It's going to be hard for UCLA to keep the lid on this story now that it appeared yesterday in an article in Nature. There will be pressure to say something more than "privacy" or whatever prevents any comments.
Scientists petition UCLA to reverse ecologist’s suspension
Sanctions on Priyanga Amarasekare have baffled supporters, who think they are retaliation for speaking out against discrimination.
by Jeff Tollefson
In April of last year, the Ecological Society of America awarded Priyanga Amarasekare one of the highest honours in the field of ecology: the Robert H. MacArthur Award. A little over two months later, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), placed Amarasekare on a one-year suspension without pay or benefits, and forbade her from accessing her laboratory, maintaining her insect colonies, managing her grants or contacting students. Now scientists from around the world, who call Amarasekare a “highly distinguished ecologist”, “a committed teacher and outstanding mentor” and a “tireless advocate for under-represented groups”, are calling for her reinstatement.
The precise allegations that led to her suspension are unknown. UCLA has declined to release them, and barred Amarasekare from discussing the matter publicly. But long-standing tensions between Amarasekare and the university are no secret. A native of Sri Lanka and one of two women of colour who have tenure in the ecology and evolution department, she has previously accused the university of discrimination for repeatedly denying her promotions that were granted to colleagues. Former students and faculty members who are familiar with the situation think that Amarasekare’s suspension was retaliation for speaking out.
Some 315 scientists raised concerns about her suspension in a petition that was delivered to the university on 23 January, arguing that Amarasekare “has long been denied significant advancement within her department, out of keeping with her contributions to the field”. Moreover, the sanctions levied against Amarasekare — including the one-year suspension and 20% salary reduction for an additional two years — represent “the kind of punishment normally applied only to the most egregious wrongdoings”, including scientific misconduct and sexual harassment violations, the petitioners write.
In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, the scientists ask that UCLA rescind the disciplinary actions and fully compensate Amarasekare. Officials with UCLA say that the university “supports freedom of expression and does not condone retaliation of any sort”. They declined to discuss the accusations against or in support of Amarasekare, saying the university is “bound to respect the privacy of the numerous individuals involved in this matter”. Amarasekare also declined to comment.
Colleagues told Nature that Amarasekare is the rare ecologist whose research spans the theoretical, computational and experimental realms. One project in her laboratory that touches on all of these areas focuses on the impact of climate change on insect communities. “She’s really several years ahead of everybody else,” says Andy Dobson, an ecologist at Princeton University in New Jersey who led the petition. Dobson has written letters to support Amarasekare’s various applications for promotion at UCLA and says he has been baffled by the university’s decisions. “She complained, and most of what’s happened seems to be a reaction against that,” he says.
...As the recipient of the MacArthur award, Amarasekare is expected to discuss this research when she delivers her keynote address at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, in August.
Full story at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00207-w.
The Bulletin of the Ecologicial Society describes a talk Amarasekare gave at an earlier conference:
In her talk, Priyanga Amarasekare from the University of California, Los Angeles, described herself as a woman with brown skin, an immigrant from a third-world country, and a single mother. She is also in a field, Mathematical Biology, in which women are underrepresented and women of color are rare, especially at the senior level. She has the lived experience of multiple overlapping identities, and the interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage that such identities entail. These experiences have given her the determination to help others navigate bias and make changes to prevent future bias. To do so, she has devised a three-step process: (1) identify the bias, (2) protect oneself from it, and (3) strive to make a change...
Full description at https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bes2.2033.
In April 2021, we noted on this blog that Professor Amarasekare won a Guggenheim fellowship.* Since then, something happened. There is more to this story than the little that has leaked out. We await more information.
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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/04/ucla-faculty-win-8-guggenheim.html.
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https://ia904704.us.archive.org/3/items/new-year-outlook/lid%20on.mp3
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