The Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics Hosts Panels on Harassment of Researchers

September 26, 2024

Authored by:

Brook Endale

In recent years, more and more researchers across various disciplines have reported being threatened and harassed by individuals and groups attempting to discredit, disrupt or stop their work.

The Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics (IDDP) at the George Washington University hosted a panel discussion featuring testimony from researchers who have lived through being the target of such harassment and expert discussion on combating the alarming trend.

The event, "Addressing Researcher Harassment: A Fireside Chat and Panel Discussion to Launch New Researcher Support Tools," was held Friday afternoon in the Jack Morton Auditorium at GW.

Rebekah Tromble, the director of IDDP, highlighted the broader societal threat posed by the rise in harassment against researchers.

"While such attacks are often understood in isolation as separate campaigns targeting individual researchers, specific projects or topics, we need to take a step back and recognize that these campaigns are part of a wider endeavor to undermine the credibility of higher education and to reduce trust in science and scientific knowledge," Tromble said. "Higher education and scientific inquiry are bedrocks of a democratic society. They are vital to the free exchange of information and ideas to progress."

Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of Science Magazine and a professor of chemistry at GW, emphasized the need for universities and institutions to stand behind their researchers and speak out against targeted harassment.

"I'm constantly imploring my colleagues who I realize are all in very difficult situations that they need to be themselves and share the thoughts in their mind that they know are correct because we're in such a dangerous and noisy political environment," Thorp said.

The event featured two panels, both moderated by Brandy Zadrozny, a senior reporter at NBC News who covers the internet, including how political extremism takes shape online.

The first panel featured Renée DiResta and Kate Starbird.

DiResta was formerly the research manager for the Stanford Internet Observatory and the author of "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality." Starbird is an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington.

Zadrozny said both DiResta and Starbird did significant work around COVID-19 and the 2020 election, particularly in tracking and documenting misinformation.

Zadrozny asked the two researchers to discuss their experience of being the target of intense harassment and intimidation after making their work public.

"There were these absolutely insane allegations, saying we were being paid to silence conservatives and just a series of things where you initially think this is so ludicrous that nobody is going to take this seriously," DiResta said.

They faced online harassment, personal attacks, threats to their family members and became the center of congressional investigations where their private email correspondences were obtained.

"And you begin to realize that you're in this damned if you do, damned if you don't environment where if you respond, you're going to be targeted. And if you do not respond, you're going to be targeted," DiResta said.

Starbird said the stress of the ordeal and the work she had to do to defend herself negatively impacted her research.

"It probably cost a year of productivity from my research," Starbird said. "My personal ability to engage with the research was siphoned off into trying to assemble the team of people that were going to help me and my colleagues fight back."

Starbird noted that disrupting researchers from pursuing their work is precisely the intent of such targeted attacks.

She began to feel better equipped to handle the onslaught when her university showed they would support her and offer resources including legal assistance.

DiResta said the attacks weren't limited to her work but became personal, threatening her and her family. She wrote her book as a cautionary tale of how online targeted attacks and misinformation campaigns can influence public opinion and how institutions can fight back.

"So, the next institution that has this experience thinks about it in the context of how public opinion is shaped on the internet, how influence moves on the internet and how these very divergent realities have a real impact in the real world, particularly for the target."

The second panel included Alex Abdo, the litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Mary Anne Franks, the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology and Civil Rights Law at GW Law.

Zadrozny asked the panelists to give their thoughts on the troubling trend of researchers being harassed for their work and how to preserve academic freedom in the current climate.

Franks said that these targeted attacks on researchers often involve gendered and racial dimensions.

"And these kinds of attacks, especially when they are on either women or sexual minorities, will also often have a sexual exploitation angle," Franks said. "So, in addition to the death threats, you're looking at rape threats or sexual exploitation using private images or now with new technology, the creation of images that don't actually exist."

Franks also noted that government officials have been calling university leaders to hearings, issuing threats like withholding funding, adding that such tactics are being used to discredit academics, suppress uncomfortable ideas and create a chilling effect on academic discourse.

Abdo said the legal system is being used to attack researchers and tactics like submitting freedom of information requests are often used to demand extensive details about researchers.

"What is kind of inescapable is the fact that our legal system is being abused to stifle constitutionally protected research," Abdo said. "And the unfortunate reality is that our legal system is not built in a way that makes it easy to provide an answer to these sorts of abuses or prevent abuse in this way."

Creeley said FIRE has been pushing model legislation that would protect faculty at public universities, including researchers, from intrusive open records requests.

FIRE also has a faculty defense fund where a targeted public university researcher can be provided with legal counsel.

The event made it clear that researchers need strong institutional support, legal protections and public advocacy to counter these attacks.

IDDP announced at the event the launch of a website, researchersupport.org, that offers a toolkit and resources for researchers experiencing external campaigns of intimidation and harassment.