Astronomer claims he lost University of Kentucky job because of faith

An astronomer is suing the University of Kentucky, claiming he was denied a job running its observatory because of his Christian faith.

Martin Gaskell was once considered the leading candidate to be the founding director of the observatory, opened in 2008.

The Courier-Journal reports that a trial has been set for Feb. 8 after a federal judge ruled Gaskell has the right to a jury trial.

Gaskell argues that the school discriminated against him because he had given lectures in the past discussing astronomy and the Bible and his questions about the theory of evolution, even though he accepts it.

The university acknowledges there were questions about his beliefs, but there was valid scientific concern. It also claims there were other factors in denying him the job, including a poor performance review in a previous job.

I do think this is a qualitatively different case from those covered in Expelled. It really amounts to a public university using complete acceptance of every contention of evolution, and complete rejection of even Catholic-style theistic evolution, as a litmus test for hiring in any area of science.

Moreover, it’s being applied selectively. I’ve known some quite distinguished physicists to express critical and often profoundly ignorant sentiments about some biological theories. The snottiness of some physicists about other fields is quite legendary.

I did. All the talk in the world is worth nothing if he can't actually show adverse action towards himself. While there was none, he certainly tried to make bureaucratic normalcy look like persecution. There was clearly adverse action. He was ranked highest of all the candidates (and there really wasn't anyone else close). He was then passed over because of his beliefs. He was asked about those beliefs as part of the interview (What were they thinking? Our EO-AA office would be on us like a ton of bricks for doing that!). The chair of the search committee wrote immediately after they chose another candidate that he was clearly the best candidate and that he was passed over because of those beliefs. The chair of the department told the committee to forget his views on evolution and appoint the best qualified director. I've been on academic search committees more times than I can count. You need to put all the job expectations in the job posting. You can't rank on criteria not in that posting. The post hoc claims that there would be a requirement for interactions with biology teachers weren't even remotely addressed in the posting. I doubt we would ever be given permission to question a candidate on his religious views. If we were, the questions would have to be pre-scripted and narrowly tailored to the advertised job requirements. Vaporous claims that entertaining theistic views about evolution means one can't somehow think properly about science would be discounted, as they will be by the court. Martin has hundreds of highly cited scientific papers; he has a proven record of effective teaching and outreach. My own daughter, who did research with him for three years, was not aware of any opinions he had on evolution, and in my own conversations with him, his usual answer was 'I'm an astronomer, not a biologist'.

I was never talking about Stenberg (an entirely different case, and one without much merit, IMHO). Stenberg never even sued.

I almost wish he had sued. But then after he'd lost the creationists would be whining about a judicial system conspiracy.

The Gaskell vs. UK documents are on the NCSE web site. Those are what I was referring to.

This guy does look to have more going for his case. It'll be interesting to see what comes out in the court docs.

IMHO that's irrelevant to the creationists though. If it comes out that the decision was correct he'll be a martyr. As with the Expelled folks, they will refuse to look at the facts. He pulled the religion card and, like Al Sharpton with the race card, they'll immediately believe.

Like most things DI does, they're smart enough to usually stay away from flat-out lies

Well, that certainly didn't stop you from the same action.>p? In any case, evidently, the person mentioning the 66% rate was Eli Rosenberg, the physics department chairman, who also admitted that Gonzalez's belief in intelligent design did come up during the tenure process. He is also quoted as stating "intelligent design was not a major or even a big factor in this decision." Which by implication does not exclude that it was a consideration in the decision. A simple "his belief in intelligent design was not a factor in this decision" would have done that.

I believe your timeline is severely in error. No whining was done until after the actions were taken.

What actions? You mean office and security key shuffle? Oh horrors, he was subject to the same bureaucratic minutiae as everybody else! And this even after he was caught multiple times not following SI rules regarding the collections.

is the email traffic effectively portraying the atmosphere at the Smithsonian invoked because Sternberg allowed the Meyer article to be published.

Yeah, when you do stuff like that, you can generally expect others to not be happy with you. Still, it resulted in no adverse actions. I'm not going to say adverse employment actions because contrary to what they'd like you to believe, he wasn't employed there.

-I fail to see how any result of the Kitzmiller case could “subvert” something s broad as “modern science. RS

—The result is irrelevant. It is only one example where the DI tries to push ID far outside the scope of any scientific merit. They claim ID is purely scientific, but in truth it can’t stand on scientific merits so they have a large PR and legislative campaign to support it. Yes, they actually have what is essentially a PR/lobbying arm that contacts legislators, school boards, teachers and parents.aR

—I have a HUGE distrust for a “science” that got popular due to political, social and/or religious motives. Case in point: Global Warming. aR

-—Modern science is subverted from historical science ~ much more politicized, and even, gasp, msm controlled. Mainly follow the money you’ll find the influence and corruption. MyReply

-Schoolboards have done far more to subvert science by choosing to hire teachers who know more about football than chemistry and yet have installed them in chemistry labs. RS

—That’s another issue. A very valid one for sure, but still another issue. aR

-—The education majors I knew in college knew nothing about much of anything (most esp. neither football nor chemistry) and freely admitted theirs was an easy degree. They did know a lot about liberal issue and women’s rights though. Most also confessed they wanted a ‘Mrs degree’ too. MyReply

What actions? You mean office and security key shuffle? Oh horrors, he was subject to the same bureaucratic minutiae as everybody else!

The fact is...

From: Appendix to Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian. Noting that the OSC performed the original investigation and determined that it did not have jurisdiction. QUOTE

Specifically, tke OSC found that had Dr. Sternberg been protected by Title V of U.S. Code, the NMNH staff would have violated Section 2303 (b) (1 0) referring to the prohibition on personnel to discriminate against an employee for non-job related activities. Additionally, the OSC found that "there is a strong religious and political component to the actions taken after the publication or the Meyer article." The OSC letter concludes that the retaliation against Dr. Sternberg was supported by the evidence: "Our preliminary investigalion indicates that retaliation came in many forms. It came in the form of attempts to change your working conditions and even proposals to change how the SI retains and deals with future RAs. During the process you were personally investigated and your professional competence attacked. Misinformation was disseminated throughout the SI and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false. It is also clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI."

END QUOTE

So it is OK for the Smithsonian to perform such actions against an associate who is not an employee per se?

I loved the bias of that. For example, in quoting emails supposedly designed to organize discrimination against him, there’s this bit:

“One important thing to keep in mind, however, is the equal treatment of all RAs in the section. You must not impose more onerous restrictions on one particular RA than on other RA’s in the section”

No matter what they did, they remembered that they could not punish him. As far as a hostile work environment, well boo-hoo. He does something most others in his profession see as wrong and supports a view that most see as invalid, and he expects not to get heat? Whiner.

Now all RAs require a sponsor, since it is a privilege to work there. After this it didn’t look like anyone would volunteer as a sponsor. That’s obvious, nobody’s going to put his butt on the line to sponsor someone who has done what Sternberg did. So we got this email:

“Anyway, the core point, I obviously am not going to be able to find a sponsor for Sternberg, yet his official status is as a research associate for the next three years. If you don’t want to make a martyr of him, I’ll sponsor him.”

He actually had an offer of special treatment because of his status as a religious whiner. This is of course interpreted as mistreatment.

Yeah right. And that was a warning because it was in relation to the suggested "retaliation? against Sternberb so that "Rafa",Rafael Lemaitre, would be mollified, "the access and office privileges of a certain RA can be reconsidered with due consideration of Rafa's concerns".

As far as a hostile work environment, well boo-hoo. He does something most others in his profession see as wrong and supports a view that most see as invalid, and he expects not to get heat? Whiner.

Well, it is against the law to harrass or create a hostile work environment based upon a person's religion and the email's are a smoking gun to that aspect, however, since Sternberg was not an employee the OSI could not get involved. But you can bet your donkey that, had Sternberg been an employee, the Smithsonian would have been out a few bucks.

So you consider having a sponsor "special treatment"? I believe the rules at the Smithsonian covered that. That is why Coddington was the sponsor. He had to be. It is apparent that the people there at SI did not know their own rules and eventually stumbled upon them.

>>> Jonathan Coddington 10/05/04 1l:OlAM >>> He does have a supervisor--the Chair, by default, if no one else. Everybody, always, has a supervisor.

Now he used the word supervisor and not sponsor, but since we all know that Sternberg was not an employee at SI, supervisor must mean sponsor. Or they are in big trouble.

The short of this exchange seems to be that you are as apologetic for these emails as the global warming scammers are apologetic for their emails.

Well, it is against the law to harrass or create a hostile work environment based upon a person's religion

If his religion affected his professional reputation to to him injecting it into his work, which reflected poorly on all others there? It's fair game.

So you consider having a sponsor "special treatment"?

It's a privilege to be an RA. It requires an SI sponsor. His died. Without a sponsor, he would not be renewed as an RA because RAs basically have to be re-sponsored every few years, and obviously nobody there wanted to put their reputation on the line to sponsor him. But one person did offer to sponsor him just to keep him from being a creationist martyr. That's special treatment.

Now he used the word supervisor and not sponsor, but since we all know that Sternberg was not an employee at SI, supervisor must mean sponsor.

RAs are supervised, mainly by their sponsors. His died, so sponsorship and supervision defaulted to the Chair.

The short of this exchange seems to be that you are as apologetic for these emails

The result of this exchange is although many people at the SI didn't like him, no adverse administrative action was taken against him due to his beliefs, or even due to his misbehavior at the Journal or for his mishandling of artifacts. Like a black female cripple in a government job, he was basically untouchable due to political considerations.

If his religion affected his professional reputation to to him injecting it into his work, which reflected poorly on all others there? It's fair game.

No it isn't. It's still against the law. And he didn't inject his religion into his work. He allowed the Meyer paper to be peer-reviewed and published. The poor reflection you mention was them(Eugenie, Rafa, etc.) looking into a mirror. They themselves started the vendetta. No one criticized them except those of their own ilk. Eugenie Scott stirred the pot.

Bull crap. He was not renewed as an RA as it was. They made him an RC. And you admit in the following quote the words "without a sponsor" are meaningless. And privilege it may be, but Sternberg was discriminated against, and if he had been an employee(another position that is a privelege not a right) he would have owned SI.

RAs are supervised, mainly by their sponsors. His died, so sponsorship and supervision defaulted to the Chair.

Like a black female cripple in a government job, he was basically untouchable due to political considerations.

Not prejudiced very much are you?

And he didn't inject his religion into his work.

He pushed through a religious-grounded paper in a science paper that practically all scientists reviewing it said it had no business there.

He was not renewed as an RA as it was. They made him an RC. And you admit in the following quote the words "without a sponsor" are meaningless.

Had his sponsor still been alive, it would have been up to that sponsor to re-sponsor him for another period of three years as an RA when his time came up. His sponsor was dead, so, LIKE ANYONE ELSE, he had nobody to sponsor him for his next three years. Obviously he had such a poor reputation at the SI that nobody else ended up sponsoring him again. Thus the most he could do was become an RC.

if he had been an employee(another position that is a privelege not a right)

Had he been an employee, his position wouldn't have depended on him having a sponsor. In fact, he would be the sponsor.

Not prejudiced very much are you?

I'm sick of cards being played, any cards. And, yes, I saw exactly as described above. A useless woman gamed the system with her various cards for YEARS, and they were never able to get rid of her. Actually, the word useless is incorrect. She was worse than useless, a constant drain on the organization. Simply having nobody in her position would have been better. The bosses tried to do that, put her on the sidelines so she couldn't hurt anything, but she pulled another card and was right back in the game. New bosses would come in and not know what they were getting into. They would try to discipline her not knowing she already had all her cards in a row ready to screw them the moment they tried.

He pushed through a religious-grounded paper in a science paper that practically all scientists reviewing it said it had no business there.

Get your facts straight. The paper was not "religious-grounded", though you may assert so. And even if it was, it would have still been illegal at the SI since the work was done outside of SI. Plus Roy McDiarmid, The Biological Society of Washington's president, wrote in an email

I have seen the review file and comments from 3 reviewers on the Meyer paper. All three with some differences among the comments recommended or suggested publication. I was surprised but concluded that there was not inappropriate behaviors a vis the review process. Whether one would consider the reviews appropriate is another issue and I would be pleased to share my views on that with you if you so desire.

ROY

Thus the most he could do was become an RC.

Making things up are you?

From an SI response:

On the issue of extending his appointment, it would be inappropriate to agree to the extension of an appointment which has not been requested through the normal application process. To do so would be a disservice to other applicants, and in fact would treat Dr:von Stemberg in a manner-different from other Research Associates. Should he seek an extension of his appointment when it expires in January 2007, his application will receive full and fair consideration.

No mention of lacking a sponsor is made here.

Another letter

as other applications. Please also note that your belief that you lack a sponsor is ia error. When your first sponsor, Dr. Brian Keasley, passed away, Dr. Jonathan Coddington, Chair of the Invertebrate Zoology Department, became your sponsor. When you transferred to the Vertebrate Zoology Department, Dr. Richard Vari, the Chair of that Department, became, and continues to be, your official sponsor.

Had he been an employee, his position wouldn't have depended on him having a sponsor. In fact, he would be the sponsor

The employee aspect had nothing to do with sponsor. It had to do with the illegality of the actions of the SI staff as evidenced in their emails which also demonstrated their prying into the political and religious beliefs of Sternberg for his activity outside of SI. It is simply against the law. Fortunately for SI, Sternberg was not an employee and the OSI could not get involved.

useless woman gamed the system with her various cards for YEARS, and they were never able to get rid of her.

That in no way negates your prejudice. You mention a specific and draw a generality.

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