When genome researcher David Gilbert left Florida State University (FSU) in 2021 for the San Diego Biomedical Research Institute (SDBRI), he took two large National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants with him. The biomedical agency approved the transfer and went on to award Gilbert, a DNA replication expert who publishes in Science, Nature, and Cell, a new, $2.5 million grant last year.
None of this would be out of the ordinary—except that, in 2020, prior to any of these moves, FSU had completed a far-reaching investigation prompted when Gilbert emailed a description of his erotic dream to a graduate student. The probe revealed a yearslong history and concluded that Gilbert’s “gendered, sexualized and invasive behaviors were severe and pervasive.” NIH learned the full nature and extent of his misconduct at FSU before making the new award but after his move to San Diego—where his behavior elicited a new probe, Science has learned, and drove at least one woman scientist from the institute.
The sequence of events that allowed Gilbert to continue a well-funded career unfolded at the same time as NIH very publicly said it was cracking down on sexual harassers who tried to move their bad behavior from one institution to another. In 2020, NIH instituted a requirement that then-Director Francis Collins said in a Science editorial was aimed in part at “preventing ‘passing the harasser,’ in which a scientist who changed institutions could evade the consequences of findings of sexual harassment.” The policy required grantee institutions to notify the agency about sexual harassment findings if they drove requests to make certain changes to a grant, including transferring it to a new institution, so NIH could weigh this information in its decision about whether to approve the change or take other action. In March 2022, Congress wrote a tightened policy into law, making it mandatory for institutions to inform NIH of disciplinary actions taken against harassers, regardless of whether they prompted changes including transferring a grant between institutions. By then, NIH in concert with institutions had already removed dozens of principal investigators (PIs) from grants.
Gilbert was not one of them. In his case, say experts who reviewed related documents at Science’s request, the agency was either remiss or ineffectual, compounding a failure of the two institutions to adequately protect victims. “It’s outrageous” that Gilbert still has a job and three big NIH grants, says Angie Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan who in 2019 served on a working group advising the NIH director on combating sexual harassment. “I would just like to know what NIH plans to do to resolve this. Because when I was on that committee, we were assured over and over again, first by Francis Collins, then by [acting NIH Director] Larry Tabak, that this was a priority for NIH … that they were going to crack down.”
FSU launched its investigation of Gilbert early in 2020 after a biology graduate student filed a complaint triggered by an email from Gilbert, a professor with an endowed chair and a high profile. “You were in my dream last night,” he wrote before describing the erotic dream in the email, which concluded: “I hope … you appreciate that i (sic) am not some 20-something who is done in 30 minutes … Us ‘mature’ guys like to work slowly - take our time and savor every minute!!!!”
The investigation resulted in a 131-page report detailing behavior that stretched back to at least 2017. Incidents documented in emails and witness testimonies, and admitted to by Gilbert, include kissing a student on the neck and emailing his lab members to ask which one of them had spelled “cock” with refrigerator magnets during a party at Gilbert’s home. He added in a follow-up email: “I guess it is something that is available at my house, if the right person were to ask nicely.” In an exchange with a lab technician who asked for help writing a website summary of her work, he joked, unsolicited, about her sticking things up her nose, then asked whether “you stick things up the other end of your body,” adding, “The things I thought of would get me fired for sexual harassment.” One undergraduate who worked in Gilbert’s lab reported her unease when he pulled her in to dance at a party at his home, where he also grew angry at her when she refused to drink tequila shots; she was 19. “Severely uncomfortable” whenever she had to meet with him, she told investigators, “I would go to people and ask for help and their response was, ‘Dave makes so much money for FSU so they’re not going to talk to him.’” After her experience, she added, “I’m definitely not doing research again.”
Gilbert did not respond to repeated interview requests from Science. But when asked by FSU investigators about the email regarding the erotic dream, he said he felt “immediate remorse” and acknowledged that it “wasn’t appropriate or welcome.” Of some other witness testimony, he said: “These inferences are distorted, out of context and in some cases completely fabricated accusations.”
After its probe concluded, FSU told Science, it removed Gilbert’s endowed chair and his access to the funds the endowment generated. He was suspended for 10 days without pay. He also received “follow-up training” and a warning that any repeat of the behavior could cost him his job, FSU later wrote to NIH. These sanctions were “commensurate with the level of offense,” FSU told Science.
Others disagree. The university's response “just seems so insufficient” and sends “a very distinct message that there is very little consequence for his violation,” says Jennifer Freyd, a psychologist who studies institutional betrayal as president of the Center for Institutional Courage.
NIH didn’t learn of the FSU probe until April 2021, 1 year after it was completed. As Gilbert was planning to move to SDBRI at the end of June 2021, NIH policy required FSU to alert the agency of the sexual harassment investigation and its conclusion in the process of asking NIH to approve the transfer of Gilbert’s two grants, worth $867,000 annually at the time. FSU did not share its lengthy written report with NIH.
NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer soon wrote to FSU to find out whether the probe and any resulting disciplinary actions had affected Gilbert’s ability to perform the funded research in the preceding year. Laurel Fulkerson, FSU’s interim vice president for research, wrote to Lauer that Gilbert had not lost access to NIH funding, to campus, or to his lab. She added that Gilbert was “contrite” and that he meant his behavior as “funny.” In a June 2021 teleconference, FSU administrators and NIH agreed that his grants would be reassigned to SDBRI.
And with that, Lauer later wrote, “we were under the impression that this issue was resolved”—until November 2021 when Tristan Wood, a reporter at FloridaPolitics.com, published an article linking to the full 131-page Gilbert report.
Lauer soon wrote to FSU the bureaucratic-language equivalent of an outraged letter. He cited vivid details of Gilbert’s behavior from the report and said the article “raises concerns about the severity of Dr. Gilbert’s violations, compared to what the University previously reported to NIH.” The correspondence went on to discuss what actions the university was taking to, as Lauer put it, “assure that NIH-funded research and training is conducted in a civil, safe, and respectful environment, free from discrimination and unlawful harassment.” Gilbert, however, was already long gone.
Two months after Lauer sent that irate missive to FSU, on 10 March 2022, NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) sent Gilbert a new, $2.5 million award, to support his work at SDBRI. Whether NIH imposed any conditions on the new grant award is not clear. In a statement responding to detailed questions for Lauer about the Gilbert case, NIH’s Office of Extramural Research (OER) said it “does not discuss grant deliberations.” Asked who permitted Gilbert’s new award, OER said the institute or center funding the grant—in this case, NCI—“carry out preaward risk assessments” and send awards out the door. It added that the agency requires institutions to have in place “effective internal controls” for assuring safe work spaces. OER can prevent grant transfers or hold a pending award to a “PI of concern” until it is satisfied that “compliance issues are resolved.” If they can’t be, Tabak said last year, it is within NIH’s power to terminate harassers’ grants.
FSU did not tell the San Diego institute about Gilbert’s behavior, and by one account, it continued there. In early 2021, a trainee landed in Gilbert’s new SDBRI lab a few months ahead of him. She had met Gilbert at a conference, and he was “very nice” and “seemed supportive” as she began corresponding with him about a possible job, she says. He was a big name and she was excited to work for him.
But as soon as Gilbert arrived, in July 2021, the abuse began, she says. He shouted at her, called her stupid, and complained about her to a colleague–then told her he had done so. He was by turns dismissive and patronizing and she left every conversation feeling humiliated, the trainee says. Sometimes he would allude to the “great night” he had just had with his girlfriend. One time, she says, he came into the small, dark microscopy room where she was working and stood extremely close to her. Intimidated, she asked him forcefully to leave.
The last straw came in July 2022, when Gilbert texted her an image of a young woman’s breasts in a strapless bra, which he soon texted had been intended for his girlfriend. Within days, the trainee complained to SDBRI President Joanna Davies, who launched an investigation.
In late August, Davies and the external investigator she had hired to conduct the probe called in the trainee to tell her the results: Gilbert had not violated any legal standard of sexual harassment. The trainee insisted on receiving that finding in writing. Davies and an SDBRI human resources professional wrote a terse memo stating that, despite the lack of a legal finding, “the Institute recognizes that steps need to be taken to ensure that individuals who work with Dave are working in what they believe is a respectful environment.” (Davies did not respond to repeated interview requests.) The trainee was devastated, she says, and soon moved to a new institution.
Gilbert continues to work at the San Diego institute. His three NIH grants provide him and the institute $1.5 million in annual funding—$527,000 of which goes to SDBRI in the form of indirect costs.
“For people who are high-flying scientists—particularly well-funded ones—institutions seem to be remarkably willing to look the other way to obtain their employment,” says Jeremy Berg, former head of NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which funds one of Gilbert’s grants. (Berg is also former editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals.)
Given this kind of payout, Rasmussen asks, “If NIH isn’t going to put a stop to this money getting passed around, what incentive is there for the institutions to do anything about it themselves?”
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NIH rules are supposed to stop 'pass the harasser.' In one recent case, they appear to have failed - Science
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