Astronomers push back on IAU harassment policy

Update, 2 October 2023: The IAU executive committee further revised its code of conduct on 29 September. It removed the controversial paragraph that is discussed in the article and added a sentence.

Update, 13 October 2023: The language of the added sentence was finalized this week. It reads: “Furthermore, we emphasize that any form of physical or verbal abuse, bullying, or harassment of any individual, including complainants, their allies, alleged or sanctioned offenders, or those who work with or have worked with them, is not allowed.”

The executive committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) plans to meet this week to revise its code of conduct after receiving complaints that the recently updated harassment section supports those who have harassed or bullied their colleagues.

Announced in a 16 August email to members from IAU president Debra Elmegreen, the updates to the union’s code of conduct include a paragraph stating that it is a form of harassment to “physically or verbally abuse or discriminate against alleged offenders of IAU’s policies.” The code also deems it harassment to “inflict (or pressure others to inflict) punishments” on those who violate the society’s policies beyond the punishments “officially sanctioned” by the IAU. In addition, the code prohibits “discrimination [against] those who work or have worked with” an accused or previously IAU-sanctioned offender.

Many astronomers and academics have expressed worries that the policy opens the door for retaliatory harassment allegations against those who refuse to work or engage with alleged or known offenders. “It sends a very clear message to the community,” says Arthur Loureiro, an astrophysicist at the Oskar Klein Centre at the University of Stockholm. “This message is unfortunately that the harassers are fighting back.”

In recent years, the astronomy community has confronted widespread misconduct within its ranks. Surveys in the US and the UK indicate that astronomers commonly experience harassment, bullying, and discrimination by coworkers. Geoffrey Marcy, who in 2015 was found by the University of California, Berkeley, to have sexually harassed colleagues, is among the high-profile astronomers who have resigned following investigations of their conduct. Marcy recently removed his name from the author list of a 31 March 2023 arXiv preprint after a public outcry.

The IAU executive committee, which consists of Elmegreen and nine other elected members, added the controversial new paragraph after the committee “received several reports of astronomers who were being bullied online, were excluded from conferences, and had papers rejected due to their scientific collaborations with alleged or known offenders,” says Elmegreen, a professor emerita of astronomy at Vassar College in New York. She says the committee also “knew of several astronomers around the world who were being ostracized from the astronomical community, sometimes merely on the basis of a newspaper article.”

The added text is “merely intended to highlight that the policy against harassment also applies to [actions against] alleged offenders as well as those who choose to work with them,” Elmegreen says, and to assert that people should be able to “work with whomever they choose without repercussion.” The code of conduct applies only to conferences and other events supported by the IAU, which has more than 12 500 members from 92 countries.

The changes to the IAU code are “bizarre,” says Anna Bull, director of research at The 1752 Group , a UK-based misconduct research consultancy and advocacy organization. The new paragraph only serves to polarize, she says, because alleged and known offenders were already protected from harassment by the policy in the same way that all other members are safeguarded. Bull notes that the IAU does not state its protection for supporters of victims, who may receive abuse as a consequence of their support.

Loureiro, who has experienced workplace bullying, says that actions such as choosing whom to exclude from conferences and whom to engage with are important for protecting community members from their harassers. “Most of these harassers are in positions of power, and they’re now using that power to push policy against us protecting ourselves,” he says.

Emma Chapman, an astronomer at the University of Nottingham, sent a letter to Elmegreen urging her to remove the new sentence that refers to “discrimination” and “punishment.” It “sows fear amongst the field regarding what counts as punishment,” Chapman wrote in her letter. She posed a hypothetical situation in which an IAU member who “refuses to share a stage with a harasser” then gets “subjected to a complaints process by the harasser.” Other researchers have publicly questioned whether refusing to work with known offenders or invite them to conferences would violate IAU policy.

David W. Hogg, a cosmologist at New York University, says he is concerned that the IAU’s updated code clashes with US and institutional policies that require faculty to protect students and employees from harassment. “If it is considered by the IAU to be discrimination to disinvite someone to a meeting because of their history of misconduct, then we are literally required by law to discriminate against harassers,” he says.

Elmegreen says that the executive committee plans to revisit and modify the code of conduct now that it has received input from members, including the IAU working groups on women in astronomy and on equity and inclusion , which did not participate in drafting the controversial paragraph. “I received about three dozen emails, on both sides, plus some asking for interpretation,” says Elmegreen, who adds that she has received more favorable than negative comments. “We are listening to our members.”

National organizations are taking notice of the furor. The US National Committee for the IAU requested a discussion with the executive committee about the matter, Elmegreen says. Robert Massey, the deputy executive director of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society, says that multiple society fellows have contacted the society about the IAU decision. The society represents the UK at the union, so it gets to vote on issues such as budget and the inclusion of new members. “It’s of significant interest to our governing council, and we expect them to discuss it at their next meeting in October,” Massey says.

The board of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) declined to comment on the IAU’s policy updates. But on 7 September the AAS updated its own code of ethics to make harassment and bullying in a professional setting a form of professional misconduct. “Our community has been diminished by the loss of talented, creative, and innovative people who have left the field, changed their professional trajectories, or suffered a loss productively as a result of harassment and bullying,” it said in a statement . The AAS code does not mention harassment against alleged and known harassers and their collaborators.