The reasonable person also knows that senior EAs have a lot of discretionary power, and thus there is a significant chance retailatory action would not be detected absent special safeguards.
FWIW, I think you’re probably overstating the amount of discretionary power that senior EAs could use for retaliatory action.
IMO, if you proposition someone, you’re obligated to mention this to other involved parties in situations where you’re wielding discretionary power related to them. I would think it was wildly inappropriate for a grantmaker to evaluate a grant without disclosing this COI (and probably I’d think they shouldn’t evaluate the grant at all), or for someone to weigh in on a hiring decision without disclosing it. If I heard of someone not disclosing the COI in such a situation, I’d update strongly against them, and I’d move maybe halfway towards thinking that they should have their discretionary power removed.
If some senior person decided that they personally hated someone who had rejected them and wanted to wreck their career, I think they could maybe do it, but it would be hard for them to do it in a way that didn’t pose a big risk to their own career.
However, if the person’s power is “soft” and does not run through organizational lines (e.g., the person is a leading public intellectual), there is likely no practical way to hold that person accountable to a recusal commitment.
I think you’re overestimating the extent to which being a leading public intellectual makes it possible to engage in discretionary vengeance, because again, I’d think it was very inappropriate for such a person to comment substantially on someone without disclosing the COI.
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On a totally different tack, I think it’s interesting that your suggestions are mostly about problems resulting from more senior EAs propositioning junior EAs. To what extent would you be okay with norms that it’s bad for more senior EAs to proposition junior EAs, but it’s okay for the senior EAs to date junior EAs if the junior EAs do the propositioning?
A lot of the motivation behind the dating website reciprocity.io (which I maintain) is that it’s good for EAs to avoid propositioning each other if their interest isn’t reciprocated.
For what it’s worth, my current vote is for immediate suspension in situations if there is credible allegations for anyone in a grantmaking etc capacity where they used such powers in a retaliatory action for rejected romantic or sexual advances. In addition to being illegal, such actions are just so obviously evidence of bad judgement and/or poor self-control that I’d hesitate to consider anyone who acted in such ways a good fit for any significant positions of power. I have not thought the specific question much, but it’s very hard for me to imagine any realistic situation where someone with such traits is a good fit for grantmaking.
Thanks, Buck. It is good to hear about those norms, practices, and limitations among senior EAs, but the standard for what constitutes harassment has to be what a reasonable person in other person’s shoes would think. The student or junior EA experiences harm if they believe a refusal will have an adverse effect on their careers, even if the senior EA actually lacks the practical ability to create such an effect.[1]
The reasonable student or junior EA doesn’t know about undocumented (or thinly documented) norms, practices, and limitations among senior EAs. I would give those more weight in the analysis if they were published, reasonably specific, and contained explicit enforcement mechanisms. As it is, I think the reasonable student/junior would rely on broader social understandings—in which rebuffing sexual advances from more powerful people can seriously harm one’s career.
In my view an effective COI mechanism requires someone other than the conflicted individual to have (a) knowledge of the conflict; (b) a reasonable ability to detect conflicted behavior (or behavior inconsistent with a recusal); (c) the power to deal with the conflicted individual and the conflicted behavior; (d) the willingness to deal with the same. It’s possible for these four needs to be split up such that one actor has (a) and (b) while another has (c) and (d).
I perceive some issues in the COI-disclosure practice you describe. The first is that it is dependent on self-disclosure by the senior EA in a way that is difficult to audit. Maybe I am unusually private, but if I received unwelcome sexual attention from a much-more-senior person in my field, I wouldn’t talk about it in a way that I’d expect people of much greater seniority to hear about it. In contrast, if the senior EA has to disclose to their organization ahead of time, there is a record that the junior/student could ask the organization about to verify that the recusal occured. The base rate of harassment is not low, and it is well-documented that harassers and abusers take irrational/unreasonable risks (yet avoid detection for years to decades, if not permanently). So I am less confident that people will disclose their COI because of the potential consequences of getting caught not disclosing it.
I know there’s value in keeping EA “high trust” in many ways, but I don’t think that is an appropriate guide here. The advantages of a “high trust” harassment policy in this particular scenario accrue largely to the senior party, while the costs accrue predominately to the student or junior EA.
The second issue is that, while most disqualifications due to personal interests can be waived, I don’t think other senior EAs can waive this type of disqualification. In my view, the disqualification exists primarily to protect the student or junior EA, and other senior EAs are not in a position to decide whether to waive that person’s protection. Of course, if you think disclosure of the COI is sufficient to protect the student or junior EA, you don’t have this problem.
There’s a wide variety of conduct that could be potentially covered by a policy—I thought propositioning by the senior EA was a fair example case. For instance, if the junior EA propositions but then decides they do not want to continue after one encounter, will they feel free to decide against future encounters without adverse career consequences?
I think there are a number of mitigations, including the use of a site like reciprocity.io, that could be considered at step two of my proposed test. There would need to be rules—for instance, telling a specific junior EA that one uses reciprocity.io may come across awfully similar to a direct propositioning. Other mitigations could include detailed public policies, an independent third-party process for addressing harassment and retailiation complaints, etc.
I wonder how well a website that invited users to specify categories of propositions they were not interested in would work, in combination with a community norm to check the website prior to propositioning. I am wondering if that would be more viable as a community norm (and a requirement for seniors) than something like reciprocity.io. For instance, a user could say “no seniors,” “no one older than X,” “no one in my cause area,” “non-monogamy isn’t for me,” “only through reciprocity.io,” “no propositions at all,” etc. I am wondering if some people might feel more comfortable declining a broad group of people in whom they aren’t interested in advance, rather than non-listing specific persons in that class who they knew were interested in them. I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, but I would use such a website if I were in a social community where I was concerned about being propositioned (I’m in a monogamous marriage, so it would be “no propositions at all”). It would, of course, be important for people to understand that the absence of a statement of non-interest on the website does not imply interest.
Indeed, the harm still exists if the individual student or junior EA perceives such a risk, even though a hypothetical reasonable student or junior EA would not. The reason question one is objective is that mindreading is impossible, and thus defining harassment with a subjective standard isn’t workable.
Fwiw, someone was just observing on a different thread how many ‘burner’ or similar accounts have recently been showing up on the forum. So it seems like many junior EAs do in fact believe that being negatively identified by senior EAs could be harmful to their prospects.
Thanks for the specific proposals.
FWIW, I think you’re probably overstating the amount of discretionary power that senior EAs could use for retaliatory action.
IMO, if you proposition someone, you’re obligated to mention this to other involved parties in situations where you’re wielding discretionary power related to them. I would think it was wildly inappropriate for a grantmaker to evaluate a grant without disclosing this COI (and probably I’d think they shouldn’t evaluate the grant at all), or for someone to weigh in on a hiring decision without disclosing it. If I heard of someone not disclosing the COI in such a situation, I’d update strongly against them, and I’d move maybe halfway towards thinking that they should have their discretionary power removed.
If some senior person decided that they personally hated someone who had rejected them and wanted to wreck their career, I think they could maybe do it, but it would be hard for them to do it in a way that didn’t pose a big risk to their own career.
I think you’re overestimating the extent to which being a leading public intellectual makes it possible to engage in discretionary vengeance, because again, I’d think it was very inappropriate for such a person to comment substantially on someone without disclosing the COI.
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On a totally different tack, I think it’s interesting that your suggestions are mostly about problems resulting from more senior EAs propositioning junior EAs. To what extent would you be okay with norms that it’s bad for more senior EAs to proposition junior EAs, but it’s okay for the senior EAs to date junior EAs if the junior EAs do the propositioning?
A lot of the motivation behind the dating website reciprocity.io (which I maintain) is that it’s good for EAs to avoid propositioning each other if their interest isn’t reciprocated.
For what it’s worth, my current vote is for immediate suspension in situations if there is credible allegations for anyone in a grantmaking etc capacity where they used such powers in a retaliatory action for rejected romantic or sexual advances. In addition to being illegal, such actions are just so obviously evidence of bad judgement and/or poor self-control that I’d hesitate to consider anyone who acted in such ways a good fit for any significant positions of power. I have not thought the specific question much, but it’s very hard for me to imagine any realistic situation where someone with such traits is a good fit for grantmaking.
Thanks, Buck. It is good to hear about those norms, practices, and limitations among senior EAs, but the standard for what constitutes harassment has to be what a reasonable person in other person’s shoes would think. The student or junior EA experiences harm if they believe a refusal will have an adverse effect on their careers, even if the senior EA actually lacks the practical ability to create such an effect.[1]
The reasonable student or junior EA doesn’t know about undocumented (or thinly documented) norms, practices, and limitations among senior EAs. I would give those more weight in the analysis if they were published, reasonably specific, and contained explicit enforcement mechanisms. As it is, I think the reasonable student/junior would rely on broader social understandings—in which rebuffing sexual advances from more powerful people can seriously harm one’s career.
In my view an effective COI mechanism requires someone other than the conflicted individual to have (a) knowledge of the conflict; (b) a reasonable ability to detect conflicted behavior (or behavior inconsistent with a recusal); (c) the power to deal with the conflicted individual and the conflicted behavior; (d) the willingness to deal with the same. It’s possible for these four needs to be split up such that one actor has (a) and (b) while another has (c) and (d).
I perceive some issues in the COI-disclosure practice you describe. The first is that it is dependent on self-disclosure by the senior EA in a way that is difficult to audit. Maybe I am unusually private, but if I received unwelcome sexual attention from a much-more-senior person in my field, I wouldn’t talk about it in a way that I’d expect people of much greater seniority to hear about it. In contrast, if the senior EA has to disclose to their organization ahead of time, there is a record that the junior/student could ask the organization about to verify that the recusal occured. The base rate of harassment is not low, and it is well-documented that harassers and abusers take irrational/unreasonable risks (yet avoid detection for years to decades, if not permanently). So I am less confident that people will disclose their COI because of the potential consequences of getting caught not disclosing it.
I know there’s value in keeping EA “high trust” in many ways, but I don’t think that is an appropriate guide here. The advantages of a “high trust” harassment policy in this particular scenario accrue largely to the senior party, while the costs accrue predominately to the student or junior EA.
The second issue is that, while most disqualifications due to personal interests can be waived, I don’t think other senior EAs can waive this type of disqualification. In my view, the disqualification exists primarily to protect the student or junior EA, and other senior EAs are not in a position to decide whether to waive that person’s protection. Of course, if you think disclosure of the COI is sufficient to protect the student or junior EA, you don’t have this problem.
There’s a wide variety of conduct that could be potentially covered by a policy—I thought propositioning by the senior EA was a fair example case. For instance, if the junior EA propositions but then decides they do not want to continue after one encounter, will they feel free to decide against future encounters without adverse career consequences?
I think there are a number of mitigations, including the use of a site like reciprocity.io, that could be considered at step two of my proposed test. There would need to be rules—for instance, telling a specific junior EA that one uses reciprocity.io may come across awfully similar to a direct propositioning. Other mitigations could include detailed public policies, an independent third-party process for addressing harassment and retailiation complaints, etc.
I wonder how well a website that invited users to specify categories of propositions they were not interested in would work, in combination with a community norm to check the website prior to propositioning. I am wondering if that would be more viable as a community norm (and a requirement for seniors) than something like reciprocity.io. For instance, a user could say “no seniors,” “no one older than X,” “no one in my cause area,” “non-monogamy isn’t for me,” “only through reciprocity.io,” “no propositions at all,” etc. I am wondering if some people might feel more comfortable declining a broad group of people in whom they aren’t interested in advance, rather than non-listing specific persons in that class who they knew were interested in them. I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, but I would use such a website if I were in a social community where I was concerned about being propositioned (I’m in a monogamous marriage, so it would be “no propositions at all”). It would, of course, be important for people to understand that the absence of a statement of non-interest on the website does not imply interest.
Indeed, the harm still exists if the individual student or junior EA perceives such a risk, even though a hypothetical reasonable student or junior EA would not. The reason question one is objective is that mindreading is impossible, and thus defining harassment with a subjective standard isn’t workable.
Fwiw, someone was just observing on a different thread how many ‘burner’ or similar accounts have recently been showing up on the forum. So it seems like many junior EAs do in fact believe that being negatively identified by senior EAs could be harmful to their prospects.