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‘I gave up a dream.’ Women accuse famed plant geneticist of sexual harassment

Women scientists have recently filed at least four formal complaints of sexual harassment against renowned plant geneticist Jean-Philippe Vielle Calzada, a senior researcher at Mexico’s National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (Langebio) in Irapuato.

In the complaints and in supporting documents and interviews, the scientists, some still trainees, make allegations including that Vielle Calzada tried to kiss them, touched them without their consent, pressured them to enter a romantic relationship, propositioned them, sent them gifts and poems, and retaliated professionally after they rejected him. The alleged incidents range from 2013 to 2019.

Institutional authorities recently told one complainant in an email she shared with Science that they had moved her case along to administrators responsible for sanctioning staff members, although no action has yet been taken. The three other complainants have received no information about the progress of their complaints and assume they are still pending.

“The common thread [among the complaints] is the abuse of power … to sexually and emotionally subordinate another person,” says Verónica Cruz, director of the Guanajuato, Mexico–based feminist organization Las Libres, which is advising some of the women who filed complaints. One, Angélica Cibrián Jaramillo, an evolutionary biologist at Langebio, estimates she lost about 2 years of academic work to the alleged harassment and its aftermath, including avoiding Vielle Calzada in the workplace. “It wasted a lot of my time and energy at a moment when I should have been channeling that time and energy into producing [research] or simply starting up the lab.”

Jean-Philippe Vielle Calzada says all the allegations against him are “false, unfounded, contrived, and spurious.”Agencia el Universal/Juan Carlos Reyes/JMA (GDA via AP Images)

Vielle Calzada, 56, denies all allegations, but refused to discuss specifics of any complaint. The complaints are “false, unfounded, contrived, and spurious,” he wrote in a statement he shared with Science after receiving a detailed list of questions. He added, “I fully believe and support the necessity to eradicate any form [of] gender violence” within academia.

Thirty people who said they had spent time in Vielle Calzada’s lab sent a letter to Science supporting him, but asked not to be identified in this story. They wrote: “We were able to benefit from a working environment that provided benefits [to] our professional careers, with equal opportunity for all.”

The sexual harassment complaints come as students and scientists at Langebio call for changes at the institution and beyond to prevent and respond to gender violence, a term that in Mexico includes discrimination and sexual harassment. Multiple allegations have roiled the country’s scientific community and sparked a debate about whether romantic or sexual relationships between senior and junior scientists are appropriate. Although many U.S. universities explicitly prohibit such relationships between supervisors and their students or employees because of the potential for abuse of power, Langebio and its parent institution, the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav), do not.

“It’s hard to acknowledge this. I know it’s a problem and that we need to fix it,” says José Mustre de León, general director of Cinvestav, a major public research institution that includes 11 units across Mexico, including Langebio. Mustre de León says he plans to update Cinvestav’s code of conduct to address romantic relationships and push for more gender equality.

Cibrián Jaramillo, then 35, started as an assistant professor at Langebio, where researchers in biotechnology, developmental biology, evolution, and other fields collaborate to study biodiversity. Cibrián Jaramillo had trained in evolutionary biology and conservation genetics at U.S. institutions including Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History, and was researching the genomics of chili peppers, maize, and other plants. She was one of the first few women to be a principal investigator at Langebio, and she says Vielle Calzada offered to help her navigate administrative hassles as she started her lab.

Cibrián Jaramillo and many others, including women who allege he harassed them, describe Vielle Calzada as brilliant and charming. He is a leading figure at Langebio, which he co-founded in the early 2000s, helping secure funds and recruit faculty members. By 2019, according to a letter of support for an award, Vielle Calzada had received more than $6 million in research grants, most from international sources including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A fellow of AAAS (which publishes Science), he studies the molecular genetics of plant reproduction and the origin and domestication of crops. According to Langebio officials, he is on several key committees at the institution, including one that evaluates the performance of principal investigators.

Angélica Cibrián Jaramillo crosses her arms and looks directly at the camera.

“It very rapidly turned into an interaction where all of his help had to go through a sexual connotation.”

  • Angélica Cibrián Jaramillo
  • National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity
Photo: Anonymous

According to Cibrián Jaramillo, in 2013 she and Vielle Calzada started a flirtatious friendship that she did not want to escalate but had trouble ending. “It very rapidly turned into an interaction where all of [his] help had to go through a sexual connotation,” she said in an interview. She says her research required equipment under his stewardship, such as a plant growth chamber that his lab managed.

In her complaint, which she shared with Science, Cibrián Jaramillo describes how Vielle Calzada repeatedly invited her to hotels despite her constant refusals. She wrote that he told her women were his weakness and he knew he had a problem. In an interview, she reported receiving calls from him in which he cried and said he was in love with her.

In 2015, according to the complaint, Vielle Calzada attempted to kiss her at a mall in Irapuato; she dodged the kiss. In 2016, at the end of an international meeting in Mexico City, she approached him to say goodbye. According to her complaint, Vielle Calzada said he was glad to see her and that she “could touch him” to verify how “gifted” he was. She alleges that he then grabbed her hand and placed it over his erect penis. “It frankly left me in shock,” she wrote. “I left as quickly as possible.”

After the incident, Cibrián Jaramillo told Science she tried to limit interactions with Vielle Calzada. She told him she did not want to be friends anymore and avoided joining committees or going to meetings where he might be. In response, she alleges in the complaint, he tried to block her access to an ancient DNA sample; she alleged in an interview that he delayed or obstructed lab-related requests that went through him. “That was his way of getting even,” she said.

Vielle Calzada refused to comment on these or other specific allegations “until full conclusion of any investigation.” However, another scientist alleged in an email to Science that in 2013 she observed Cibrián Jaramillo physically harassing Vielle Calzada at a conference by approaching him and touching his buttocks. The scientist asked to remain anonymous, saying she thought commenting publicly could interfere with an administrative investigation. Cibrián Jaramillo vehemently denies that this interaction took place.

In 2016, María Ávila Arcos, a human population geneticist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Juriquilla, attended a genomics conference in Cancún, Mexico, that Vielle Calzada helped organize. In a formal complaint she later filed with Cinvestav and shared with Science, she alleges that he approached her to privately discuss something “professional” and something “personal.” Ávila Arcos, who had not met him before and had recently returned to Mexico to set up her own research group after 6 years studying abroad, agreed.

When they were alone, Vielle Calzada told her she could always go to him for help and stressed that he had close connections with a high-ranking UNAM official. “After showing his level of power … he made romantic overtures to me. He said he was ‘in love’ with me,” Ávila Arcos wrote in her complaint. She wrote that she rejected his advances, but later received emails and a book from him.

Three years later, Ávila Arcos applied for a research grant to study ancient DNA from Mexican samples, including maize. The topic was related to Vielle Calzada’s work, but she felt uncomfortable having him on the project. In her complaint, Ávila Arcos says she called Vielle Calzada directly to explain that she did not want to include him because of his comments in Cancún. She alleges that he then retaliated against her professionally, telling colleagues at Langebio that she was manipulative. One researcher confirmed to Science that Vielle Calzada made such comments.

Vielle Calzada denies that any of this, including the retaliation, happened. “I formally and plainly reject any allegation or accusation claiming that I have [committed] any form of abuse of power [or] gender violence,” he wrote in his statement.

In March 2020, as part of International Women’s Day, Ávila Arcos tweeted about her experience, giving Vielle Calzada’s initials. In August 2020, he filed a lawsuit against her, citing in part a Mexican law that allows claims for “moral damage,” asserting that the tweets harmed his reputation and private life. The status of the lawsuit is unclear.

Maria Ávila Arcos looks directly at the camera.

“After showing his level of power … he made romantic overtures to me. He said he was ‘in love.’”

  • Maria Ávila Arcos
  • National Autonomous University of Mexico, Juriquilla
Photo: Gerardo Sánchez

After her tweets, Ávila Arcos told Science, she received messages from numerous people who said they were aware of similar harassment issues, including some involving Vielle Calzada. Cibrián Jaramillo was one of them. She, Ávila Arcos, and two others decided to file formal complaints with Cinvestav authorities. “We thought that if we did it together it would be better,” one complainant told Science, “because then they would listen to us.”

But the process has been exhausting, Cibrián Jaramillo says. “I don’t gain anything from speaking [out]; on the contrary, I lose time, prestige, peace of mind.”

A third complaint was filed by a former graduate student of Vielle Calzada’s who later joined his laboratory as a staff scientist. She asked to remain anonymous because of his influence and because she fears retaliation.

In her complaint, which she shared with Science, she says Vielle Calzada did not sexually harass her when she was a grad student or for most of her stint as a scientist in his lab. However, before leaving the lab in the mid-2010s, she asked Vielle Calzada for letters of recommendation for a scholarship and a Ph.D. program. She says he agreed, but she did not receive them immediately. Then one evening, according to her complaint, he told her he wanted to talk to her in his office. When they were alone, she wrote in the complaint, Vielle Calzada took out a bottle of tequila and offered her a drink. She says she accepted the alcohol but discreetly poured it out near a potted plant.

In the complaint, she alleges Vielle Calzada told her he had always felt attracted to her and had been in love with her. She wrote that he invited her to travel alone with him to a beach and promised to send her plane tickets. “I was feeling panicked,” she said in an interview. “I was afraid that if I said anything , that could impact my letters of recommendation.” After what she says was a 6-hour meeting, she recalls leaving Langebio very late at night.

The plane tickets never arrived, but Vielle Calzada later sent her an email, which she shared with Science, in which he wrote (in Spanish): “Today I am close to everything but your gaze […] I miss you … I don’t know why I miss you.” He attached a photo of a handwritten poem with sexual connotations that mentions parts of her body.

Days later, the young scientist says, she received her recommendation letters. She then rejected Vielle Calzada’s advances and reminded him that she had a boyfriend. “I personally made it very clear to him that I was very open to a friendship but nothing more,” she wrote in her complaint.

Six months later, Vielle Calzada emailed her and accused her of speaking badly of him and his research group, according to her complaint. The email, which she shared with Science, says that he would speak to her new adviser about “some adjustments” to the letter of recommendation he had written.

“I believe that Dr. Vielle must be laid off,” the woman wrote in her complaint. “His behavior is pathological and his permanence guarantees the appearance of future acts of sexual and workplace harassment.”

Vielle Calzada did not comment on whether he had ever sent former lab members poems, propositioned them, given them alcohol while alone with them at Langebio, or retaliated against them.

A fourth complaint comes from a research assistant who left Vielle Calzada’s group in 2019 and asked to be anonymous for fear of professional retaliation. In her complaint, which she shared with Science, she says she first met Vielle Calzada while working as an assistant for another researcher at Cinvestav.

Soon after, she alleges, Vielle Calzada insistently tried to date her, called her late at night, and sent roses to her home. She always refused his advances. Her complaint includes additional documents that she shared with Science, including poems and lengthy emotional emails. In them, he apologizes profusely for bothering her, describes details about his family, and invites her for coffee. He also sent a romantic five-page letter and suggested she not read it until the year 2045. She told him she was dating someone, and when her work at Cinvestav concluded, she moved to another city.

Eight months later, in 2018, she alleges in her complaint, Vielle Calzada offered her a research assistant position at his laboratory. She says she agreed on the condition that their relationship be kept professional. She alleges Vielle Calzada broke that agreement within a couple of months, when they were alone in his car and he said he was not in love with her, but appreciated her “soul.” She wrote that he pressed her to become friends and told her he knew the phrases she wrote on social media were indirectly meant for him. She felt he was invading her personal life.

She decided to leave Langebio for good. “I gave up a dream because I was mentally exhausted,” she wrote in her complaint. She moved to another state and started her studies at a different university.

“It is sad how many women fall behind or go to less prestigious institutions in order to avoid men like him,” she said in an interview. “They slow us down just because they like us.”

During Science’s 6-month investigation, two additional women who formerly worked in Vielle Calzada’s lab, a technician and an administrative assistant, said he pressured them to enter a sexual or romantic relationship. Each asked to remain anonymous, fearing that speaking out could hurt them emotionally and professionally. Neither filed an official complaint because they didn’t feel supported by Cinvestav or hadn’t realized filing was possible.

Science also spoke with eight additional former members of Vielle Calzada’s group. All described a tense environment in which Vielle Calzada yelled at them or others, intruded in their personal lives, and sometimes retaliated against them. “It was a time of great frustration and emotional exhaustion for me,” a former female lab member wrote in an email. After leaving his lab, “I finally feel that I am moving forward in my career.” Ten former students or collaborators declined or did not respond to Science’s inquiries.

Vielle Calzada defended his lab’s record in his statement to Science, saying he has been “active in the promotion of equality of women in Mexico.” In the more than 20 years he has run a lab, 51% of his nearly 80 lab members have been women, he wrote. “Our track record … shows that we have established a working environment free of any form of violence against women or men.”

Women lab leaders scarce
At Mexico’s Center for Research and Advanced Studies, a premier research institution with facilities around the country, male principal investigators running their own labs outnumber female ones, with the strongest gender skew in technology fields, including at the biotech-oriented National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity.
(Graphic) K. Franklin/Science; (Data) J. Mustre de León/Cinvestav

Five current members of his lab spoke with Science, saying they had never witnessed or experienced sexual or workplace harassment there. “My relationship with him has been very good,” says one female staff member who finished a master’s program in late 2020 but asked not to be named because she worried public comment might interfere with administrative investigations. “‘The doc’ has this thing about him; he helps and motivates you so much.”

Others take a more nuanced view. “I have a lot to thank him for,” including professional opportunities, says molecular biologist Vianey Olmedo, who worked for 6 years as a postdoc for Vielle Calzada and now runs her own lab at the University of Guanajuato. She says she never experienced or witnessed sexual harassment in the lab. And she recalls that when her computer was stolen from her home, Vielle Calzada took the time to help her file a police report. But Olmedo feels torn about her experience, describing a stressful atmosphere in which Vielle Calzada often yelled at subordinates in lab meetings. “I feel like a survivor,” she says. “I learned. I take the good stuff. But I wouldn’t go back.”

In late May, Ávila Arcos received a short statement from Cinvestav’s Órgano Interno de Control, the unit that since 2020 has managed sexual harassment cases. The statement, which she shared with Science, said the office had concluded its investigation and was forwarding the case to other administrators for possible sanctioning of Vielle Calzada.

It’s unclear what the sanctions might be and whether or when they will be applied. Ávila Arcos says officials told her in person in early September that a hearing will proceed in which Vielle Calzada will be able to defend himself.

Cruz says if no sanction is imposed, the complainants can move their cases to a federal administrative court outside Cinvestav. The internal control unit refused multiple interview requests, saying it was not authorized to talk to the press about its procedures.

Mustre de León says he will enforce sanctions if imposed by the unit or the court. Asked directly about Vielle Calzada’s case, he said: “There will be no exceptions.” In his statement, Vielle Calzada wrote: “If any legally-conducted administrative investigation were to conclude that I’m responsible of having committed sexual harassment, I would accept the corresponding sanctions.”

Sanctioning a researcher would be a milestone. Before 2020, all misconduct cases at Cinvestav were managed by an ethics committee or internal commissions, which could only act as mediators and could not discipline staffers. (All four of the women’s complaints were first sent to the ethics committee, then forwarded to the internal control unit, according to documents they received.)

Without the possibility of sanctions, complaining didn’t make much difference, some women say. For example, in 2018, Gabriela Santos, then finishing her master’s in integrative biology at Langebio, filed a report with an internal commission, which she shared with Science, against a male student who sent her a lengthy message about the sexual fantasies he had about her. The commission, made up of several Cinvestav researchers, determined he had sexually harassed both her and a research assistant. But, looking back, Santos now finds the resolution disappointing: The committee decided the male student could not be in the same physical space as the two female scientists, asked him to go to therapy, and rushed his graduation.

Santos, now a Ph.D. student at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, says she would think twice about returning to Mexico. “For what? To have to put up with people who you know are going to harass other students or who are going to harass you?”

An informal survey conducted in late 2020 after a showing of a documentary on sexual harassment revealed that among 312 Cinvestav students, scientists, and staff who responded, 127 reported experiencing gender discrimination or violence during their academic career.

“These are alarming answers,” says Eugenia Roldán Vera, a historian of education at Cinvestav’s Sede Sur campus in Mexico City, who helped analyze the results. Particularly concerning was the shared perception that Cinvestav authorities protect harassers and promote an environment of impunity, which makes people less likely to report, she says.

“We’re all, myself included, part of the problem,” says Gabriela Olmedo Álvarez, a microbiologist and director of the Irapuato campus of Cinvestav. She says Cinvestav, like many other higher education institutions in Latin America, has allowed sexual harassment to go unchecked for decades. “We were totally passive. We let everything pass by us,” Olmedo Álvarez says. She and 13 other female principal investigators at Irapuato and neighboring Langebio, including Cibrián Jaramillo, have recently sought training to provide support for victims of sexual violence on their campuses.

In an online discussion organized by Langebio in March, Cruz talked about gender-based violence in academia, saying that not regulating relationships between senior and junior staffers can be damaging to women’s careers. But several male attendees struggled to understand the problem. “I was so surprised by their insistence on the possibility of having partners in the workplace,” Cruz says.

Mustre de León and others plan an independent evaluation to measure how pervasive sexual harassment is, and how to prevent, identify, and sanction it, including by restricting relationships within Cinvestav. In early 2020, he signed a statement stressing the center would enforce a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment.

Cibrián Jaramillo, now on sabbatical in the Netherlands, has helped organize workshops on gender violence for Cinvestav students and researchers. She hopes her work and that of others will spur change at the place “where all of this was permitted.”

Source: Science Mag