Talk:Roberto González Echevarría

Roberto González Echevarría has requested this page be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.30 (talk) 20:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Harassment Controversy

Highlighting this on the talk page, since it's a living person bio:

The Yale Daily News reported in March 2015 that Roberto González Echevarría has been accused of harassment within the Spanish and Portuguese department.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/03/25/spanish-department-under-review-following-anonymous-allegations/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dharmablues (talk • contribs) 03:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Accusations do not belong without extensive coverage by highly reliable sources. Court documents and school newspapers do not meet that requirement. ~ GB fan 10:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Highlighting this proposed change, which should be added in light of the fact that there has been widespread coverage of the allegations and the court case in the news section of the Yale Daily News, which is produced by Yale University and is the most reliable source of news about Yale. Mention of the court case has also been included in the Yale Alumni Magazine, which is produced by the Yale University Alumni Office -- and in external news sources such as the International Business Times.

In March 2015, González Echevarría was accused of ongoing sexual harassment in an open anonymous letter to graduate students, faculty and administrators at the university.

In July, 2017, a former colleague of González Echevarría, Dr. Susan Byrne, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut claiming that she was denied tenure in retaliation for speaking out after González Echevarría allegedly sexually harassed her and other female members of the department. According to court documents, Byrne alleges that Echevarria “surprised [Byrne] with a kiss on the mouth … in front of hundreds of colleagues and administrators” while at a party in May 2014.”

González Echevarria took an unexpected leave of absence in fall of 2016, although no public explanation of his absence was given.

The proposed edit states only that there are allegations of sexual harassment, which is an indisputable and well-referenced fact. Court documents are a permissible source when they are offered in support of a verifiable source. The Yale Daily News is the oldest college daily newspaper in the country, and is advised by attorneys at the Yale General Counsel's Office; like any reputable paper, it can be sued for publishing false information. The information came from the news section of the paper, and the issue has been covered in at least 6 different YDN articles in the past 4 years.

For an analogous debate, which resulted in consensus regarding the allegations involving another Yale faculty member, see the talk page for the entry on Thomas Pogge.

Concerned33 (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

You should also look at WP:BLPCRIME. It is pertinent to this. I don't think Echevarría is a public figure. He is not well known. We don't include accusations unless they are covered in multiple Independent reliable sources. In this case there is only one source and that is not truly independent since it is the school newspaper for the school where this is happening. So this does not rise to the level of inclusion based on the sources presented. ~ GB fan 11:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

References

After the AfD

I just closed the AfD that I completed, which turned out to have been requested by a Yale IP and likely connected to the subject of the article. Indeed, the top of the talk page reads, Roberto González Echevarría has requested this page be removed.

There are open issues—some of which have been debated before today—that arise from the AfD, since the main concern of the discussion is not a notability question but rather his status as a public figure and the resultant inclusion/weight of information on the sexual harassment cases. The 2019 discussion above is also relevant to this debate.

To facilitate that discussion, I am pinging the users that participated in the AfD: @Russ Woodroofe, Sdkb, Morbidthoughts, Kingoflettuce, Xxanthippe, and Stuartyeates: Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I'll copy my comments from the AfD:

It's tricky. WP:BLPCRIME states that for non-public figures (which would include a professor) editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. Weighing against that is the fact that the allegations appear strongly substantiated, that the Yale Daily News is one of the most respected student newspapers in the U.S. and therefore very much a reliable source for Yale-related topics per WP:RSSM, and that it appears likely someone with a conflict of interest is trying to tamper with the article (which would nullify WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE considerations for me). I'd be alright seeing this go either way, but at the very least, we can include in the article the aspects that aren't strictly legal. I've done that here.

I got notified that Morbidthoughts undid my addition of even the non-legal negative information, with summary Both WP:PUBLICFIGURE and WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE require multiple high quality sources. Sourcing only to Yale's student paper is not adequate to establish this, especially when considering that he's received mundane coverage by much more mainstream sources. I object to this, as per RSSM, the Yale Daily News is absolutely reliable, there are other sources beyond them that have covered the allegations, and BLP has a lower standard for negative information that is not of a criminal nature. We should not be omitting this sort of defining information about him just because it is unflattering. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

So, public figure is a term of legal art, and not merely a Wikipedia term. My own take on this (and I am not a lawyer) is that a Yale named prof and department head who has won an NEH medal is probably a limited public figure related to his work. The statement in the guidelines that a public figure will have multiple high-quality sources about any legal difficulties stands. I think Morbidthoughts' removal was reasonably, at least until consensus is reached, as we need multiple independent reliable sources for these sorts of statements about a living person (public figure or not). (I take YDN as slightly-weakly reliable, but it is a single source.) The best case looks to me to be to include a sentence at the end of the career section that Yale is being sued over tenure-denial that is alleged to be in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment by the subject. The only sources we have for this are the Yale Daily News and the CT Law Review (via law.com, picked up also by Yahoo Finance; note that the ibtimes is not reliable), however, and I am not confident that this meets standards. If we don't quickly come to a consensus here, this might be a good one to run by the wise folks over at WP:BLPN. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:15, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Postscript: I notice belatedly that Sammi Brie has posted a brief note at BLPN already. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:15, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure that WP:BLPCRIME is overly important here, most of the allegations appear to be employment matters (or civil at the most) and they certainly relate directly to what the subject is notable for. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Would the best way to resolve this particular content issue be an RfC? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie, I think that'd be reasonable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I have started an RfC below. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:50, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Could a Spanish speaker please check that that thesis I've located is actually the subject? The name is slightly different but most of the details match up. I'm not familiar with Spanish names and their variants. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:33, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: WorldCat lists that as an alternate identity for him [1]. I'd render that title in sentence case as is correct for Spanish. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment

Should this biography of a living person contain information on sexual harassment allegations and/or workplace conduct cases, as mentioned in the following articles from the Yale Daily News: [2], [3], [4]? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:29, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Additional source is CT Law Review via law.com at [5]. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:16, 5 February 2022 (UTC) See Sourcing, below. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Background

Roberto González Echevarría is a professor of Spanish literature at Yale University.

The inclusion of content related to these current cases has been a subject of debate and/or reversions in 2019, 2020, and now 2022. Using an IP address geolocated to Yale, González Echevarría requested deletion of this page in February 2022. The IP then removed the section containing the allegations (Special:Diff/1069345163) and started a malformed AfD that I completed and tagged (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roberto González Echevarría).

At Articles for deletion, editors noted that the subject clearly passes our notability guideline for professors and likely passes the general notability guideline, such that WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE was not likely applicable to this article. I closed the AfD after 12 hours because it had become clear that the issues that were raised were not in the purview of AfD. However, there have been a range of opinions expressed on the inclusion or not of the materials mentioned in the RfC statement, between such policies as WP:BLPCRIME and WP:PUBLICFIGURE. This discussion continued after the AfD into the section above this one. (In the meantime, sourcing of the other parts of the page has been improved.)

In order to gather the widest possible range of opinions, I am bringing this to RfC so that editors can weigh the BLP policies and determine if the material about sexual harassment allegations—which resulted in a lawsuit against Yale, for which a trial was approved in April 2020 ([6]) but which was apparently dismissed by settlement last year—should remain on this page.

Revised 19:09, 7 February 2022 (UTC) to incorporate new information and clarify wording.

Sourcing

Since the sources may be a little hard to keep track of, I will attempt to list the main ones here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Extended content

The Yale Daily News has an in-depth piece on the lawsuit against Yale [7], including substantial coverage of the subject's alleged role. (Henceforth: "YDN_A".) USA Today ran a brief piece on the lawsuit [8]. It does not directly mention the subject, but referred to and linked YDN_A. The New Haven Register ran a brief piece on the lawsuit [9]. It does not directly mention the subject, but referred to and linked YDN_A. CT Lawyer had a short but somewhat in-depth report on the lawsuit [10]. It does not directly mention the subject. CT Law Review via Law.com had an in-depth piece on the lawsuit [11], including substantial coverage of the subject's alleged role. Yahoo Finance syndicated the CT Law Review/Law.com piece [12]. WTNH has a brief piece on the lawsuit [13]. It does not directly mention the subject. The Yale Daily News has several other pieces covering allegations against the subject or the lawsuit. Myself and some other editors have expressed concern about leaning too heavily on student newspapers, other editors have said that they think certain (perhaps limited) use is ok. - [14] concerns an anonymous letter complaining about conditions at the Spanish department, particularly involving the subject. - [15] discusses the climate review of the spanish department (that resulted from the anonymous letter), and substantially mentions the subject. - [16] speculates that the subject's unannounced leave may be connected to harassment allegations - [17] is background on the tenure-denial situation that resulted in the lawsuit - [18] is a followup on the lawsuit during the discovery process - [19] is an in-depth follow up on the lawsuit as it went to trial - [20] is coverage of student protests against university handling of sexual harassment allegations, including against the subject - [21] is further coverage briefly mentioning the subject and the lawsuit - [22] mentions the subject in the context of other sexual harassment cases A few sources not previously mentioned (and fairly brief): The New Journal briefly mentions the subject [23] in the context of sexual harassment at Yale. Yale Alumni Magazine briefly discusses the lawsuit, including the allegations against the subject [24].

Discussion

• Clear yes for non-criminal workplace conduct issues (e.g. this diff), per above. Maybe for sexual harassment allegations; I'm open to hearing other's thoughts on that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. I think the RfC means to ask about sexual harassment, not sexual assault, because the articles cited don't mention the latter, but do mention the former. It's a significant difference, because sexual assault is fundamentally a crime, but sexual harassment need not be and the articles don't say anyone has accused the subject of a crime. Since WP:BLPCRIME is the only argument I've seen against including all this information, and it doesn't apply, I say include it. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:52, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Apologies, I am editing the wording of the RfC question to reflect the sources. That is my error. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• No, I believe inclusion would contravene either WP:PUBLICFIGURE or WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE (BLPCRIME applies to the latter). One source, the Yale Daily News, does not satisfy either policy nor would inclusion be strong enough to survive a WP:UNDUE challenge given the amount of coverage he's had in much more mainstream RS. We also have precedence on rejecting using student newspapers on these types of allegations.[25] Morbidthoughts (talk) 03:56, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Notified: WP:BLPN. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:23, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• No. Not until any legal case has been resolved. More reliable sources are needed than student newspapers. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:29, 5 February 2022 (UTC).

  @Xxanthippe: There are two questions in this RfC. Could you specify in your !vote whether your opposition is to including the sexual harassment allegations or to including any of the negative coverage on his tenure at the department? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:42, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Both, because they are reported in a student newspaper. WP:BLP is very strict about sourcing. If the mainstream media has not reported the accusations it may have its reasons not to. We should wait until it reports them. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC).

• Yes, include all workplace accusations except anything criminal. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
• (Struck !vote -- see below. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 09:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)) Although WP:BLPCRIME doesn't apply, this is a special case of negative information, and I think Morbidthoughts has it right that WP:PUBLICFIGURE / WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE give the general rule. This leads me to a No on material covered only by the Yale Daily News, and a Weak No on material covered by YDN and CT Law Review (via Law.com). The material covered by both concerns the lawsuit against Yale for denial of tenure, with a specific accusation that it was retaliation for reporting sexual harassment by the subject. I expect my weak no will turn to a weak yes or yes if the suit against Yale is successful, presumably resulting in more coverage and certainly in a greater presumption against privacy; possibly also if the suit completes unsuccessfully. I want to explicitly say something about reliability of Yale Daily News: WP:RSSM says that such are generally locally reliable, but gives several cautions, particularly with regard to notability. What we have here is a question of whether particular material is notable enough to include, so I think that the caution applies. This YDN piece [26] in particular strikes me as consisting mainly of speculation. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  • "Notability" as used in WP:RSSM refers to whether a school newspaper can contribute to the case for an article existing, not whether material sourced to a school newspaper should be included in an article whose existence is justified on other grounds. XOR'easter (talk) 19:11, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

    Yes, I agree that WP:RSSM does not explicitly discuss the situation that we're in. But I think the guideline suggests pretty strongly that we should not source negative material for a WP:BLP mainly from a student newspaper. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:21, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

    Speaking as a journalist, I'd trust the Yale Daily News over quite a few professional outlets. The main area where we need to be wary of student newspapers is in establishing something's importance given their local audience, but I don't really see that as the main issue here. This information is unquestionably relevant to his biography. Running the Yale department is one of the big achievements of his career, and information about how it appears he ran it toxically is clearly relevant to that. These articles are also some of the top results when you search his name on Google News. So the only question for me is which information we're permitted to include on privacy grounds. Per above, there's some middle ground available to us, and I'm skeptical of the !voters saying that we can't even mention that the way he ran the department has been criticized. To not even do that would be non-neutral whitewashing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:34, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

    Sdkb, I agree with your concern about whitewashing. Ideally, we would find sources sufficient for including the alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, which I think is important to cover (and which is the main negative topic that shows up on my Google News search). Including less well-sourced negative material in place of this still seems like a false balance to me. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Changing to Yes on sexual harassment. This is the only workplace conduct allegation against him; note that he was not department chair at the time in question. By searching for "byrne" "lawsuit" "yale" or for "byrne v. yale", I found several additional sources. Both a New Haven Register piece [27] and a US Today piece [28] cover the case, and link to the YDN piece [29]. In addition: WTNH covers the case in brief (without direct mention of the subject) [30], as does CT Lawyer [31]. Overall, I think the YDN piece that has been linked from high profile publication is presumed to be highly reliable, although I still have concerns about some of the other YDN pieces; the law.com piece remains solid, and the syndication by Yahoo Finance helps support. Thus, we have multiple high quality sources concerning sexual harassment, as required for WP:PUBLICFIGURE (and I think we all tend to agree that the subject is a limited public figure.) Regarding workplace conduct: the workplace conduct violation alleged against the subject is precisely sexual harassment. Note that he does not seem to have been chair (except briefly acting chair) in the period we are discussing. I think it is misleading to talk about this as a general workplace conduct violation. Pinging @Xxanthippe and Morbidthoughts: who may be convinced by improved sourcing. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 09:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

The USA Today citation pushes this past PUBLICFIGURE. However, I'm not sure if he should be considered a public figure for being frequently cited on Cuban history and culture, and NONPUBLICFIGURE is more demanding along with WP:REDFLAG. The New Haven article does not explicitly name him, and I don't believe law.com or YDN are mainstream RS. Morbidthoughts (talk) 22:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

• The discussion has been focused on the handfull of sources previously added to the article, but there are a whole lot more, see:
  • https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/04/09/byrne-lawsuit-can-go-to-trial-judge-rules/
  • https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/07/07/former-spanish-prof-alleges-sexual-harassment-retaliatory-firing-in-lawsuit/
  • https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yale-associate-professor-claims-sexual-100400529.html
  • https://academic-sexual-misconduct-database.org/institution/yale-university (which suggests an allegation was resolved noting " Suspended / Leave / Restrictions")
  • https://www.law.com/ctlawtribune/2017/07/06/yale-associate-professor-claims-sexual-harassment-led-to-firing/
  • https://www.law.com/ctlawtribune/sites/ctlawtribune/2017/07/06/yale-associate-professor-claims-sexual-harassment-led-to-firing/
• There are several more sources in Spanish, which I'm not in a position to check. Additionally there are primary-looking sources, which I'm not advocating we use. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:33, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  The Yahoo Finance and the law.com items appear to be duplicates, but even one syndicated news story is enough to indicate that the history here is of broader interest than merely the Yale community, IMO. XOR'easter (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Could you link the Spanish-language sources so I can evaluate them, @Stuartyeates? Also, I'd like to note that Rolena Adorno, another BLP, contains material covering this matter. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:54, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Two additional comments on sourcing. 1) There is a WTNH brief news item [32] on the lawsuit, including the department climate (not mentioning explicitly the subject here, however). 2) We can't use this one in the article. But per the Stipulation of Dismissal at [33], it appears that the lawsuit has been settled. I expect to change my !vote based on this material, but want to think a bit longer about it. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Yes for the non-criminal workplace conduct issues; as noted in the AfD, the school newspaper in question is, well, the Yale Daily News. The source in the diff given up top [34] gives some concrete details (e.g., The controversy surrounding González Echevarría ... first emerged in March 2015...) and reports on the difficulty of getting more solid answers (e.g., The source said the administration’s lack of transparency in addressing issues in the department is ironic...). This earlier item [35] contains further details, and this more recent item [36] is also specific in its statements. (By contrast, I don't think this mention is suitable for use before the legal process concludes.) I find Sdkb's point about the career importance of running a department at Yale persuasive. I don't think the available sourcing gives us much to say, and accordingly, I doubt that it presently belongs in the introduction, but "being criticized for running a department badly" is the kind of thing that does belong in a "Career" section. XOR'easter (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, bar the lawsuit: we are unable to properly cover Echevarría's career without mention of this subject. We are not accusing Echevarría of a crime. The Yale Daily News is generally considered quite a decent source, and Stuartyeates gives several others, which is quite an unusual amount of coverage for an academic. — Bilorv (talk) 13:33, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

• No I don't think it's appropriate to bring up until the legal process has been concluded, as being accused is not a crime. If we get into the difference between assault and harassment I think we should look for outcomes, was he fired from his job or received some type of reprimand? I just don't think it is unfair to list allegations without proof (legal judgement). Tepkunset (talk) 17:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
• No Given most of the coverage is local news I do not think it is enough to pass WP:PUBLICFIGURE.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:PUBLICFIGURE is relevant only to reporting of accusations of a crime. No proposal is being made here to report an accusation of a crime, as the sources involved do not contain such accusations.

Note that Wikipedia doesn't have any rule limiting reporting of accusations that someone merely did something bad. Or that someone owes someone money (which is the implication of a civil lawsuit). Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Giraffedata, the presumption of privacy (the guideline for which has WP:PUBLICFIGURE and WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE as subsections) certainly goes beyond criminal acts. Indeed, WP:PUBLICFIGURE specifically mentions a divorce or an affair as examples. (The greater section is rooted in libel law, and it is surely possible to libel someone without accusing them of a crime.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 13:08, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I stand corrected. I was focused on the distinction between accusations and proven things, but it's going too far to say Wikipedia does not limit reporting accusations. Indeed, WP::NOTPUBLICFIGURE restrains reporting even of material that doesn't rise to the level of an accusation, if it isn't relevant to what the person is notable for. And it also restrains material that could adversely affect the subject's reputation even if relevant. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 22:28, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposed addition

Ignoring the above discussion related to recent events, I'd like to make an addition about an earlier incident. Sticking with WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE's 'exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability,' I'd like to add:

In 2016, González Echevarría took an unexplained one-semester leave of absence.

What do people think? Stuartyeates (talk) 09:25, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

References

I think its anyway WP:UNDUE without the larger context. The Academic Sexual Misconduct database does not add much: I have doubts as to whether it is a RS for wikipedia purposes (although I have found it to be sometimes useful for _finding_ reliable sources), it certainly doesn't appear to be independent of the Yale Daily News source. And the above discussion is about whether there is strong enough sourcing to include negative information in a BLP. The sourcing we have so far for the negative info about the unexplained leave is weaker, not stronger. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:58, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

(a) There is nothing negative in my proposed addition, parental leave is also a eave of absence and there's nothing negative about that. (b) By 'the larger context' do you mean the stuff that happened after 2016? Because that's not context. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unexplained and irrelevant: only student sources. Please stop trying to turn this BLP into an attack page until there are mainstream sources to justify edits. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC).