The fall of UC Irvine geneticist Francisco J. Ayala

Please don’t take this down, because Ayala has written articles for BioLogos. They might want to remove his articles or at least attach an explanatory note to them.

Acclaimed UC Irvine geneticist who gave millions to the campus resigns due to sexual harassment

I used to admire this man.

1 Like

His behavior reads sadly familiar to recent events with Hybels and Patterson. In past years, such behavior was ignored and women soon learned to avoid situations that put them alone with such men. Fortunately, speaking up is no longer such a difficult and risky proposition.

5 Likes

I was not familiar with this man. However, I am so sad to see this happen. There, but for the grace of God, go we.

3 Likes

I also found his reply to be unrepentant and disgusting.

That is messed up. I really liked the guy. I didn’t think this behavior would spread into the intellectual Christian community (like it did with the atheist intellectual one, i.e. Lawrence Krauss and David Silverman a few months ago).

We should distinguish Ayala’s character, which is hopefully being reconsidered seriously by Ayala himself, and the intellectual contributions he’s made.

He is totally unrepentant. Here Is his statement:

“I deeply regret that what I have always thought of as the good manners of a European gentleman — to greet women colleagues warmly, with a kiss to both cheeks, to compliment them on their beauty — made colleagues I respect uncomfortable,” Ayala, who grew up in Madrid, said Friday in a statement. “It was never my intent to do so.”
He said he had “too much respect” for the women, his family and UC Irvine to continue defending himself with hearings, appeals or lawsuits and would continue his research “with renewed vigor” elsewhere.

I think that every institution and business place should have sexual harassment training and a zero-tolerance policy.

1 Like

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, it’s spread everywhere.

And it’s not new. It’s been happening all along. We’re just finally starting to take it more seriously.

9 Likes

Sometimes a little too seriously, such as in the case of Aziz Ansari, and others.

[content edited] I only hope that God softens his heart, and Ayala repents of his sin

@beaglelady thanks for bringing this to our attention. We haven’t had any contact with Ayala in a number of years, but this is still good to know.

2 Likes

Somebody else tried to alert you to this on Facebook, But perhaps you hadn’t logged into it recently.

Looks like he is unrepentant. I checked my Facebook but I don’t see anything like that on it – perhaps they have the wrong account, I don’t know.

I think that every institution and business place should have sexual harassment training and a zero-tolerance policy.

Zero-tolerance policy? Yes. However, it looks to me like there isn’t any evidence that any form of “training” (impliict bias training or whatever it is) of this sort leads to any actual results. On the contrary, I usually see political agendas being injected into these fruitless training sessions.

@Reggie_O_Donoghue

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, it’s spread everywhere.

Well, I have been paying attention. This is definitely the first case of a member in the intellectual Christian community (in contrast to, say, the Catholic church scandals) being exposed for committing this type of stuff.

It will be very sad if Ayala fails to repent.

My message about facebook was directed to Brad Kramer.

Oh yes, it does get results. I was working in at IT firm and the managers had harassment training. When reports of harassment to a manager are ignored, the manager become equally culpable. People need to be educated about what constitutes harassment. It’s mostly but not always men who are the guilty of this.

2 Likes

My message about facebook was directed to Brad Kramer.

Whoops.

Oh yes, it does get results. I was working in at IT firm and the managers had harassment training. When reports of harassment to a manager are ignored, the manager become equally culpable. People need to be educated about what constitutes harassment. It’s mostly but not always men who are the guilty of this.

I’d have to have a study to convince me of this, and get clarification on whether or not the training you’re talking about is a form of implicit bias training, because it’s already been demonstrated that implicit bias training is useless.

I’m telling you, immediately after the sexual harassment training an offensive poster came down and people changed the way they spoke. Companies can stand to lose a lot of money if they don’t take this kind of thing seriously and they get sued.

What is implicit bias training?

Well, I know you’re telling me, but I need more than anecdotes.

Implicit bias training? Well, imagine the following. Let’s say a company has deemed that people in general are unconsciously biased against, say, black people or women. So the company makes their workers undergo some kind of ‘diversity training’, or implicit bias training, to address these supposed unconscious biases. This absurd concept of retraining peoples biases in the workplace has a paucity of evidence to show it has any effect, whatsoever.

Okay, then try this. Get a job in an American corporation and make a sexist or racist joke. Make sure that the minority targets of your jokes can hear you, not just white male evangelicals. Then let us know how that goes over.

Implicit bias training is not the same thing as sexual harassment training. I agree that studies have shown implicit bias training is not effective. But sexual harassment training or talking about consent on college campuses actually does affect work and learning environments. People don’t have much control over their subconscious biases, but they can control specific behaviors.

2 Likes

Those things will not change a person’s heart (usually) but it will alert them to behaviors that can get them fired and that’s a pretty good lesson to learn.

2 Likes