I loved the bias of that. For example, in quoting emails supposedly designed to organize discrimination against him, there’s this bit:
“One important thing to keep in mind, however, is the equal treatment of all RAs in the section. You must not impose more onerous restrictions on one particular RA than on other RA’s in the section”
No matter what they did, they remembered that they could not punish him. As far as a hostile work environment, well boo-hoo. He does something most others in his profession see as wrong and supports a view that most see as invalid, and he expects not to get heat? Whiner.
Now all RAs require a sponsor, since it is a privilege to work there. After this it didn’t look like anyone would volunteer as a sponsor. That’s obvious, nobody’s going to put his butt on the line to sponsor someone who has done what Sternberg did. So we got this email:
“Anyway, the core point, I obviously am not going to be able to find a sponsor for Sternberg, yet his official status is as a research associate for the next three years. If you don’t want to make a martyr of him, I’ll sponsor him.”
He actually had an offer of special treatment because of his status as a religious whiner. This is of course interpreted as mistreatment.
Yeah right. And that was a warning because it was in relation to the suggested "retaliation? against Sternberb so that "Rafa",Rafael Lemaitre, would be mollified, "the access and office privileges of a certain RA can be reconsidered with due consideration of Rafa's concerns".
As far as a hostile work environment, well boo-hoo. He does something most others in his profession see as wrong and supports a view that most see as invalid, and he expects not to get heat? Whiner.
Well, it is against the law to harrass or create a hostile work environment based upon a person's religion and the email's are a smoking gun to that aspect, however, since Sternberg was not an employee the OSI could not get involved. But you can bet your donkey that, had Sternberg been an employee, the Smithsonian would have been out a few bucks.
So you consider having a sponsor "special treatment"? I believe the rules at the Smithsonian covered that. That is why Coddington was the sponsor. He had to be. It is apparent that the people there at SI did not know their own rules and eventually stumbled upon them.
>>> Jonathan Coddington 10/05/04 1l:OlAM >>> He does have a supervisor--the Chair, by default, if no one else. Everybody, always, has a supervisor.
Now he used the word supervisor and not sponsor, but since we all know that Sternberg was not an employee at SI, supervisor must mean sponsor. Or they are in big trouble.
The short of this exchange seems to be that you are as apologetic for these emails as the global warming scammers are apologetic for their emails.