https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/style...-hoax.html
EXCERPTS: An anonymous anthropology professor remained outspoken about fairness in academia even as she suffered for months with coronavirus. “This person was a scientist who got Covid because they’d been forced to teach,” said Michael Eisen, a fly geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who had interacted on Twitter with the professor for years. [...] He said that he had continued to exchange messages with the person running the account through June and that this person frequently discussed a difficult recovery.
Then BethAnn McLaughlin, another Twitter connection, announced on July 31 that the anonymous professor had died from complications of the virus. Just a few days later, both the account of the anonymous professor and of Ms. McLaughlin were suspended for Twitter policies that, among other things, bar the coordination of fake accounts. The same day, Gerardo Gonzalez, a spokesman for Arizona State University, where the anonymous Twitter user was supposedly a professor, described the anonymous account as a “hoax.”
[...] Among scientists and academics, the shock of mourning was already laced with suspicion. Enough of them had unpleasant interactions with the combative account and were troubled by its inconsistencies and seeming about-turns. ... ‘On Tuesday, Ms. McLaughlin gave a statement to The New York Times through her lawyer. “I take full responsibility for my involvement in creating the @sciencing_bi Twitter account,” it said. “My actions are inexcusable. I apologize without reservation to all the people I hurt.”
The anonymous account, @Sciencing_Bi, was an active participant in the corner of Science Twitter that frequently discusses issues of sexual misconduct in the sciences. It claimed on at least one occasion to have grown up in Alabama, to have “fled the south because of their oppression of queer folk,” and to have attended Catholic school. The account began to pointedly make reference to being Native American and, earlier this year, began to identify as Hopi. [...] Since 2016, it has posted often about issues around social justice in the sciences, with a focus on activism and research about sexual harassment.
“There are millions who want to be us,” said Jacqueline Keeler, a writer and the editor of Pollen Nation, a Native-led magazine. “These people are centering themselves in our issues, they are heading Native American departments, they are telling Native students what they can and can’t study — it’s to protect their own position. And so it does change our ability to advocate for ourselves when we are constantly being replaced by frauds, white people or other people of different backgrounds pretending to be us.”
[...] Ms. McLaughlin first began to make waves among those concerned about sexual harassment in the sciences in May 2018. She wrote and circulated a petition that month calling for the National Academy of Sciences to revoke the membership of those who had been punished for sexual harassment, retaliation and assault. ... In November 2018, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab awarded its Disobedience Award to Ms. McLaughlin; Tarana Burke, a founder of the #MeToo movement; and Sherry Marts, who left academia after being harassed by a colleague in her graduate lab. The award recognizes “ethical, nonviolent acts of disobedience” and comes with $250,000, which that year was split among the three recipients... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: An anonymous anthropology professor remained outspoken about fairness in academia even as she suffered for months with coronavirus. “This person was a scientist who got Covid because they’d been forced to teach,” said Michael Eisen, a fly geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who had interacted on Twitter with the professor for years. [...] He said that he had continued to exchange messages with the person running the account through June and that this person frequently discussed a difficult recovery.
Then BethAnn McLaughlin, another Twitter connection, announced on July 31 that the anonymous professor had died from complications of the virus. Just a few days later, both the account of the anonymous professor and of Ms. McLaughlin were suspended for Twitter policies that, among other things, bar the coordination of fake accounts. The same day, Gerardo Gonzalez, a spokesman for Arizona State University, where the anonymous Twitter user was supposedly a professor, described the anonymous account as a “hoax.”
[...] Among scientists and academics, the shock of mourning was already laced with suspicion. Enough of them had unpleasant interactions with the combative account and were troubled by its inconsistencies and seeming about-turns. ... ‘On Tuesday, Ms. McLaughlin gave a statement to The New York Times through her lawyer. “I take full responsibility for my involvement in creating the @sciencing_bi Twitter account,” it said. “My actions are inexcusable. I apologize without reservation to all the people I hurt.”
The anonymous account, @Sciencing_Bi, was an active participant in the corner of Science Twitter that frequently discusses issues of sexual misconduct in the sciences. It claimed on at least one occasion to have grown up in Alabama, to have “fled the south because of their oppression of queer folk,” and to have attended Catholic school. The account began to pointedly make reference to being Native American and, earlier this year, began to identify as Hopi. [...] Since 2016, it has posted often about issues around social justice in the sciences, with a focus on activism and research about sexual harassment.
“There are millions who want to be us,” said Jacqueline Keeler, a writer and the editor of Pollen Nation, a Native-led magazine. “These people are centering themselves in our issues, they are heading Native American departments, they are telling Native students what they can and can’t study — it’s to protect their own position. And so it does change our ability to advocate for ourselves when we are constantly being replaced by frauds, white people or other people of different backgrounds pretending to be us.”
[...] Ms. McLaughlin first began to make waves among those concerned about sexual harassment in the sciences in May 2018. She wrote and circulated a petition that month calling for the National Academy of Sciences to revoke the membership of those who had been punished for sexual harassment, retaliation and assault. ... In November 2018, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab awarded its Disobedience Award to Ms. McLaughlin; Tarana Burke, a founder of the #MeToo movement; and Sherry Marts, who left academia after being harassed by a colleague in her graduate lab. The award recognizes “ethical, nonviolent acts of disobedience” and comes with $250,000, which that year was split among the three recipients... (MORE - details)