In the case described in this article I would think knowing what’s in the investigative report is retry key information it have to really understand the rationale of the actors.
I see what you’re getting at, but I don’t see how it resolves the question. If the admin think it’s important to demonstrate that they have the back of their faculty, then why do they only have *some* of their backs? They have the back of people who are accused of wrongdoing, but not the back of faculty and students who are harmed by wrongdoing.
For myself, I hope that my admin has my back *if* I am falsely accused of something. But by the same token, I’d want them to have my back if I brought (what I believed, at least) was a credible claim of abuse or wrongdoing on the part of another faculty member. Taken together, this means that “to have my back” requires that allegations of abuse or academic wrongdoing are taken seriously and investigated. If I am falsely accused, the investigation will exonerate me. If I make a false claim against a fellow faculty member, they are correctly exonerated. But if I or another member of the faculty is actually doing something wrong, then this will also be established and an appropriate course of action can be taken.
I agree that “cognitive empathy” is important, but it is important for admins too!
Gec:
This reminds me of when people say we should be super-generous to all research papers that we criticize. What about empathy for the critics? Criticism is hard work and involves professional risk with little to gain. We should be kind to critics and whistleblowers and recognize the value they provide even when their criticisms are imperfect.
> I see what you’re getting at, but I don’t see how it resolves the question.
I’m not really thinking of resolving the question as the endpoint, so much as exploring the context. In the end, there’s bound to be uncertainty.
> If the admin think it’s important to demonstrate that they have the back of their faculty, then why do they only have *some* of their backs? They have the back of people who are accused of wrongdoing, but not the back of faculty and students who are harmed by wrongdoing.
Right. So then you’ve advanced the piece across the board. Instead of just assuming they’re acting out of self-interest you’ve added more complexity – the possibility that they’re trying to convey a message of support. Maybe such an intent was short-sighted because they failed to realize that conveying support for one party has a negative outcome in the long run because of conveys a lack of support to others. But I can get closer to seeing that as “rational” rather than just assuming the only options are (1) they acted irrationally or, (2) they acted out of selfish best interest. I’d like to think I were an administrator I’d make that ultimately disastrous decision out of a lack of proactive assessment of likely outcomes rather than irrationality or base self-interest.
Or, maybe what it boils down to they had a particular set of priorities in who they felt more allegiance to. If that’s a problem, by exploring that strand of cognitive empathy you can get closer to deconstructing that dynamic. Clearly, they fucked up when you look at the end result. So maybe there’s a lesson to be learned about how a particular hierarchy of allegiances (say prioritizing faculty over students) is likely to be counterproductive. Clearly, that one person involved went down the road of basic mistrust of the integrity and intellectual openness of Russian and Chinese students. Yah, I’d say that’s a fucked up priority if your got a lot of Chinese and Russian students.
> For myself, I hope that my admin has my back *if* I am falsely accused of something. But by the same token, I’d want them to have my back if I brought (what I believed, at least) was a credible claim of abuse or wrongdoing on the part of another faculty member. Taken together, this means that “to have my back” requires that allegations of abuse or academic wrongdoing are taken seriously and investigated. If I am falsely accused, the investigation will exonerate me. If I make a false claim against a fellow faculty member, they are correctly exonerated. But if I or another member of the faculty is actually doing something wrong, then this will also be established and an appropriate course of action can be taken.
No doubt. But this optimal scenario often breaks down. So then it becomes useful to deconstruct why that’s such a common patten. Ultimately, trying to avoid the “fundamental attribution error” – and avoiding reflexive attribution to the personal attributes of the individuals involved but looking to more systemic features of the problem – can be a useful heuristic.
> I agree that “cognitive empathy” is important, but it is important for admins too!
Of course. I wasn’t trying to suggest otherwise.
I have an entirely different perspective, perhaps because I’m such an outsider. Academics like to think their institutes, departments, etc. are populated by independent individuals, and the only structure comes from the rules around formal ranks and assessment criteria. I disagree.
There is thick social structure in academia. Above all, it is marked by overlapping clientelist networks that begin in graduate school when grad student clients attach themselves to senior faculty patrons to exchange loyalty for career help. Subsequently, hiring and other personnel decisions are venues for clientelistic exchange. And access to grants. And invitations to seminars and workshops.
Of course, it’s not all clientelism, and clientelism is not all bad. Maybe the competition for clients among potential senior patrons selects for academics making the largest contributions. I don’t consider observations of clientelistic relationships as having normative implications in themselves.
Now all of the above is anecdotal in that it comes from my experiences and those of both junior and senior academics I’ve chatted with. To my knowledge, no one has investigated this issue formally. (We are hampered by a longstanding, Weberian prejudice that clientelism is a “pre-modern” characteristic of peripheral polities and not the form that reciprocity takes across hierarchical gradients. But this is not the place….)
So when I read stories like this, my first thought is, Who owes what to whom? It isn’t necessarily a direct relationship; A may owe to B who owes to C. I would be surprised, however, if no structures of obligation play a role in the protection of malfeasance. (And fear of publicity can also have a clientelistic dimension if those most exposed to the consequences of negative press are situated in the network, even if they aren’t the guilty parties themselves.)
Interesting observation. Here is a classic study on patronage networks in French sociology, where the academy is likened to Chicago city hall: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674283428
I used to work at a couple of universities in the Netherlands in the 1960s and in the 1970s. At that time, professors were respected and revered far more than in the U.S. As an instance of illustration, colleagues informed me that at my next meeting with the professor of the institute, I should make sure that my tie was visible underneath my sweater and jacket.
So it is surprising to me how far the country has moved towards the U.S. pattern of engaging in student evaluations–an unthinkable thought back then in the Netherlands. However, to show that the U.S. is still in the lead when it comes to evaluations, look at this breaking news–today’s newspaper!
https://www.inquirer.com/news/temple-university-moshe-porat-fraud-charges-rankings-trial-20211110.html
“[former dean] Porat would be fired by Temple after it came to light that the business school had provided false information to U.S. News & World Report, leading to inflated rankings for years.”
—————————-
First person: “Is everybody crooked?”
Second person: “I don’t know everybody.”
The cheating and cover-up on student evaluations seems to have nothing much to do with the collapse of the department. Why would I suppose that, in the counterfactual world where Fiocco had been an honest sort, the department does not still collapse in turmoil?
She’s a scapegoat; just look at the form of the story. That’s true even if she turns out to be as lousy as they say. (Apologies to lice.) That she stays rather than bears the sins away is a nice little twist. At least she bears the sins away from the administration to the lowly faculty members.
Because many of those involved had a productive working relationship stretching over decades? I think this is the classic falling apart of a team due to a shift in team culture. In a world where all are striving for full professorship (there’s always competition between postdoc, assistant and associate professors) you need a specific culture for it to work as a team. Enter dishonesty, the loss of the keeping of verbal agreements and the managerial interim types and that cultural understanding is gone. Since most of them were highly skilled and in demand, the ties came loose. The team was gone. That’s not the fault of the one making a dishonest mistake. One could forgive that if treated transparently within the team. It’s the escalation and managerial response that kills the team. (If memory serves me well the interim manager mentioned was the one that stopped the litigation between my father and his university after it had dragged for about five years. The cause of the suit? Broken verbal agreements.)
How is she a scapegoat? Are you disputing the facts in the story?
Clearly, this process could have been stopped at the start by an admission of guilt.
It’s hard to imagine that Fiocco isn’t the person best placed to find out what happened to the forms.
Though the article clearly also blames Stevenhagen and the dean for escalating the issues. It’s quite possible that there was some long-running underlying division that mafe this kind of behaviour seem acceptable.
If this was research and not teaching, there’d be structures in place to deal with this.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/about-our-research/quality-and-integrity/academic-integrity