Born: Unknown, Sri Lanka (assumed)
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Ecologist Priyanga Amarasekare is one of the world’s most respected academics in her field; her work has been cited more than 14,000 times. Yet only two months after she won the Robert H. MacArthur Award (one of the highest honours in ecology) in 2022, her employer suspended her for a year without pay or benefits, and forbade her from accessing her laboratory, maintaining her insect colonies, managing her grants, or contacting students. The University of California, Los Angeles also cut her salary by a fifth for a further two years.
The offence that warranted such significant punishment? Former students and faculty members told the journal Nature that they believed it was retaliation because Amarasekare, native of Sri Lanka and one of two women of color who have tenure in the ecology and evolution department, had previously accused the university of discrimination for repeatedly denying her promotions that went instead to colleagues. UCLA refused to offer any explanation, and barred Amarasekare from speaking publicly about the matter. More than 300 scientists from around the world signed a petition urging the university to reverse its decision, noting that such measures represent “the kind of punishment normally applied only to the most egregious wrongdoings.”
For comparison, several years earlier, UCLA history professor Gabriel Piterberg was allowed to sexually harass students for years. His victims included graduate student Kristen Glasgow, who sued the university in 2015 after they ignored her Title IX complaints. The UC system settled, paying her $110,000 and a fellowship to support her work on her doctoral dissertation—but Piterberg kept his job. After Glasgow and fellow grad student Nefertiti Takla had filed complaints in 2013, the only punishment he had received in 2014 was a $3,000 fine, suspension without pay for one quarter and attending sexual harassment training. He was also barred for three years from holding closed-door, one-on-one meetings in his office and restricted open-door meetings to daytime hours. In exchange for him accepting those terms, the university agreed to drop any investigation, which could have threatened his tenure. In 2016, the university hired a new Title IX coordinator, Glasgow re-filed her previously-ignored complaint, and Piterberg eventually resigned.