Aktuelles

Statement on sexual misconduct and power exploitation by Miles Hewstone

We would like to address the issue of sexual misconduct and power exploitation by our former collaborator Miles Hewstone. We strongly condemn Miles Hewstone’s behavior and stand with the survivors of this harassment. We condemn any kind of (sexual) harassment and power exploitation at the workplace and beyond.

We would like to address the issue of sexual misconduct and power exploitation by our former collaborator Miles Hewstone. In an article by Katherine Griffiths in Bloomberg, the misconduct of Miles Hewstone is documented in detail, spanning a long period of time and affecting numerous students and early-career female researchers. We strongly condemn Miles Hewstone’s behavior and stand with the survivors of this harassment.

We are grateful that this information is finally publicly available and therefore thank Kathrine Griffiths and all her interview partners, who had the courage to come forward and confront this disturbing conduct.

When Miles Hewstone stepped down in 2019 and it was not possible to receive official information, we confronted him, but he completely denied any misconduct. Nevertheless, we decided not to initiate any new research projects with him. Unfortunately, there was no legal way to prevent Miles Hewstone from being listed as a co-author on ongoing. This decision could only have been made by Miles Hewstone himself.

At the same time, we considered it our responsibility to complete the research projects that were already underway, funded with public money, and to publish the data collected jointly within that framework. We all invested a great deal of time and effort into these projects, and early-career researchers were involved for whom the resulting publications were highly important for their qualification and career development. Ending the collaboration on the ongoing projects and foregoing joint publications would have imposed substantial costs. We are aware that, from the outside, this may be interpreted differently. Acting correctly in this context is difficult, however, and we struggled with this decision ever since.

Our position on this matter, however, is unequivocal: We condemn any kind of (sexual) harassment and power exploitation at the workplace and beyond and we fully agree with the statement of the ICRN: https://contactresearch.substack.com/p/icrn-response-to-evidence-of-abuse?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3178268&post_id=179494191&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4qqh3r&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Oliver Christ, Mathias Kauff, Sybille Neji, Sarina J. Schäfer