More on the Tonegawa Saga

I didn't blog about this when it first came out, go see Janet Stemwedel's blog (here, here and here) on how Susumu Tonegawa dissuaded Alla Karpova from taking a position at MIT.

Here's the latest from the Boston Globe:

Susumu Tonegawa , whose actions sparked an outcry from several colleagues, will not be disciplined, L. Rafael Reif, Massachusetts Institute of Technology provost, said yesterday. Reif said several individuals acted inappropriately in the failed effort to recruit neuroscientist Alla Karpova , and there is no need to punish anyone because the real blame lies with the competitive relationship between different neuroscience centers at MIT.

"We cannot allow internal competitiveness to undercut the integrity, values , and mission of the Institute as a whole," MIT President Susan Hockfield wrote in a letter to professors that accompanied an MIT committee's report on the episode.

...

The committee's report concluded that it was OK for Tonegawa to tell Karpova that his lab would not collaborate with hers, but that it was inappropriate for him to express concerns about competition as the biology department chairman was deciding whether to make a job offer. It was "even more inappropriate for him to send discouraging e - mails after an offer was made," the report said.

"Tonegawa's communication with Karpova may be a manifestation of inappropriate competitiveness," the authors wrote. "However, we also believe that to some extent Tonegawa was provoked."

Tonegawa, they wrote, was not included in the interview process early enough, and his concerns about the overlap between his research interests and Karpova's were dismissed "when normally the issue of overlap is taken very seriously."

The report criticized other individuals, especially Robert Desimone , head of the McGovern Institute. Desimone, the report said, wrongly tried to influence the biology department's decision, and along with Tonegawa, failed at times to consider Karpova's or MIT's well - being.

Desimone said yesterday that he endorsed Hockfield's call for greater cooperation, but said he was planning to inform the administration of "numerous factual errors, misstatements, and omissions " in the report.

Some professors who had criticized Tonegawa's behavior months ago said they were unsatisfied by the report.

"By failing to take decisive action, the administration is condoning a 67-year-old Nobel Prize winner, a high - level administrator at MIT, sending threatening e - mails to a postdoc," said biologist Nancy Hopkins , one of a group of female professors who raised concerns in June about Tonegawa.

MIT's response "perpetuates destructive behavior by powerful senior faculty and administrators against young scientists, particularly women, and damages MIT's efforts in neuroscience," she said.

Infighting by some big shots at some University in Boston? ... and the big shots get away with it? ... that never happens. (Coughs while turning away.)

(P.S. Someone recently told a friend, and former Harvard postdoc, "Harvard hired xxx? He'll fit in with all the xxx xxxxx there.")