A lot of people have asked for a shorter summary of my article "Serial Ethical Transgressors in Organizational Research Academia: A 14 year Professional Life/Roller-Coaster-Ride as a Victim, Victim Advocate, and Hesitant Whistleblower".
Here it is (or PDF):
Summary (1400 words):
Serial Ethical Transgressors in Academia: 14 Years a Victim, Victim Advocate, and Whistleblower
Jonas W. B. Lang
Purpose
The goal of this paper is to better understand why ethical misconduct is not sanctioned in academia and to increase awareness about it.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is an autoethnographic qualitative study on the basis of experiences with serial ethical transgressors (SETs) in organizational research academia over a 14-year period. The account is structured into three key "seasons," each highlighting different types of ethical misconduct by three key transgressors and two associates.
Findings
Season 1 focuses on my ex-wife, Professor Jessica Lang (born Ippolito), RWTH Aachen University Hospital. After our separation and divorce she physically attacked me by trying to infect me with an infectious disease. She then forged my signature to clear our bank account and claimed to the family service of the city that I was violent so that she got the children. After our divorce, she then demanded academic work from me for her in return for me being able to see our little children (our son and daughter). If I refused, she several times did not allow me to see them including extended periods of time of more than a year. She used the coerced work she got from me to become a professor, and also published a paper that I refused to publish without my consent but with my name on it to get there. She also repeatedly presented her new partner - a relative of mine with the same second name as me 29 years her senior - as the father of the children without clarifying the true situation. There was also documented evidence of medical neglect for both children in the household. Nonetheless, the family courts for several years always sided with my now Prof. ex-wife even when the children declared in court without both of us present that they wanted to live with me. When my daughter became older, she repeatedly decided to move in with me. - A decision my ex-wife just could not accept. She reverted to using the psychiatry clinic of her university to treat my daughter against her will and blocked her from contact with me. My daughter could not stand this situation and killed my ex-wife’s cat to show her that she really wanted to leave, and also threatened to kill my ex-wife. Instead of letting her go, my ex-wife demanded that she be put into the closed psychiatry of her university hospital instead of calling me. When I found out, my daughter and I succeeded in convincing the family court to release her to me pending a final expertise. The University hospital under the guidance of my ex-wife fought back vigorously. I was negatively psychiatrically evaluated without my consent in an expertise for my daughter. After being released, my daughter was denied her medicine. When she went back to the hospital – the only provider in the region - to get it, she was again put in the closed psychiatry unit, my ex-wife was contacted, and I was again denied contact against the wishes of the family court. I have not seen my daughter now for more than a year, and my son for now more than 2,5 years. After my ex-wife found out that my son was secretly writing me online, she also forced him to stop.
A lot of other collaborators gradually or abruptly ended their collaboration with my ex-wife throughout these episodes and years and even made a point of demonstratively collaborating with me. The notable exception is my former and now close collaborator of my Ex-Wife, Professor Ute Hülsheger, head of the section Work and Organizational Psychology at neighboring Maastricht University who publishes and also teaches an edx course with my ex-wife. Season 2 first describes how Prof. Hülsheger first claimed that she wanted to continue a joint project with prestigious funding that mainly I had acquired after I left the university. After my work was completed and the articles published, she replaced me as the primary supervisor with Prof. A who was never scientifically involved in the project before and can thus best be described as an honorary supervisor. Presumably as revenge for not going along with this, she next removed me from a joint paper and published it as her sole work but with changes to the analyses that render them scientifically unsound. She mentions me in the author note seemingly suggesting that I approved these flawed analyses. A meeting with a former dean from Maastricht University with the suggested conciliary solution of a joint follow-up paper correcting some of the misconceptions in the literature it created is ultimately not successful. Again, Prof. Hülsheger breaks the agreement, adds another coauthor without telling me or the other coauthor about it, demands no changes to the paper or “dropping me” from the paper, and refuses to show me the decision letter from a journal for an extended period. Prof. Hülsheger goes on and drops me from another dissertation with Prof. A and instead makes herself co-supervisor after all the studies are finished that I co-wrote and supervised. I am not mentioned and the dissertation is hidden from the internet for several years. I also discover another instance of unethical behavior: A doctoral candidate from Prof. Hülsheger’s alma mater completed a full doctoral program, three articles also result, but she has no chance to receive a doctorate because someone in a mentoring role (Prof. Hülsheger) takes first authorship with equal contribution on the key paper.
Season 3 focuses on Prof. Hülsheger’s coauthor Prof. Eva Derous and her associate Prof. Fontaine. Prof. Derous’ used manipulative tactics at Ghent University including her “hop on and gaslight” manipulation tactic whereby she first demands a small role in a project – frequently because she is a woman and studies minorities and toward the end of the project demands unjustified resources and credit. The season also describes how she bullied and mobbed PhD students of other colleagues by constantly demanding that they prioritize all projects with her over their dissertations, work, and teaching for other colleagues. Several researchers decide to leave. Ultimately, a dean splits up the department but Prof. Derous demanded to be in the department with me instead of in the one with her associate Prof. Fontaine. She then systematically undermined the department by coercing disproportionate resources against her vote so that the department ultimately had to close down and she could take her resources back to Prof. Fontaine’s department. The season also describes the misuse of the title of psychologist by Prof. Derous in the Belgian media and the enforcement of her own private ethics code that practitioners who wanted to supervise internships at Ghent University had to sign bypassing the official ethics code.
Season 4 finally describes how my health finally collapses under the constant attacks in Season 1-3, having to resign my position at Ghent University, and with the prospect of being out of academia, hesitantly decide to first fill complaints and to then become a whistleblower. Even though I file all possible complaints to universities, ministers, professional organizations, and journal editors in the instances where I have clear proof, these efforts are not successful.
Originality/Contributions
The discussion focuses on the reasons for the inaction by observers and organizations. One explanation is that the three female professors (Lang/Ippolito, Hülsheger, and Derous) of whom one has a second-generation immigrant background, one is a foreigner, and one does research on minority discrimination all used DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics. Thereby, they first attacked the reputation and standing of me and other victims and then depicted themselves as the true victims by using their gender and affiliation with minority groups. Remarkably, this tactic succeeded even when victims included members of the same or other minority groups (but without power). The discussion also focuses on the role of special treatments, exception policies, and misunderstandings about social justice movements in allowing transgressors to escape scrutiny.
Takeaway 1:
Serial ethical transgressors in organizational research academia face almost no scrutiny and the APA code is in practice not enforced.
Takeaway 2:
It is easy for ethical transgressors in power to use DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics in combination with DEI policies even when they are not themselves from a minority group and the victims are.
Full paper:
https://www.jonaslang.info/userdata/manuscript-v4-osf-rendered.pdf
Retraction/correction requests:
https://www.jonaslang.info/userdata/comment-hulsheger2016.pdf
https://www.jonaslang.info/userdata/correction-request-hulsheger-schewe.pdf