University College Cork in Ireland is coming under international pressure to lift a punishment meted out to one of its academics. , a psychologist at the university鈥檚 school of medicine, has been saddled with a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counselling after discussing a scientific paper with a colleague. The title of the paper? 鈥溾��.
As part of what he says was an ongoing discussion on human uniqueness, Evans showed a copy of the fellatio paper to a female colleague in the school of medicine. 鈥淭here was not a shred of a sign of offence taken at the time,鈥� Evans says. 鈥淪he asked for a copy of the article.鈥�
A week later he got a letter informing him that he was being accused of sexual harassment. Evans says the whole case is 鈥渦tterly bizarre鈥�. The complainant鈥檚 side of the argument is that she was 鈥渉urt and disgusted鈥�, and asked Evans to leave a copy of the paper with her as way of cutting short the meeting.
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No offence intended
It seems there was more to the grievance between Evans and the complainant than the fellatio paper incident, but an independent investigation found that Evans was not guilty of sexual harassment. The investigation stated that it was reasonable for the colleague to have been offended and that showing the paper was a joke with a sexual innuendo, but that it was not Evans鈥� intention to cause offence.
The university鈥檚 president, , nevertheless imposed a censure, which Evans says has prevented him getting tenure. An has been set up and has by high-profile academics including philosopher of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and of Harvard University.
Dennett calls the punishment 鈥渁n outrageous violation of academic freedom鈥� and Pinker says the 鈥渁bsurd and shameful鈥� judgment 鈥渞uns contrary to the principle of intellectual freedom and freedom of speech, to say nothing of common sense鈥�.
The paper, published last year in PLoS One, was covered in New Scientist and many other outlets. The story had a certain prurient interest, which was only heightened by an explicit video that went with it.
The asking him to rescind the two-year period of monitoring. Murphy鈥檚 office had not replied to an enquiry from New Scientist at the time of publication.