-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Physicist fired for writing book
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 23:02:12 -0700
From: Speech Rights <SpeechRights@aol.com>
To: <aki@ix.netcom.com>
Dear fellow scientist,
As you may have heard, Physics Today magazine recently gave a very
punishing review to a book written by physicist Jeff Schmidt: The
magazine fired him.
Jeff was a staff editor at Physics Today for 19 years -- until his
supervisors saw Disciplined Minds (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), a
thought-provoking critique of workplace hierarchy and the politically
subordinate role of salaried professionals. The book uses physicists
and physics graduate school to help illustrate points about
professionals and professional training in general.
Within days of learning about his irreverent book, the higher-ups at
Physics Today dismissed Jeff summarily, apparently using the book as an
opportunity to retaliate against him for his workplace activism and to
ignore his widely praised work for the magazine. Details of Jeff's
firing are given in the statement below, and can also be found on the
Web at http://disciplined-minds.com
Please join us in protesting Jeff's dismissal, by adding your name to
the letter below. We will send the letter to Marc H. Brodsky, Executive
Director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics, which publishes
Physics Today, and we will also post it on the Web.
To add your name to the letter, please send an e-mail message to
SpeechRights@aol.com. Include your name and an affiliation, such as
your department and institution. Please ask others to add their names,
too.
You can also write directly to Marc Brodsky, at brodsky@aip.org. If you
do, please send a copy of your letter to SpeechRights@aol.com so that it
can be posted on the Web. We may send you updates on this issue (if you
prefer not to receive them, just let us know).
Your support will make a big difference.
Sincerely,
Talat Rahman
Fellow of the American Physical Society
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Physics
Kansas State University
George F. Reiter
Professor of Physics
University of Houston
Michael A. Lee
Professor of Physics
Kent State University
-------------------------
Background info about Jeff Schmidt and Disciplined Minds
By Chris Mohr and Jean Kumagai
Former Physics Today staff members
In Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt challenges professionals to view
their role in society in a new and unsettling way. He argues that
professional work has both technical and political components, and that
salaried professionals are expected to be technically creative but
politically subordinate. In particular, they are expected to work
creatively to further their employers' world view rather than their
own. Such subordination does not occur without a fight, the book
maintains, and so the workplace becomes a battleground for the very
identity of the individual, as does graduate school, where professionals
are trained.
Jeff has a PhD in physics from the University of California, Irvine, and
he draws many of his examples from the predicament of employed
physicists and physics graduate students. (In one chapter, he examines
the physics PhD qualifying examination and shows how the seemingly
value-neutral test identifies candidates who have the "right attitude"
about their work.) His book details the battle one must fight to be an
independent thinker and to advance one's own social vision in today's
corporate society. It offers advice on how to make employment more than
an exercise in knowing your place, and how to make graduate school more
than an abusive "intellectual bootcamp" that breaks the individual in to
playing a conventional role. You can avoid the cynicism and
intellectual timidity that afflicts so many professional employees, he
says, but doing so is not easy, and he discusses how it can be done.
While at Physics Today, Jeff played the most prominent role in staff
efforts to improve working conditions, increase staff participation in
decision-making, and broaden the range of viewpoints allowed in the
magazine. He also led an effort to force Physics Today to live up to
its advertised claim of being an affirmative-action employer, noting
that the magazine was hiring and training only whites as editors, a
pattern that eventually left the magazine with an all-white staff of 16
professionals and a non-white secretarial staff of 3.
In firing Jeff, the managers at Physics Today cited a statement, at the
beginning of Disciplined Minds, that he had done some work on the book
in his office. Such use of time constitutes "misconduct," they said.
But to those familiar with the Physics Today workplace, this charge
looks more like a pretext to get rid of someone who was persistently
pressing for changes in workplace policies. Indeed, the fact that the
magazine's managers dismissed Jeff after so many years of service not
only without a hearing, but also without asking him a single question
about his work on the book, suggests that they were looking for an
opportunity to remove him.
By the time Disciplined Minds was published, Physics Today's managers
had already tried unsuccessfully to silence Jeff with repressive
measures just short of dismissal. At one point, for example, they put
gag orders on Jeff and another outspoken staff editor, warning that they
would be fired if they said anything "counterproductive." These orders
were eventually lifted due to pressure from coworkers. Perhaps even
more incredibly, Physics Today also banned private conversations in the
workplace, announcing that all conversations between staff members must
be open to monitoring by managers. In light of this history, Physics
Today's response to Disciplined Minds is less surprising.
The managers at Physics Today apparently thought the book would look so
provocative to others that no one would object if they fired Jeff. They
were wrong. To date, there have been many protests: by sixteen former
Physics Today staff members (including us), by the National Writers
Union, and by 160 scholars, writers and educators in a wide range of
fields. Even the State of Maryland, after an unemployment benefits
hearing, rejected AIP's charge that Jeff's work on the book at the
office constituted misconduct, finding that Physics Today fired Jeff
without evidence that his spare-time writing interfered with his work
for the magazine. (During the years that Jeff was writing Disciplined
Minds, Physics Today gave him two promotions and 19 salary increases
based explicitly on the quantity and quality of his work for the
magazine.) Details of the state investigation are posted on the Web at http://disciplined-minds.com, along with the protest letters, reports in
the press and reviews of the book.
Jeff recently took his case to one of the ten largest law firms in
Washington, D.C. Lawyers at Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky felt
that Physics Today's actions, if left unchallenged, would set a bad
precedent for employees everywhere. They waived their fees and will do
what they can to bring legal challenges against Physics Today's
repressive behavior, simply for the public good. Physics Today has
hired what union activists and labor lawyers call the most notorious
union-busting law firm in the country (Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler &
Krupman) to deal with any legal challenges in this case. That's
revealing, but it doesn't mean that the law is a likely source of
justice for Jeff. The law generally favors employers, and so Jeff's
best chance for justice is support from the physics community.
Please consider adding your name to the letter below or writing your own
letter. You can also spread the word by telling your friends and
colleagues about Jeff's case, by linking your Web site to http://disciplined-minds.com and, if you are an instructor, by informing
your students about Jeff's situation.
You can contact Jeff at...
Jeff Schmidt
3003 Van Ness Street NW #W406
Washington, DC 20008
jeffschmidt@alumni.uci.edu
202-537-3645
(The above is based on information from Jeff and other former Physics
Today employees, and on relevant documents. You can contact us at
christophermohr@hotmail.com and jean_kumagai@hotmail.com)
-------------------------
The letter...
To: Marc H. Brodsky
Executive Director and CEO
American Institute of Physics
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, Maryland 20740
Dear Dr. Brodsky:
As physicists and other scientists concerned about freedom of expression
in the science community, we were troubled to learn of your dismissal of
Jeff Schmidt, who had been an articles editor at Physics Today magazine
for over 19 years.
As we understand it, you fired Jeff after you saw his book, Disciplined
Minds, and in particular after you learned that Jeff had used some of
his spare time at the office for critical writing about education and
employment in physics and other fields.
While we do not necessarily agree with Jeff's views about the situation
of physicists and other salaried professionals, and do not expect you
to, we believe that free debate within the physics community is
healthy. We expect you to encourage it, not stifle it, especially
because physicists are known for speaking out when physicists
internationally are punished for expressing their views. Your actions
as head of the American Institute of Physics help to shape society's
view of the physics community. We urge you to reconsider your decision,
and offer to reinstate Jeff as an editor at Physics Today.
We ask that you publish this letter in Physics Today, to bring our
concerns to the attention of the wider physics community.
Sincerely,
(This letter expresses the views of the undersigned; affiliations are
listed for identification only. Those of us whose names are marked with
asterisks worked with Jeff directly, as he edited our articles for
publication in Physics Today, and can attest that he does excellent,
conscientious work.)