International Women’s Day 2023 [and how far from a fair society…]

rage [50] versus courage [48]…

and it only gets worse…

“…in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” Donald T.

“President Trump is building a wall of tariffs around the domestic economy, attempting to protect American jobs by limiting imports. But a tire factory that opened last year in Richburg, S.C., offers a reminder that globalization is hard to stop.”  NYT, Sep 18

“Worried their chance to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court could slip away, a growing number of evangelical and anti-abortion leaders are expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully from a sexual assault allegation”  NYT, Sep 20

““ President Trump rejected the official estimate from the Puerto Rico government that nearly 3,000 people died from Hurricane Maria through a series of misleading or false claims: He cited an outdated tally that officials had acknowledged almost immediately was too low, misleadingly suggested that doubt over the tally did not emerge until “a long time later,” accused Democrats, without evidence, of inflating the figures and wrongly described the current official estimate as counting all deaths on the island, regardless of whether they were related to the storm.” NYT, Sep 13

“The Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era standards to limit planet-warming methane pollution from oil and gas operations on federal lands (…) In a separate action, the Environmental Protection Agency last week finalized a plan to eliminate the Obama administration’s requirement that oil and gas companies monitor and fix methane leaks for new operations.” The Guardian, Sep 19

scientific societies start to address sexual harassement

As ISBA releases a letter of her president to the members about the decision by the ISBA Board [taken in Edinburgh] to exclude three of its members following multiple complaints of harassment, the ASA publishes an update on the activities of the task force created to address this issue last November. And Nature reports on the report published by the US academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which points out the limited impact of the current policies and mechanisms at play in US institutions.

“The analysis concludes that policies to fight the problem are ineffective because they are set up to protect institutions, not victims.” Nature, June 12, 2018

A common feature between the ASA and the Academy approaches is to rely on a survey of their respective members, soon to come for ASA members. Another feature of major relevance is the issue of anonymous reporting and counselling. So that victims and witnesses of harassment can trust the procedure strongly enough to report  a case without being afraid of being known to a large number of people. In my opinion, having identified individuals that represent the diversity of a scientific society such as ISBA, rather than an anonymous email account or a web form, is more likely to induce testimonies or complaints.

how to make ISBA conference safe for all?

As Kristian Lum’s courageous posting of her harrowing experience at ISBA 2010 and of her resulting decision to leave academia, if not thankfully research (as demonstrated by her recent work on the biases in policing software), is hitting the Bayesian community and beyond as a salutary tsunami, I am seeking concrete actions to change ISBA meetings towards preventing to the largest extent sexual harassment and helping victims formally as well as informally, as Dan Simpson put it on his blog post. Having discussed the matter intensely with colleagues and friends over the past days, and joined a Task Force set immediately on Dec 14 by Kerrie Mengersen in her quality of President of ISBA, there are many avenues in the medium and long terms to approach such goals. But I feel the most urgent action is to introduce contact referents (for lack of a better name outside the military or the religious…) who at each conference could be reached at all times in case of need or of reporting inappropriate conduct of any kind. This may prove difficult to build, not because of a lack of volunteers but because of the difficulty in achieving a representativity of all attendees towards them trusting at least one member well enough to reach and confide. One section of ISBA, j-ISBA, can and definitely does help in this regard, including its involvement in the Task Force, but we need to reach further. As put by Kerrie in her statement, your input is valued.