SF hands down
aside from being generally skeevy, what specifically has he done? I believe...just havent ever heard specifics other than of the pictures.
Lawsuit alleges Rob Van Houweling (UC Berkeley) repeatedly harassed PhD student.
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Also can we get a reality check here? Stoker was not named in the lawsuit itself (yes, I read it). Her integrity is unimpeachable not because she is white but because she has a 20+ year history of going to bat for every single woman in the department. And anyone who knows the department and thinks these allegations are not credible is deluding themselves. the department is s**t on this stuff.
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Also can we get a reality check here? Stoker was not named in the lawsuit itself (yes, I read it). Her integrity is unimpeachable not because she is white but because she has a 20+ year history of going to bat for every single woman in the department. And anyone who knows the department and thinks these allegations are not credible is deluding themselves. the department is s**t on this stuff.
So are you saying that since Stoker has sided with RVH, this allegation is not credible, or that it is credible even though she has?
Has there been a 20+ year history of these sorts of allegations?
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Women don't make false allegations about harassment. They just don't. What incentive would Loan Le have to make up this sort of thing?
Financial.Huh? Seriously? The amount of settlement here is not going to be anything much and most will get sucked up in lawyer's fees.
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Women don't make false allegations about harassment. They just don't. What incentive would Loan Le have to make up this sort of thing?
Financial.
Huh? Seriously? The amount of settlement here is not going to be anything much and most will get sucked up in lawyer's fees.Only because she doesn't have much of a case.
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Women don't make false allegations about harassment. They just don't. What incentive would Loan Le have to make up this sort of thing?
Financial.
Huh? Seriously? The amount of settlement here is not going to be anything much and most will get sucked up in lawyer's fees.Does she know that?
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The singular focus on the Van Houweling scandal on PSR recently has been a godsend for other creeps like SJ (Stanford) and SG (Berkeley)
like 25 posts in this thread are about SG, I don't think it did him any favors. But if you think SG and SJ cases are remotely comparable something is wrong with you. Which, Fifi, judging by your contributions to this thread, does seem to be the case. You have some issues, my dear....
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Fifi is part of a long tradition of disgruntled Berkeley grad students who probably should have been activists instead. They change their reasons for being disgruntled over the years, but not the condition. Right now they seem to think they are part of a world-historical moment, and they are desperate to see it play out before their very eyes. They have been given the theoretical tools to understand this, and they insist on seeing events through that prism.
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The singular focus on the Van Houweling scandal on PSR recently has been a godsend for other creeps like SJ (Stanford) and SG (Berkeley)
Just to be clear, according to PSR's morality mavens, if you have a relationship with a student that is (according to this thread) never your subordinate or advisee, and it's serious enough to lead to marriage, but never violates your faculty handbook, that is approximately equivalent to, oh I don't know, sharing drugs and sex with an undergraduate in a program you supervise, which violates your faculty handbook on several points? Or equivalent to actual, literal harassment?
Sure, you guys, that makes total sense, thanks for clearing that up. Obviously it's a big mistake to think of you as ideological extremists incapable of rational thought.
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Remember how, last January, all of PSR came out in full force to remind everyone that:
1) Bill Jacoby hadn't been found guilty of anything
2) Rebecca Gill is a mentally ill woman who cannot be trusted
3) There is no corroborating evidence against Jacoby, and
4) We should treat Jacoby as innocent until proven guiltyHow wrong everyone turned out to be. The point is that PSR is not a legal court. We don't have to avoid discussing an allegation until someone has been proven guilty in court.
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Former Berkeley PhD student here. There are some major differences between the Gailmard and the Van Houweling situations. I'm familiar with both situations because I was a grad student during the Van Houweling-Loan Le relationship, while the Gailmard situation is basically an open secret among current and recent Berkeley grad students (although I personally was not at Berkeley when Gailmard's relationship with the grad student developed).
Sean Gailmard was married to his ex-wife, Gina, when he met and began dating a Berkeley grad student, Lindsey Hearn. Lindsey was a Berkeley undergrad (Class of 2012) who later returned to Berkeley as a PhD student in the Political Science Department after doing a Master's at the University of Chicago. Both parties maintain that they were not dating when Lindsey was an undergrad at Berkeley. After their relationship became public, Lindsey suffered significant abuse and harassment by other grad students and even certain faculty members in the department, and Sean was placed under intense scrutiny regarding the relationship. Nevertheless, it became clear that no rules had been violated because Lindsey was never under the direct supervision of Sean. Sean Gailmard then divorced his wife, Gina, and married Lindsey. Gailmard, a Caltech PhD, then helped Lindsey transfer to Caltech to complete her PhD after determining that her remaining at Berkeley was untenable due to the abuse by other grad students and faculty members. At all times, Gailmard was careful to make sure he was not in a relationship with a student under his direct supervision in any capacity.
The Van Houweling situation was very different. Van Houweling was married to his wife, Molly Van Houweling, when he briefly dated Loan Le, a grad student under his direct supervision as a dissertation committee member during 2008-2009. At the time, it was well-known around the department that the two were dating, in part because Loan discussed it openly, and the two were repeatedly seen together in public. At some point, the relationship soured because Loan Le then claimed that they had never been dating. Instead, she claimed that Van Houweling had simply been flirting with her the entire time and she had responded politely but rejected his overtures. For his part, Van Houweling also denied that the two had ever been in a relationship.
After several years of unsuccessfully pursuing an academic position, Le then claimed that Van Houweling and her other d...See full post
At that point, Van Houweling was in a tough position because he had previously maintained that he had never been in a relationship with Le - therefore, sending flowers repeatedly certainly seemed like stalking behavior. The proof of the flowers being sent was authentic, but Le claimed that they were an unwanted gesture, while Van Houweling claimed his intentions were non-romantic and that he and Le had never been in a relationship.
Nevertheless Le's administrative grievance at the university level went nowhere because she had zero credibility. It was clear she had altered her story about the nature of her relationship with Van Houweling, and while there was clear proof that Van Houweling had definitely sent flowers to her, the university simply couldn't build a case against Van Houweling because it was obvious that Le was lying about the true nature of their relationship - that is, Le was unwilling to admit that the two had been dating because her primary agenda was to claim that Van Houweling had blackballed her from academia as retaliation for rejecting his romantic gestures.
In other words, Le probably overplayed her hand. She could have just told the truth, which is that she and Van Houweling were in a consensual romantic relationship while Van Houweling was serving on her dissertation committee. (I have no idea who initiated the relationship, but that is neither here nor there)
Instead, Le insisted on a conspiracy-theory version of events, claiming that she was never in a relationship with Van Houweling and claiming that other faculty members at Berkeley were somehow blackballing her from academia (which is very likely untrue). Her lack of credibility is the reason that Berkeley never took any action against Van Houweling. There simply isn't a credible sexual harassment charge to be brought when the victim has obviously changed her story about the nature of her relationship with the harasser.