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Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

technicianonline.com

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Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#51

Post by dmix »

stego-tech wrote: post #9

> Kashani said Brain submitted numerous complaints through the EthicsPoint system and said tensions arose because Brain didn’t “play the political game” through his questioning of higher-ranking administrators. This right here is why I scoff at “anonymous reporting systems” or stuff like EthicsPoint, for the simple reason that the only ethics that ultimately matter in an organization are those of everyone above you,…

It doesn't sound like the process was anonymous, as it implies she found out it was him pretty quickly and worked to close ranks against him. Kinda defeats the purpose but I guess in any small organization it's probably easy to figure out who it is.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#52

Post by thimkerbell »

peetle wrote: post #37
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean can you offer any suggestions as to solutions to get out of this situation? Feels intractable

The right answer for most people is to simply leave and pursue their ideals in a more favorable venue.

How could that more favorable venue be made, and have been made visible to him and to people like him?

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#53

Post by mistercheph »

aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #32

The article suggests he was let go for "submitting numerous ethical complaints" but it is utterly unclear to me what these ethical complaints could have possibly been about, and the only source in this article is a starry-eyed protege. I am wondering if Brain was (perhaps unintentionally) abusing the complaint system as a way of adjudicating political disputes: "this person is stubborn and wrong" elevates to "this pe…

There is a stark divide emerging between the sorts of people that in my view speak truth to power, even if they speak poorly or strangely or are entirely unable to read the room, and the kinds of people that have internalized the ideology that nothing is wrong and anyone that complains, especially more than once, is most likely mentally unstable, paranoid, delusional, and so on.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#54

Post by SoftTalker »

patrickhogan1 wrote: post #22

This story really hits home for me. My dad was a physics teacher, and these complaints sound all too familiar—especially this part: "I did what the University told me to do, and then these administrators ruined my life for it." It’s frustrating how often dedicated educators are forced to navigate politics instead of focusing on teaching. The best educators are usually the least political, while those who thrive in po…

Workplace HR “ethics” or “whistleblower” policies and processes are set up to protect the organization, not the person making the complaint. It’s you against the power structure in these situations, so you better have all your ducks in a row. Consulting with a very trusted advisor or attorney is probably a good idea.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#55

Post by Clubber »

BJones12 wrote: post #5

> Brain’s complaint contained allegations of wrongdoing... regarding repurposing the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space to accommodate a new hire.. “What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation the likes of which could not be believed” "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

This is funny because it's so accurate. I worked a year or two in college doing IT support for the College of Business in my final years of school. The prior boss who had actual experience in running IT departments was run out (fired) and replaced by an economics professor who had no idea what he was doing. The economics professor lead the charge in running out his predecessor. I don't know the reason but it was pretty ugly and everyone in IT support had zero respect for the economics professor. I came in after the fact so I had no skin in that game.

As an aside, every professor got a brand new $4000 Dell every year because if the college didn't spend its budget, it would get less money the next year. Most of these professors just used Office to do their lesson plans and that's it. This was in the 1990s and it was a huge waste of money. I would imagine it's much worse now. That probably had something to do with it.

I recently read a quote that paraphrased went like, "bureaucracies care about following procedure over outcomes."

I hope US universities get fixed. Their current state is a great disservice to the future of the country.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#56

Post by riku_iki »

coldtea wrote: post #35
brailsafe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I often reflect on some of my career mistakes, especially when evaluating current decisions within the context of a job or interacting with other institutions, and what I wish I'd learnt earlier would be to "read a room". Sure, there is technically a process for reporting wrongdoing, but there's no process for reporting wrongdoing and keeping your job, and keeping your job is more important. What isn't your job…

> Sure, there is technically a process for reporting wrongdoing, but there's no process for reporting wrongdoing and keeping your job, and keeping your job is more important. What isn't your job is taking moral stances on things, having political opinions, provoking what others might see as unnecessary conflict, in any form. Up to a certain point. That answer didn't hold up well at the Nuremberg trials. After a point…

> That answer didn't hold up well at the Nuremberg trials.

that's just winners were punishing losers.

In alternative reality, those who dropped nukes were facing trial in Nuremberg.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#59

Post by benreesman »

simpaticoder wrote: post #12

His story is a cautionary tale about real life vs idealism. The two come into conflict frequently, and sometimes violently. Nothing is more difficult or dangerous than holding power to account; the mechanisms we imagine are in place to hold power accountable exist purely in that imagination. The personal feelings of shame, guilt, or ethical responsibility we imagine there to be, or the social pressure brought to bear…

Economists and auction theorists have a term of art: “revealed preference”. It’s typically not applied to society in the large, but I think it’s useful to zoom out from time to time.

Our society, whatever the internal dynamics, has a revealed preference in the extreme, a preference so forceful it’s an idee fixe, a singular objective.

We will sacrifice anything: arbitrary loss of life, arbitrary suffering and indignity, arbitrary damage to the planet to transfer wealth upwards constantly to the maximum extent that we can blow past the feeble speed bumps that our institutions represent.

This upwards wealth transfer is in two senses of the word “up”: from poor to rich, and from young to old. We openly advertise targets for the economy like “the stock market” (US equities overwhelming held by boomers and rich people), or GDP growth (real wages at the median, go back to Venezuela commie). We don’t even pretend we’re optimizing for anything else.

Lina Khan is trying to enforce laws already on the books and is deemed dangerously radical.

You think these sociopaths won’t kill people? They’ll kill millions of people if they have to, they’ve done it before.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#60

Post by greenavocado »

knowitnone wrote: post #19

sounds like typical high school bullying except by adults and so-called professionals. how does a disagreement between two turn into multiple departments jumping in for one side?

Nepotism is a well documented phenomenon
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