Important Concerns and Issues
II. CONCERNING THE PROFESSION
Brian Leiter's Reaction to the Posting of Ed Erwin's Letter, and to Subsequent Correspondence
1. Overview
Professor
Ed Erwin believes, as do I, that it is important for people to know the
outcome of the lawsuit that had been filed against him, Colin McGinn,
and the University of Miami, and that had been settled in 2016. He
therefore wrote a letter describing in detail the outcome of that
lawsuit, and given that Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog is “The
world's most popular philosophy blog for more than a dozen years,” Ed
contacted Brian Leiter, to ask Brian if he would post that letter on
his website.
In order to
decide whether to post Ed’s letter or not, Brian asked to see the (very
lengthy) deposition of the plaintiff in the case, and after reading it,
Brian indicated that he was not interested in posting Ed’s letter. Ed
had told Brian that if Brian not to post the letter on Leiter Reports,
I would post it on my website, and Brian said that if I did so, he
would provide a link to the letter on his Leiter Reports.
I therefore
posted Ed’s letter, which seems to me excellent, and very informative,
with the hope that that would then result in some fruitful discussion
on philosophy blogging sites, including, for example, Justin Weinberg’s
Daily Nous. I expected
that Brian would set out a brief summary of Ed’s letter on his blog,
accompanied by a link to my site. Brian, however, decided to offer a
detailed commentary, setting out the case for what he viewed as a more
plausible hypothesis concerning the plaintiff’s behavior than the one
set out be the defense.
As will be
described below, Professor Erwin and I have written to Brian, criticizing
various aspects of his discussion. Our criticisms have not been posted on Leiter Reports.
2. Professor Erwin’s Letter to Professor Leiter
Ed
Erwin wrote a letter to Brian offering detailed support for the view
that the hypothesis that Brian was claiming was plausible rested upon a
supposition that there were good reasons to believe was false, and
which Ed described. Brian's response to the letter from Ed
consisted of the following short update at the end Brian's discussion:
“UPDATE: Professor Erwin writes: "Concerning your reading
of the Morrison deposition, if you are merely reporting what strikes
you as plausible, we do not disagree. However, others will take you to
be saying that in fact this is the most plausible reading. To them I
say: All depends on accepting Morrison's statements as true."
Professor Erwin does not think the plaintiff is reliable. I agree
with him that if the plaintiff's statements are not accurate, then her
explanation of what transpired would not be persuasive.”
Notice two things here. First, Brian refers to Ed's view, but does not
tell readers that Ed offered, in his letter, detailed support for his
view. Second, suppose that you had put forward a hypothesis that you
suggested was plausible, and that concerned an important matter. What
would you do if someone offered you detailed reasons for thinking that
your hypothesis rested upon a claim that was not true? Shouldn't you
then investigate the matter, to see whether the reasons offered were
sound, in which case you should conclude that your hypothesis was not
plausible. The “Update,” however, does not provide any reason for
thinking that Brian has any intention of looking into the matter
further – something that could be done quite simply via further
correspondence with Ed Erwin.
3. My Comments on Professor Leiter’s Remarks
I thought that Brian's commentary was
problematic in certain respects, so I wrote a short piece, which I sent
to Brian, asking if he would post it on his blog. His answer was that
he would not. In any case, here are my thoughts.
Brian Leiter's Commentary
One
of the most important issues raised by Professor Ed Erwin's letter
concerns the practice of blacklisting, a practice that is rapidly
growing within the philosophy profession. On that matter, Brian is
forthright and vigorous in his condemnation of the practice, expressing
his agreement with Ed Erwin at the beginning of this comments, and then
strongly repeating his view at the end:
"Notwithstanding that, and
notwithstanding that I find the plaintiff's narrative plausible, I want
to reiterate that Professor Erwin is correct: whatever the
precise nature of Professor McGinn's misconduct in this matter, he
should not be blacklisted from the profession, from publications, or
from professional events. He has been sanctioned by the
University of Miami for his misconduct, losing his job. Let him,
and anyone similarly situated, contribute intellectually and
professionally to the extent he is able.”
In my view, these remarks on
blacklisting are very welcome indeed, for although many might well
agree with Brian's comments, I suspect that relatively few people would
be willing to express their agreement in the present climate. So Brian
is very much to be commended on this matter.
In between his opening and closing remarks on blacklisting, however,
Brian's commentary seems to me less satisfactory, both with regard to
what he says, and, more importantly, with regard to what he doesn't say.
As regards the former, consider the following passage:
"A large part of Mr. Isicoff's
examination consists of showing the plaintiff e-mails and asking
questions of the form (my language, not his obviously), "Why were you
so nice in this e-mail to Colin McGinn instead of telling him to fuck
off if he was really harassing you?"
Are questions of this kind
unreasonable? I would think they were perfectly appropriate. But Brian
formulates this sort of question in his own words, and, indeed, in an
expletive-added way. Why do that, rather than simply quoting a couple
of Mr. Isicoff's own questions from the deposition?
What seems to me much more important, however, is the absence of any comments on the following matters.
(1) McGinn's Loss of his Job
Brian,
as quoted above, says “whatever the precise nature of Professor
McGinn's misconduct in this matter, he should not be blacklisted from
the profession, from publications, or from professional events.” Again,
I want to commend Brian on this statement. But what, then, about
McGinn's losing his job? Was that a just outcome? Does Brian think that
McGinn's loss of his job was “proportional to the offense,” or not?
(2) A $16,000,000 Lawsuit
Suppose
that you were one of the parties named in a lawsuit where the damages
claimed turned out to be of the order of several million dollars. How
would that affect you, and your spouse if you were married?
Unless you were a rather unusual person, the emotional impact would
surely be quite significant. What about the financial impact?
Unless you were yourself a trial attorney, I think that you would
probably want to hire a very good lawyer. How much might that cost? One
friend, who has had some personal experience in this area, estimated
that the cost would probably be in the range of $60,000 to $300,000,
depending on the complexity and the length of the case. So here one
would like to know, then, whether Brian thinks that a lawsuit, asking
for damages that turned out to be of the order of $16,000,000, was
justified.
(3) The Inclusion of Professor Erwin in the Lawsuit
One
thing we learn from Ed Erwin's letter concerning the case is that Ann
Olivarius, the plaintiff's lawyer, sent a letter to Ed Erwin's lawyer,
agreeing that the case against Ed Erwin did “not require litigating”
Nevertheless, she proceeded to do just that. We also learn that the
judge in the case not only dismissed all charges against Ed Erwin, but
did so “with prejudice.” So here my question is whether Brian thinks
that including Professor Erwin in the lawsuit was justified.
(4) Things That Tell Against a Common View of the Case
In his letter, Ed Erwin lists five things that might well seem to tell against a common view of the McGinn case:
"Several things came out during the
plaintiff's deposition that tell against received opinion on this case.
These include: (a) the plaintiff swore under oath that she never viewed
the infamous "handjob" messages as referring to masturbation (b) the
plaintiff made repeated favorable references to "handjobs", "grips" and
related matters herself in her correspondence with McGinn (c) the
plaintiff sent numerous messages to McGinn that the university took to
demonstrate that there was no sexual harassment but rather a consensual
romantic, non-sexual relationship between them, (d) although the
plaintiff showed several people at the university some messages that
McGinn had sent her, she never showed anyone (including her mother, her
own attorney, and, as he testified, her boyfriend, Ben Yelle) most of
the text messages she had sent McGinn (e) the plaintiff later claimed
that her reason for neglecting to show anyone her text messages to
McGinn was that someone spilled beer on her phone. She did not produce
the phone.”
What I wonder about here, then, is
whether Brian agrees, or disagrees, with the claim that these things
tell against the “received opinion on this case.”
In Conclusion
The above seem to me important matters, so it my hope that Brian will say, at some point, what his thoughts are on them.