Board of Governors
Information Theory Society
IEEE
12 June 2018

Dear BOG members

I am writing with comments and a request for your consideration. I write
as a member of the Information Theory Society (Information Theory Group
when I joined) for the past half century and as a former two-term member
of the Board of Governors. I have always considered the Society as my
primary professional home and, although I have not been active in Society
affairs since becoming Emeritus in 2011, I still remain in touch with
several of my former students and other colleagues in the field, and I
peruse the Society Newsletter and announcements.

In spite of my continuing occasional connections with former colleagues,
I was completely taken by surprise last December to receive an email
from Tony Ephremides informing me of a "witch hunt" against Sergio Verdu
at Princeton and suggesting that I should google Sergio's name to find
"a lot of reports (most of which are extremely unfair and biased)." He
included a letter that he intended to send to Princeton regarding the case
and asked if I would be willing to sign it, noting that because of its
wide distribution and time pressure "wordsmithing for improving it is not
practical."

Over the next two days I followed Tony's suggestions and, in particular,
read the articles in the Huffington Post/HuffPost, the Daily
Princetonian, and the Tab, along with the "final version" of the letter that
Tony had sent to me.

I was shocked and saddened to read of the sexual harassment charges
against Sergio, as I have always considered him as a good friend and
outstanding colleague --- in my opinion the best information theorist of
his and surrounding generations. But I have long been aware of the
issues raised by Title IX (which became law in 1972) and the associated
reporting and process requirements for all academic institutions receiving
government funding. 

I have had to deal with issues of sexual harassment of students both as
a research supervisor for over three decades and as an EE Department
Vice Chair for 14 years, long before the recent headlines brought many
such cases to wider public attention.  I am familiar with the
differences in perception and sensitivities involved in such cases, but
I am also aware of the seriousness of accusations of sexual harassment
and the necessity for properly handling them. Such accusations can not
be dismissed lightly as a simple matter of misperceived well-meaning or
innocent intensions or by responding with public or secret attacks on a
credible accuser.  Both law and standards of professional and personal
ethical behavior require that individuals and the organizations they
belong to take such accusations seriously and deal with them in a proper
manner.

Although upset regarding the accused behavior, I was more upset by the
letter of support I was asked to sign and the language quoted above used
in the email request. The reference to a "witch hunt" and the dismissal
of the "charges and malicious attacks against him, which he flatly and
consistently denied" brings to mind other defenses of accused powerful
men in the recent news and the thinly veiled meaning is that charges
could not possibly be true and hence the accuser must be lying and the
resulting judicial process in grievous error. This is not a defense I
wish to be associated with --- this is a defense promoted too often in
recent news which attacks the victim and a formal judicial process.  My
understanding is that Sergio has not denied that the reported events
took place, but rather the validity of the interpretation of those
events.  To me this suggests that perhaps the training ordered by the
Title IX proceedings is not inappropriate.

Sergio's reputation has been damaged, but the evidence that I have read
(including his emails) convinces me that there is at least the
appearance of impropriety and a lack of appreciation for that
appearance. The letter's statement that "Professor Verdu's casual
down-to-earth and friendly behavior style does not differentiate among
people because of their age, gender, origin or status within the
scientific community" is disingenuous and sets off many internal alarm
bells given my own experience of complaints from students who have been
invited to friendly, but very private, events by faculty in a position
of power over them. I do not accept the defense of "casual down-to-earth
and friendly behavior" because I have seen it or something close used as
a cover for decidedly improper behavior. To be explicit, Professors
should not be subjecting students to such private behavior which can
clearly be interpreted as a sexual come-on, even if the Professor does
not see it that way. Again, this is a bad defense and does an unjustly
accused person no help. 

Princeton had a legal and ethical obligation to conduct an investigation
and make a decision. The student did not file the charges, it was a
university official from whom she was seeking advice on how to escape a
group in which she felt increasingly uncomfortable. The official thought
the behavior described to be unacceptable and filed a complaint as
required by law.

I do not find it appropriate for an outside group to ask an independent
institution to change the outcome of a judicial process which was their
responsibility to conduct.  The letter does not claim to come from the
Information Theory Society, but the wording suggests that there is
nearly unanimous support from Sergio's colleagues and hence is
implicitly official. Furthermore, since learning these events I have
been told by sources that I trust that junior Society members have felt
heavily pressured to sign the letter by senior colleagues. If true, this
is unacceptable behavior and should be discouraged. This behavior
damages the reputation of the Information Theory Society and its
continued silence on this issue (apart from the rumors generated by the
letter) threatens further damage, both to the organization and its
members. It will actively discourage the diversity we have tried to
encourage.

For all of these reasons, I refused to sign the letter. Had there be an
opportunity to discuss or debate the issue, I would have advised against
submitting the letter as written.  I told Tony I was willing to send my
own letter to Dean Kulkarni and emphasize the positive statements made
in the letter, specifically Sergio's outstanding contributions to the
field and that I had never personally witnessed the behavior described
in the accusations. I was not willing, however, to sign a letter that
felt like the powerful circling the wagons about an accused comrade,
attacking the powerless and credible victim (whose professional career
has likely been destroyed), and calling on Princeton to reverse a
judicial decision it made presumably in good faith based on its own
investigation (before the hoopla hit the press).

Tony disagreed with my stance, and replied at some length regarding the
failings of Title IX. That brings me to the point: Issues that have been
lurking submerged for a long time have now erupted within the Society
and the damage may propagate unless discussed and dealt with. Clearly
there are strong differences of opinion about the nature and damage of
sexual harassment. I have heard the opinion that Sergio is "an innocent
victim of the fallout from the national hysteria on the subject," but I
do not see the concern about sexual harassment in and outside of
academia as "hysteria." It exists and it should be a matter of
reasonable public discussion. Other professional organizations have made
commendable attempts to publicly acknowledge and deal with the issue.
So far as I can tell, no such public discussion and recognition of these
issues has taken place in our community save for scattered private
conversations and lip service by some that harassment is a bad thing.  I
think this silence is bad for the community and likely to damage its
recent significant efforts to improve its diversity. By way of
illustration, in recent exchanges I have heard Sergio's actions defended
as being simply "flirtatious" and not genuinely sexual harassment. This
is the same argument I heard from a senior EE faculty member three
decades ago when I confronted him about his behavior towards one of my
students. I thought then and I think now that that kind of obliviousness
has no place among professionals and that professional organizations
should make it clear that such behavior will not be tolerated.

I urge the BOG to discuss the issue of sexual harassment and open up more
general discussions among the Society, including sessions at workshops
and symposia and articles and letters in the Society Newsletter. As a
step in this direction, I think that the BOG should read and discuss the
letter I have described and consider what positions the Society and its
members should take. I think the contents of the letter reveal a serious
misunderstanding of sexual harassment, including its legal definition,
and the damage it inflicts --- on both the victims and on the reputation
of the Society. Refusing to admit the existence of such problems or
insisting that we are all such saints and that these issues are not relevant is
not an adult response. Failure to take substantive action will put us on
the wrong side of history and may lead to irreparable harm to our future
ability to recruit the best talent.

Today (June 12) The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine released a joint report "Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate,
Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine"*. The report is based on research begun over a
year before the #MeToo movement. The report and the discussion in
today's Webinar announcing the report reinforce three of my key points: 

1) The problem is real, pervasive, and serious.  

2) There are many kinds of sexual harassment, but all --- including the
unwanted sexual attention imposed by possibly well-intentioned people ---
constitute unacceptable behavior.

3) Professional societies have an important role to play in improving
the climate and culture in the sciences, engineering, and medicine. See
in particular p. 160 of the report, ``The role of professional societies
and organizations that facilitate research and training'' and
RECOMMENDATION 10 of the report.

Thank you for your consideration.

Bob Gray

*http://sites.nationalacademies.org/shstudy/index.htm
pdf available at  http://nap.edu/24994