Talk:Jorge I. Domínguez

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Fish and karate in topic RFC on sexual harassment material in BLP
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WP:Weight

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The length and detail of the sexual harassment section is out of proportion to the rest of the biography. Also, I think the sexual harassment section belongs at the end of the article, after the explanation of why the subject is notable. I suggest that others who have been working on this condense the sexual harassment to no more than 2 or 3 paragraphs, keeping the most relevant references, etc. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:05, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Agreed - HouseOfChange I've had some anonymous user vehemently attack me on this subject, even though my only argument is the same as yours above - that if he is only notable for sexual harassment, he is not notable. I feel he is notable, but not JUST for sexual harassment, even though that seems to be the way certain (anonymous) editors want to spin the article. See my talk page if you want to see how bad of a person they think I am. - PabloMartinez (talk) 14:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • His notability is clearly for both his scholarship and the findings and charges of sexual harassment. The sexual harassment section has been moved down from where it was. The length and detail of it match the RSs - that is what we do, to avoid editor bias .. we don't delete RS mention for IDONTLIKEIT reasons, though if there is duplication, it is appropriate. As to your other edits, and I've only looked at the lede, I would suggest they comport for example with wp:lede -- there's no need to encumber it with refs that are not needed in the lede; one for the contentious sentence suffices. --2604:2000:E016:A700:F03A:225A:2486:4BD2 (talk) 07:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Edits by House

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House -- you have made a number of edits that are not appropriate. For example, Refs not needed for non-contentious lede if in body; four paras are appropriate for this article, beginning of career mention is appropriate (you deleted it), year of Low mention appropriate (you deleted it), etc. --2604:2000:E016:A700:F03A:225A:2486:4BD2 (talk) 07:17, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

House's edits to the sexual harassment section are disturbing. It is quite frankly shocking that he would want to delete this highly relevant material - if it is good faith it is extremely poor judgment (this is clearly highly notable and RS supported and relevant). If House disagrees, let's bring in admins to discuss. 2604:2000:E016:A700:F03A:225A:2486:4BD2 (talk) 07:26, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
I think the length and detail of that section are far beyond appropriate WP:WEIGHT for a BLP. I was trying to shorten it to an appropriate length. There now seem to be two very recent, very similar IP accounts at work to add salacious details about Dominguez's sexual harassment history to this article. These details are amply available in the sources being cited. I would welcome having admins make the judgment of whether this is appropriate for Wikipedia. By the way, the Yahoo article you cite is exactly the same article as the Newsweek article you cite. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
Here is the version of the sexual harassment section after I had edited it, and by the way I still think it was then too long.

In 1983, Domínguez was officially disciplined by Harvard's administration for "serious conduct" for sexually harassing Terry Karl, then a junior faculty colleague in Harvard's Government Department (and now a professor emeritus of political science and Latin Studies at Stanford University).[23][24] He was forbidden from holding administrative responsibilities for three years.[25] Nevertheless, after his 1983 reprimand, Domínguez was promoted several times to positions of responsibility, including being named the Vice Provost for International Affairs.[25]

On February 27, 2018, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that at least ten women, including graduate students and junior colleagues, described incidents in which Domínguez allegedly sexually harassed them, dating back to 1979 and continuing through at least 2015.[26] According to the New York Times, allegations from other women "ranged in severity, from inappropriate full-body hugs to claims by one woman that he grabbed her buttocks and tried to put his hand down her pants."[24][27]

Domínguez said he was surprised and saddened by the allegations, added that his behavior may have been misinterpreted, and stated: "I do not go around making sexual advances."[10]

In response to these allegations, Harvard University announced in March 2018 that it was soliciting additional information from university affiliates regarding Domínguez's alleged misconduct and placed him on paid administrative leave pending conclusion of an internal review.[28][29][26] Domínguez's membership in the Leverett House Senior Common Room was also revoked.[30]

On March 6, 2018, Domínguez resigned from his administrative positions and announced his intention to retire fully from Harvard at the end of the Spring 2018 semester.[26] University administrators stated that the sexual harassment investigations would not be affected by his retirement.[3]

HouseOfChange (talk) 15:57, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

RFC on sexual harassment material in BLP

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The subject of this article has been accused of sexual harassment, first in 1983 (after which Harvard disciplined but retained and later promoted him) and very recently, with stories emerging going back for decades alleging inappropriate behavior. Of course some of this material should be in the bio, but I have a disagreement with another editor (or possibly five, although the IP addresses are very similar) about WP:WEIGHT. On the talk page, they are sharply critical of my edits to the article.

The IPs (Special:Contributions/2604:2000:E016:A700:8853:2F07:A72D:96A2, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:E016:A700:F81C:D427:6CB1:E49F, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:E016:A700:14D7:F45B:2E06:DDDC, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:E016:A700:E1FD:CB3E:641B:795B, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:E016:A700:FDB2:3234:2AAA:AB32) have been editing this article aggressively to add all possible references for the sex scandal, including transforming one Harvard Crimson article into 3, and citing both one Newsweek article and its absolute duplicate in Yahoo.

I think that the number of overlapping references, the paragraph they added to the header, and the accusatory tone of the Sexual harassment section, are inappropriate to WP:WEIGHT and BLP. It will be better to have one sentence at most in the header, with maybe three paragraphs in the body, including links to articles where interested people can read the detailed salacious claims against the subject.

I am not trying to whitewash the subject. What he is accused of is reprehensible and claims against him are news. But unless I am wrong, the amount of space and detail spent describing these claims should have some balance with the amount of space the article spends describing his notability. What do others think? Thanks! HouseOfChange (talk) 04:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

  • Controversy sections in a BLP are generally bad The purpose of Wikipedia is not to "shame evildoers" but to give facts of encyclopedic value to readers. Whenever "righting wrongs" is the goal of any editor, the encyclopedia suffers. Any material should be short, and not be "overcited", to say the least. Collect (talk) 17:43, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Let's not minimize it by calling it harrassment. Some of the allegations detailed later in our article are of full-on sexual assault. We should clearly say that he has been accused of both sexual assault and sexual harrassment, (briefly) in the lead because it has become a significant part of his life story (for instance, it has led to his early retirement). I am not a big fan of repeating all the lurid details of these cases, in part because his victims shouldn't have to see their victimization made more public, but we do need enough detail in the body of the article to justify the brief summary in the lead. Perhaps it can be made shorter than the current five paragraphs, though. As for the citation overkill: not necessary as long as we have reliable sources for the incidents we report. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:11, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • What David Eppstein said. The current five-paragraph section might be tightened somewhat; I could see the three pointers to the Crimson (currently footnotes 26, 27 and 28) merged into one for ease of reading. We do not make much use of the Miami Herald article ([1]), though it does have some details on top of the Chronicle report. XOR'easter (talk) 22:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Question of RS for "sexual assault" After reading David Eppstein's comment and change to the article, I searched for the word "assault" in the sources we're citing. Almost all say "sexual harassment" with some saying "sexual misconduct" or "inappropriate behavior." IANAL, but shouldn't the article stick to the way RS describe what he is accused of? Or does somebody have RS that says he's accused of sexual assault? HouseOfChange (talk) 22:21, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
    • Read what it says now in our article. It says "claims by one woman that he grabbed her buttocks and tried to put his hand down her pants". That is unambiguously sexual assault. We don't have to have reliable sources that actually state the words "sexual assault" just like we don't have to have reliable sources that state the exact words we use for other purposes (taken to an extreme, that position would imply that the only content allowed here would be plagiarism). However, there do exist reliable sources that explicitly use the phrase "sexual assault" for Domínguez's case: see [2] "students and colleagues accused Dominguez of sexual harassment and assault". —David Eppstein (talk) 00:12, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
      • PS as for "inappropriate behavior": see [3]. Author Ben Yagoda suggests that this phrase is a weasel word and I tend to agree. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:32, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
        • I think to say "sexual assault" is as much of an overkill as "inappropriate behavior" is an underkill. According to Wikipedia, "sexual assault" is a blanket term that includes rape and child abuse as well as sexual harassment and "groping" (nonconsensual sexual touching, behavior that is described by the NYT quote.) Also, to say "sexual assault and sexual harassment" is bit like saying "China and Shanghai." The reason I mentioned "inappropriate behavior" was the same NYT article you reference above. That article said he had been "accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior." I was including it in the catalog of locutions available from RS, not suggesting that it become the lone description of his behavior. Please agf that I want to improve, not sanitize, this BLP. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:30, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
          • As far as I know nobody has yet accused him of rape, but if they did we should say rape rather than any of the common media euphemisms for it, per WP:EUPHEMISM. Since he has been accused of conduct that is inarguably a form of sexual assault, and we have reliable sources calling it sexual assault, we should similarly call it sexual assault rather than just "harassment" or "inappropriate behavior". (Also, I have good faith that you are working to make our article on him appropriately balanced rather than trying to whitewash it, and I do agree with your initial point that we should not overbalance the article with this stuff to the point where a reader would think the subject notable only for this behavior and not for his actual academic accomplishments.) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
            • But is any RS calling it "sexual assault"? I could not find any saying that. If you want to emphasize what he is accused of beyond "sexual harassment", I think "groping" is more accurate, but I am still uncomfortable that no RS is using that term either to describe the behavior.HouseOfChange (talk) 04:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • I agree with David E that some of the allegations detailed are sexual assault, and to avoid copyvio we don't seek to use every precise word in the source. And that we briefly should say in the lede - as we do in one sentence -- he has been accused of (though it goes beyond just an accusation, in the case of the name junior professor, as Harvard's administration officially disciplined him for "serious conduct" for sexually harassing her and forbade him from holding administrative responsibilities for three years) both sexual assault and sexual harrassment, because it has become a significant part of his life story (sanctioned, academic leave, early retirement, etc.). The details of this case are relevant, because they relate directly to what House is arguing with David above .. what level the actions rise to (which are generally a question for readers in these cases) - and the victims are the ones who have publicized them. As for citations, as long as the same info is in more than one RS, one is enough - but checking these refs in many cases I see they report different aspects and so support different parts of the sentence. Generally, this looks good -- 2 sentences at the bottom of the lede on the life-changing charges of decades-long behavior, the discussion of the charges by the 18 women and the aftermath is put all the way at the bottom of the article, the behavior specifics are relevant, if there are truly duplicative refs then those can be deleted (but care must be taken to make sure they are truly duplicative). If House wants to add more material to the earlier paragraphs on his accomplishment, of course he is free to look for coverage in RSs that support such additions and then add them .. since the guy has put together a 50 page CV on himself, perhaps some RSs have found that information notable and covered it in articles, making it ripe for coverage here.2604:2000:E016:A700:F5A1:77F6:3111:3FD5 (talk) 04:59, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Add other material to balance I think the current level of detail on the sexual misconduct—1983 and discipline, brief summary of current allegations, his denial, and administrative consequences—is close to the minimum amount of material that would provide an encyclopedically adequate account.
If this is WP:UNDUE relative to the rest of the article, by definition there must be enough RS to expand the other sections to match—that's how WP:BALASPS is constructed. FourViolas (talk) 11:40, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • I trust Wikipedia I brought this to RfC because I think this article as it stands is a discredit to Wikipedia policies regarding BLP, NPOV, and WEIGHT. Many commenters disagree with my belief, and feel this article is basically fine. I am not here as a fan or defender of Dominguez and I have no plan to edit an article that is owned by an active SPA. I trust other Wikipedians will gradually improve the article. You might start by reducing the Harvard-shaming, for example, mention once not twice that he was promoted after the 1983 scandal. It would also be relevant what year the first promotion happened. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:50, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment (Summoned by bot) Please refine what you want this RfC to determine. Coretheapple (talk) 13:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alleged

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David Eppstein Per [4] I see the paragraphs using alleged everywhere in the section, except for the initial paragraph about Terry Karl; even there the source cited uses alleged at-least once, and the other sources in the section that I saw also use alleged. I do not see that there is enough sources nor any real confirmation to omit the "alleged" especially per BLP Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:39, 22 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

The harassment of Terry Karl is not merely alleged — it was confirmed by a university investigation. The incidents involving other people appear to be unconfirmed, though. "Alleged" is listed as a word to watch in Wikipedia's manual of style, as one of several words to "be used with caution, because they may introduce bias". Here, the bias is that this wording expresses doubt over whether the incidents actually happened, when in fact at least some of them are confirmed to have happened. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:35, 22 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
David Eppstein User:Galobtter Most of that section describes unconfirmed allegations. We also don't know from RS which of Terry Karl's accusations were confirmed by Harvard, just that Harvard found some or all of them serious enough to discipline Dominguez severely but fairly briefly. I suggest a compromise section title, "Allegations of xxx," which accurately describes the material there, and seems to express less bias than either the assertive "xxx" or the possibly doubtful "Alleged xxx." HouseOfChange (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
How is "allegations" different from "alleged"? They are both variant forms of the exact same English word. Because the Harvard proceedings were not an open point of law, we are not going to get, and are not entitled to get, more details of exactly what they confirmed; that is not a good reason for unfairly casting doubt on his accusers. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:45, 22 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
I like the compromise that David Eppstein proposes for the article. I think it is better than my own suggestion. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:57, 23 April 2018 (UTC)Reply