Reflecting on our values, as the petition nears 3,000 signatures

It is Sunday morning, and I am catching up on my reading. The February issue of National Geographic has an article about the excavation of a site with 269 children sacrificed by the Chimu people in present-day Peru. Their simply shrouded bodies are buried amid a layer of thick mud, raising the possibility that their sacrifice occurred in the context of heavy El Nino rains that may have threatened the survival of the entire people. The children were buried facing the sea, with 466 young llamas buried alongside them facing the peaks of the Andes mountains. Archaeologists speculate that the sacrifices represented the Chimu's deal-making with their gods, offering their most precious resources in the hope of a reprieve from the punishing weather.

The Chimu's undoubtedly heart-breaking sacrifice of their young for the greater good stands in stark contrast to the sacrifice of so many women's careers by our scientific community. Indeed, the loss of talented women in whom we have invested time and money diminishes the effectiveness of the scientific enterprise. It is time we stop accepting the systematic oppression and discrimination that is often called a "leaky" pipeline. This is less about the misbehavior of a few bad actors and more about the damaging institutional responses that result in driving women out of science.

Denying tenure to Prof. BethAnn McLaughlin, a hero in the MeTooSTEM movement, is as unnecessary as it is tragic. I have one question for Vanderbilt Chancellor Zeppos (chancellor@vanderbilt.edu), the decision maker to whom this petition is addressed: WHY? Why stand on the wrong side of history? Why drive those who report sexual harassment or bear witness against it even further underground? Why uphold a wrong and wrongly-decided outcome? Why show contempt instead of grace? Why be a follower instead of a leader?