This is another approximate transcript of a part of the conversation I had with Chemjobber that became a podcast. This segment (from about 29:55 to 52:00) includes our discussion of what a just punishment might look like for PI Patrick Harran for his part in the Sheri Sangji case. From there, our discussion shifted to the question of how to make the culture of academic chemistry safer:

Chemjobber: One of the things that I guess Ill ask is whether you think well get justice out of this legal process in the Sheri Sangji case.

Janet: I think about this, I grapple with this, and about half the time when I do, I end up thinking that punishment and figuring out the appropriate punishment for Patrick Harran doesnt even make my top-five list of things that should come out of all this. I kind of feel like a decent person should feel really, really bad about what happened, and should devote his life forward from here to making the conditions that enabled the accident that killed Sheri Sangji go away. But, you know, maybe hes not a decent person. Who the heck can tell? And certainly, once you put things in the context where you have a legal team defending you against criminal charges that tends to obscure the question of whether youre a decent person or not, because suddenly youve got lawyers acting on your behalf in all sorts of ways that dont look decent at all.

Chemjobber: Right.

Janet: I think the bigger question in my mind is how does the community respond? How does the chemistry department at UCLA, how does the larger community of academic chemistry, how do Patrick Harrans colleagues at UCLA and elsewhere respond to all of this? I know that there are some people who say, Look, he really fell down on the job safety-wise, and in terms of creating an environment for people working on his behalf, and someone died, and he should do jail time. I dont actually know if putting him in jail changes the conditions on the outside, and Ive said that I think, in some ways, tucking him away in jail for however many months makes it easier for the people who are still running academic labs while hes incarcerated to say, OK, the problem is taken care of. The bad actor is out of the pool. Not a problem, rather than looking at what it is about the culture of academic chemistry that has us devoting so little of our time and energy to making sure were doing this safely. So, if it were up to me, if I were the Queen of Just Punishment in the world of academic chemistry, Ive said his job from here on out should be to be Safety in the Research Culture Guy. Thats what he gets to work on. He doesnt get to go forward and conduct new research on some chemical question like none of this ever happened. Because something happened. Something bad happened, and the reason something bad happened, I think, is because of a culture in academic chemistry where it was acceptable for a PI not to pay attention to safety considerations until something bad happened. And thats got to change.

Chemjobber: I think it will change. I should point out here that if your proposed punishment were enacted, it would be quite a punishment, because he wouldnt get to choose what he worked on anymore, and that, to a great extent, is the joy of academic research, that its self-directed and that there is lots and lots of freedom. I dont get to choose the research problems I work on, because I do it for money. My choices are more or less made by somebody else.

Janet: But they pay you.

Chemjobber: But they pay me.

Janet: I think Id even be OK saying maybe Harran gets to do 50% of his research on self-directed research topics. But the other 50% is he has to go be an evangelist for changing how we approach the question of safety in academic research.

Chemjobber: Right.

The rest is here:
Community responsibility for a safety culture in academic chemistry.