Thread by @millerlab

Some of you may have noticed that I was interviewed for @meredithwadman’s Science article about @McLNeuro and how she is being treated by Vanderbilt. Well settle in for a story! I’m a little jet-lagged, but I have tamales and receipts. Let’s do this.

First, you all should know that @McLNeuro is in this mess right now because she was standing up for a student and, well, me.

Some backstory - a few years ago (Mar 2014) I was visiting VU and was invited to Aurelio Galli’s house for dinner with @McLNeuro and Gregg Stanwood. This was during the time that Galli was being sued for sexually harassing a student

@McLNeuro VU settled that lawsuit, which was eventually dismissed with prejudice. ANYWHO. At this dinner, Galli became very animated discussing the woman that had brought this lawsuit. He called her a “crazy bitch” and repeatedly stated that he would “ruin” her

Dangit - did I already break the thread? Sigh. sorry. So, where was I - oh yeah, at dinner when Galli was threatening to retaliate against a student that had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit. Did I mention that he repeatedly talked about his guns at dinner - he even showed me..

…that he had a gun RIGHT THERE. Needless to say, I was scared. I didn’t say much. @McLNeuro worked hard to convince Galli to back off. To be “better”.

The next day, McLNeuro told her boss what had happened. I was assured that Vanderbilt was “on it”. Then, silence for about 9 months…

AND THEN GALLI WAS PROMOTED

This motivated me to send an email describing my interactions with Galli to Mark Wallace (who I thought was his boss). Here’s a screenshot of the message I sent on 31 Jan, 2015.

Tamales are delicious. OK, so back to the story. I thought at this point that VU would open a Title IX investigation. Wallace told me he forwarded my message to the EAD office. And then I got a message from Michael Carter from the EAD office. Progress, right?

No. It was not. Michael Carter was a HACK (IMO, obv). He talked to me on the phone for about 10 min. I told him about what I saw wrt Galli threatening the student who had sued him. And then…crickets

I followed up (8 July) asking Carter about the investigation. His response was … well, fucked up (again, IMO). See attached email correspondence

However, in the course of Vanderbilt’s “investigation”, Mr. Carter interviewed Dr. BethAnn McLaughlin and she corroborated my story (see how she is standing up for the student, and me already?)

This is where shit goes sideways. At some point, EAD interviews Galli. But instead of talking about his threats, Galli shows up with a stack of papers. They are tweets from a pseudonymous twitter account, which he claims is run by McLaughlin

According to Galli he had these “stored in a safe” (??) and only brought them to “protect himself” (as per his interview by the faculty disciplinary committee - don’t worry, we’ll get to that)

Weird how his idea of “protecting himself” involves attacking a witness to his misbehavior… #TryingNotToSwear

Now, in a fairy tale maybe EAD tells him to take his tweets and shove them. BUT NO. Mr. Carter of Vanderbilt’s EAD office decides that he should open a new investigation. AN INVESTIGATION OF DR. MCLAUGHLIN!

This thread deserves gifs. But this new twitterific interface has me confused on how to make this work. Someone should help me out with this.

Now, during this entire process Vanderbilt told McLaughlin that she was NOT to discuss the investigation to ANYONE, including colleagues at Vanderbilt. Maybe they said the same thing to Galli, but he didn’t seem to hear that.

Because he took his printed out tweets (I swear this is true) and started showing them to other people at Vanderbilt. To convince them not to interact with McLaughlin. He asked folks to stop collaborations, to not let her teach in courses. He was trying to destroy her career.

I didn’t mention, but both McLaughlin and I were junior faculty at this time. Both of us trying to do good science and earn tenure. #scary

The tweets Galli was showing everyone were from an account (@/MyTChondria) that McLaughlin, me, and several other jr. women used to tweet from.

He convinced someone that works with McLaughlin (who I am not naming, though I don’t think she is innocent) that one tweet was about her. This tweet referred to “stabbing” an irritating colleague

I don’t know who wrote that tweet. It could have been me, honestly. I don’t remember. It was ridiculous hyperbole that was clearly not a real threat. I mean, have you guys SEEN twitter - it’s a crazy website, for realz.

Based on this tweet, McLaughlin was referred to a faculty disciplinary committee. Her tenure process was frozen.

At this point, I reached out to some folks that I knew were allies. I told them what was happening (McLaughlin wouldn’t, because she had been told not to discuss what was happening 🤨). Many of these folks wrote letters to Vanderbilt at that time in support of McLaughlin

Notice a theme here, where McLaughlin tries to follow the rules and work within the system? But then gets screwed? Yeah, it’s not subtle

I reach out the the faculty committee and tell them that I will be in Nashville and would they like to interview me? They say yes. The committee is 2 women and 1 man. I’ve never met any of them before. They ask me about the tweets. I try to explain twitter 😬

They ask me about lots of things regarding McLaughlin. Do I think she is intimidating (kinda, have you seen how badass she is??), do I think she would physically assault anyone (AYFKM, of course not)…

The final report is “confidential” But I’m gonna share what is says anyway, because I don’t think Vanderbilt can gag ME. First, the faculty committee unanimously found that Dr. McLaughlin did not physically assault her colleague.

The committee found that the faculty that had alleged this was “inconsistent” and that “she does not appear to be a sufficiently credible witness to conclude her account is accurate”. I would like to note, that the facts gathered by the committee also suggested…

That it was GALLI who showed her the tweet that led her to make this (spurious) claim that she was assaulted 🧐.

The committee split 2-1 on whether or not McLaughlin had lied about using social media to discuss Vanderbilt. This is centered around a tweet, again on MyTChondria, that suggested “Galli has 3 RO1 and complains about being broke. Irritating PI phenotype”

I asked (but was not answered) about why the committee would even care. This was posted on a pseud account and its…not even derogatory? Why do they care??

In any event, one of the committee thought maybe she had done this. (Again, who cares??)

You may have noticed that I am not @-ing the MyTChondria account. That is because it was hijacked by GALLI, who tried to impersonate us (including McLaughlin). I can say this, without an “alleged” because he (Galli) admitted in an email to Gregg that he had done this.

It was clearly meant to be intimidating. He tweeted at many young women, especially those in his field. He showed pictures of guns. He mentioned Seattle. It was terrifying. He made references to “those that hate him”

At the same time that faculty committee was meeting, Vanderbilt also hired an outside law firm, to help with their “investigation”. I actually mentioned this to the faculty committee - they were NOT pleased (see attached Note from final report)

Did I mention that Vanderbilt also provided the faculty committee (and the law firm) with all of McLaughlin’s emails so they could comb through her life at will? #TrueStory

Did you know it is still legal to fire someone for being gay in Tennessee?

Now, back to the faculty report. The majority of the committee (again, 2/3) found that AT MOST McLaughlin used categorical statements (always, never) a little too cavalierly. Seriously.

After the committee finished, McLaughlin’s tenure was unfrozen. There was a positive tenure vote (I wasn’t there for that, so this one part is not my personal observation). BUT WAIT. Remember those outside lawyers?

One thing I learned only after all this had happened, was that Vanderbilt had NEVER opened a Title IX investigation based on my original report. They classified it differently - and thereby likely avoided reporting requirements

The lawyers seemed very intent on proving that McLaughlin was the problem - it’s like Vanderbilt they knew who was paying the bill.

So after all this, apparently Vanderbilt decided to revisit McLaughlin’s tenure case…and this time they decided to all vote against promotion. And here we are.

I’ve told this story (and sent all emails and reports that I have) to several different reporters. @meredithwadman is the first that actually published the story. I’ve offered to share it with the Vanderbilt Hustler, too, so they can correct their article.

Did I miss anything? I’m happy to answer (real) questions. Trolls will be sworn at and blocked #YouHaveBeenWarned

I would like to add, that during this whole process McLaughlin was convinced that Vanderbilt would do the right thing. That they were better than this, and that she would convince them. She took this all on because she actually believed in the institution.

McLaughlin has had a higher estimation of people that I do. Which explains why my RBF is so much better.

I should have linked to the Science article - if you haven't read it yet, check it out sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/n…