White House science adviser resigns and acknowledges ‘disrespectful and demeaning’ behavior after investigation

KTVZ ^

[nickcarraway]

“We have assembled the most amazing set of people at OSTP, and we have together set out the most ambitious goals that this agency has ever attempted. I have sought to push myself and my colleagues to reach our shared goals — including at times challenging and criticizing,” Lander wrote in his resignation letter to Biden.

“But it is clear that things I said, and the way I said them, crossed the line at times into being disrespectful and demeaning, to both men and women. That was never my intention.”

Lander wrote that his resignation is effective “no later than February 18 in order to permit an orderly transfer.”

The resignation of the President’s science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy comes just a day after damning reports surfaced that he had been the subject of an internal investigation late last year after a complaint was filed under the Executive Office of the President’s Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy. The investigation, first reported by Politico, found “credible evidence” of violations of the policy and “corrective action was taken consistent with those findings,” a spokesperson for OSTP told CNN. It did not find credible evidence of gender-based discrimination, the spokesperson noted.

[Darksheare]

“i didn’t mean it!” cries the bully?

[Seruzawa]

“OSTP is an amazing organization with amazing people taking on big, ambitious things. You deserve better, and I will do better. You have my absolute commitment,” Lander said.

More likely it’s just another useless buncha politically connected worthless do-nothings who can’t find real jobs.

[Portcall24]

Another office filled with self-licking ice cream cones.

[Savage Rider]

So, when does the VEEP get fired? I hear she is a terror to work for.

[AndyJackson]

OSTP is normally a bunch of academics brought into the swamp to advise the president on science policy, if he wants to listen. It seems like a good idea, but it's just another one of those useless things and too often gets corrupted from pressure to provide wanted answers rather than needed answers.

Eric Lander if you look up his bio is actually a pretty amazing person and contributed a lot to understanding how to apply coding theory to the unraveling of the human genome.

As a mathematician he was valedictorian of his class at Princeton. Personally, I wanted to hate the guy but I can't.

But his departure will make room for someone of the politically motivated woke diversity loving Scientific caste who we all believe is the kind of person who does hold that kind of job.

[Vigilanteman]

Back when I was a college junior thinking about completing a major in journalism, I worked my way up to one of the editor positions on the campus newspaper.

While most of my colleagues were sitting around navel gazing and interviewing each other for stories, I was out getting actually stories from people outside the bubble.

While one of the professors loved my work and was deeply disappointed when I told her I was changing majors, I was not at all popular with my colleagues because my work ethic was very disruptive.

I just couldn't see wasting another year and half or more of my life hobnobbing with such "amazing(ly useless) people" then having to brownnose with people of their ilk to get my first entry level job out of college when I was good at something else.

A semester or two before graduation, I discovered I was short only a couple of classes of that journalism degree, so took the classes just so I could add it. It has never done me a bit of good except for a keen understanding of how these "amazing(ly useless) people" think and operate.

[trailboss800]

“But it is clear that things I said, and the way I said them, crossed the line at times into being disrespectful and demeaning, to both men and women. That was never my intention.”

Of course it was your intention. It was also your intention to not get caught. You’re a weasel.

[Beowulf9]

Article doesn’t really define what he said. I wonder if he could have been ‘ being disrespectful and demeaning, to both men and women….without it being his intention. Seems unlikely.

[BobL]

When I was in college, at a conservative school (at least back then), the newspaper was pretty good, but half of the columns were horrendous Leftist crap, personally attacking conservatives, when it wasn’t even necessary to get their point across.

For EVERY one of those articles, you’d see in the description of the author that it was so-and-so majoring in either ‘journalism’ or Communications.

It was only decades later that Rush finally explained it to me. He said that, when asked, ‘journalism’ majors say they’re doing it to ‘change the world’*. And for all those years, I thought ‘journalism’ majors just wanted to report what was going on...and that is why I would tell any conservative buying a media company to fire everyone with a ‘journalism’ or Communications degree.

*obviously you’re a rare exception

[GotMojo]

Apparently he toasted Dr. James Watson (DNA Guy) in front of assembled staff. This was a triggering event as Dr. Watson said or did some things (besides discovering DNA) that were objectionable by some...... oooy

[Vigilanteman]

In all fairness there was a female colleague, also an editor, who rejected a story by a “Gay Catholic” group to be a feature story because their smears on Pope John Paul II (this was his first or second year in the Papacy) were vindictive and gratuitous. I was the only editor to support her in that position and for the same reasons. Two were enough to quash the story under the rules of the campus newspaper at the time.

It was for her sake and the advisor's sake that I stuck out the semester. Sadly, the heathen group took their "story" to the local fishwrap and got a Sunday feature. But I still think we did the right thing by demonstrating that a campus paper had higher standards than the local version.