While there are plenty of good academic advisors and professors out there, the bad actors with tenure are most certainly a vexing ilk to deal with. And some are even dangerous to the point that they’ll go out of their way to ruin lives or even commit crimes, knowing their school protects them. One particular mathematics professor at the University of Oklahoma perfectly fits the description of a bully with a PhD. After attempting to publish their work without consent, he began following them on dog walks, downtown bars, and even to their house.
According to the student, the drama began when the Oklahoma professor didn’t let them graduate on time, yet still demanded they do research under his name. Naturally, free labor is not an ideal practice in the current economy, so the student dropped out of the professor’s program and ignored his emails. That’s when things turned up a notch, as the professor first tried publishing their work without their permission, in essence stealing research that wasn’t his. But he didn’t stop there.
Coming to the student’s home address, he would harass and yell at them for not cooperating with his wishes. “He would find me when I was walking my dog to harass me,” the student detailed. “He even followed me in downtown Norman to bars to confront me. The entire time this was occurring, the graduate college knew, the math department knew, research integrity knew. Not a [expletive] thing was done.”
Eventually, a lawyer for the university got involved, but ended up taking the student’s side based on the evidence given. As for the professor, he got tenure. But what triggered the student to make Reddit posts about this whole ordeal now was that the University of Oklahoma began praising itself on social media, claiming it was looking out for its students. The posts were about “how much they care preventing inappropriate instructor behavior after letting professor stalk me for months at my home for telling him he couldn’t steal my research,” the student remarked.
Redditors in the University of Oklahoma students’ posts suggested they take this story to a local media outlet to publicize the corruption within the school’s faculty. “Stalking and harassment are crimes. Did you make a statement to the police?” one user asked. And while they did inform the police and email a news station about the situation, no one wanted to talk negatively about the university. Even though the student technically “won” the case in the end, it goes to show that villains in the higher education system still exist. Hopefully, justice will come to these criminals somehow.
