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February 10, 2016 12:00 am

The Sexual Misconduct Case That Has Rocked Anthropology

sciencehabit writes: An investigative report in Science describes allegations of sexual misconduct against noted paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond, as well as the field's response. The story highlights a major shift in how academic communities deal with sexual misconduct, going beyond delineating rules on paper to striving to change the culture of the field at the institutional level. This shift – "a long time coming," according to many researchers – was spurred in part by recent high-profile cases in astronomy and biology. Now, as Balter notes, "paleoanthropology is responding to its own complex case." The first public allegation against Richmond, the curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, inspired a cascade of other allegations about him. This in turn motivated several senior paleoanthropologists, including one of Richmond's key mentors, Bernard Wood, to explore the allegations with peers. "As I talked to more and more current and former students at [George Washington University]," Wood said, "I became more concerned and alarmed about what I heard." In light of their findings, Wood and others in the field of anthropology are now tackling sexual misconduct head-on. The article details additional institutional efforts to stop sexual misconduct in science while trying to balance the rights of victims and accused, and provides the latest update on investigations into Richmond.

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