Guilty
It's confirmed that Stanton Glantz has violated UCSF’s sexual harassment policies but remains in position and in control of funding as the disciplinary procedures continue.
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by Dave Cross
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Campaigners against vaping and harm reduction don’t come much bigger than Stanton Glantz. He has loomed over progress like a big black cloud, raining down half-truths and outright lies for years. In the past, he has attacked the Public Health England report, produced nonsense studies, and been roundly condemned by leading figures involved in harm reduction research.
Following the growth of the #MeToo movement, women working alongside Glantz were inspired to report his unacceptable behaviour. Claims were lodged alleging that Glantz acted inappropriately in the workplace, made racist comments, sexual harassed female colleagues, and stole the credit for research.
According to the University of San Francisco’s own documentation, Glantz conducted himself in such a fashion as to create an “intimidating and offensive work environment”.
Eunice Neeley’s court papers stated: “Professor Glantz abused his authority and prestige at UCSF and sexually harassed Neeley, and other female subordinates, and subjected them to misogynistic and racially insensitive behaviour. While Neeley was employed at UCSF, Glantz repeatedly stared at her body and chest, leered at her, forced her to hug him on several occasions, and made sexually charged remarks. Neeley attempted to ignore Glantz’s harassing conduct and avoid him, but he persisted nonetheless. Neeley finally reported the harassment to UCSF, but no immediate action was taken to protect her. Instead, UCSF and Glantz retaliated against Neeley by removing authorship credit for a paper she researched and wrote, impacting her career and reputation to others.”
Despite the no-admission of guilt out of court settlement being reached between Neeley, Glantz and his employers, the university found that Glantz was guilty of “repeatedly staring at [Eunice Neeley’s] breasts” and concluded that a letter of reprimand should be placed in his official employment record for a period of no less than one year. In addition, Glantz was instructed that he must successfully complete a sexual harassment education program at his own expense.
Some have said that none of this has anything to do with vaping or harm reduction and should pass without comment. This might be true if Glantz wasn’t responsible for a multi-million dollar research fund dedicated to creating lies to discredit harm reduction technologies. This catalogue of events serves to illustrate that the man isn’t fit to hold down this position and should have had his contract terminated when the university found him guilty.
The university issued a short comment on the proceedings to Planet of the Vapes. Notably, the female employee distanced herself from the comment and wished to remain anonymous – and the university doesn’t consider the disciplinary process to have been concluded yet.
Planet of the Vapes has contacted the National Institutes for Health (NIH), a body that provides funding to UCSF. The NIH said it “does not discuss allegations of sexual harassment”, although we pointed out that he has been found guilty by the university and it is therefore not an allegation.
NIH continued: “As a term and condition of a grant award, institutions are required to develop and implement policies and practices that foster a harassment-free environment. The grantee is obligated to notify NIH if it takes administrative or disciplinary action against an employee, such as placing an employee on leave or terminating employment, that impacts the ability of the employee to continue as senior personnel on an NIH grant.”
“When this occurs, NIH can take several actions, including approving a new lead principal investigator (PI) recommended by the grantee if scientifically appropriate, or suspending or terminating the grant.”
“Generally, NIH views a replacement PI as the best course of action, when possible, to allow scientific progress of a peer-reviewed project and allow other personnel working on the grant, including in some cases the victim of harassment, to continue their research.”
The last quote is important due to the number of unresolved complaints still outstanding against Stanton Glantz. Were they to be upheld in a similar fashion, these women require protecting from the “intimidating and offensive work environment” he has engendered.
“Importantly, if NIH indirectly learns of an allegation of sexual harassment that impacts NIH-funded research, we will contact the grantee institution to learn more, and among other possibilities, we may withdraw our approval of the PI if there is a reasonable basis to conclude the PI is no longer qualified or competent to perform the research objectives.”
NIH was not prepared to confirm or deny that it had contacted UCSF about the reported incidents.
The NIH has created an anti–sexual harassment website, which states: “The National Institutes of Health (NIH) does not tolerate pervasive or severe harassment of any kind, including sexual harassment, whether it is within the agency, at research organizations that receive NIH funding.”
The National Institutes for Health should, if it hasn’t already done so, contact University of California San Francisco immediately. Also, the University of California San Francisco has to do the right thing by its female employees now it has found Glantz in breach of its sexual harassment policies - the proven abhorrent behaviour from Stanton Glantz ought to be enough to demonstrate that he isn’t fit to continue in his post.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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