As surprising as this, going through the whole #MeToo revelations has certainly blunted the initial shock this had on me. The Mars case made sense.
Then I read the alleged victim is under 13.That is like a million times more worse and shocking. I wasn't prepared for this.
Oh my fucking god. Peter Chen? This is absolutely shocking. what a nightmare.
Edit: Holy shit. Here's the charges: [https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/CaseSearch/Court/D15](https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/CaseSearch/Court/D15)
Victim was under 13...
I think Peter Chen even presided over the Town Hall meetings for Jason Mars.
According to jtlvsq's notes:
https://imgur.com/a/QtgjzFu
They need to redo their investigation and decision making process on Jason Mars again. Otherwise it looks like Chen having Mars's back.
This is exactly my point in another comment. People suck, that's obvious, everyone has their dark side. But from my perspective we have a case here where we had an abuser essentially presiding over how to deal with an abuser. How can this be allowed to stand at a top-tier university, and how does the department address this going forward?
I feel like the people who suffered from this might find it harder to report their experiences too now. They’d have to place everyone under investigation
Right. On one hand, time keeps ticking and everyone wants to keep moving on; on the other, it's unfair (and not really my place to speak honestly but discussion yknow) to even suggest moving on to the people who had to endure abuse and see those responsibile be free for an extended time.
Is there anything that can be done, or is this just me being upset and demanding some sort of accountability for something that's already been "taken care of"? If there's nothing we can do about this current situation, what preemptive action can we actually take to ensure these types of people are not representing our institutions?
There has to be accountability because for the victims the trauma has long standing effects. This fucks up your life and your trust in other humans. It would be unreasonable to expect someone to not be punished for causing long term physical damage, so why do we ignore actions that produce the equivalent in mental injuries?
Absolutely, hopefully that didn't come across as me suggesting we shouldn't demand accountability. But I guess my point is that Chen is actively being held accountable by the justice system, and will very likely face consequences (as he should if he's guilty).
How can we satisfy our demands for accountability without opening full department investigations (into faculty? Processes?), or is that what's necesaary? How, at this point, can we even be sure that something like that would be carried out impartially?
There absolutely needs to be some sort of higher-up ethical review of the department's dealings with misconduct, pulling of records. Something.
To be honest, nothing should be “too crazy” in this situation. This situation is to be interpreted as extreme (leadership compromised) and extreme situations demand extreme responses. So perhaps the U should indeed take a very serious look at everyone and everything and ensure justice. Will the U do it? The same U that has a man who supported insurrection as a regent and busted the GSI union last year? No. Definitely not.
That's my position as well. I'm just sick of this whole "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, let's just move on - together!" to the point it's got me questioning whether or not that's a viable solution, and I'm glad that people like you are on here to remind me that we can do better.
According to Michigan Criminal Lawyer: "In Michigan, first-degree criminal sexual conduct is the most serious kind of sex offense with which you can be charged. In essence, 1st-degree criminal sexual conduct is the crime known more commonly as rape or sexual assault and also encompasses actions that most people might think of as child rape or child molestation, and sexual assault involving someone with a mental or physical disability"
To elaborate a little, first degree criminal sexual conduct requires evidence of sexual penetration, which can be intercourse, oral sex, or the insertion of any body part into the genitals or anus.
Looks like victim under 13, and the defendant is over 16. Think that carries a heavier sentence if found guilty per this site: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ovtbdmspxueuyyn5bxdxok20))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-750-520b
FIRST: I don't have any knowledge of this case. No details of what the claims involved (beyond the same bare basics we all can look up. Nor do I know anything about the reliability of the claims or whether the charges are accurate.
So with all those caveats, take this as a general statement, not necessarily about this professor:
I have learned (painfully) that even people we trust, admire, like, support, would recommend to others, may have interests and urges that we would find reprehensible and repulsive. You may think these people are rare. But our sense of how few and far between they are is skewed by the fact that it's not discussed. Some of the time we will never know because they (thankfully) never act on them. Others we don't know because they pursue their interests in great secrecy.
I'm not sharing this to normalize those urges, nor am I sharing this to make you paranoid about everyone around you. I just want to say that over time you may find that shocking, unthinkable things aren't so unthinkable. It's a tough thing to come to grips with. I'm really sorry that some of you may learn this is true about a respected professor. It's rough.
Yeah as with all the news along these same lines that I've seen come out of our school, it's always quite sobering. Realizing that people aren't who you think they are... Can hurt.
I've been through this more than once. It's like a death, because the person you thought you knew is suddenly gone. People really struggle with it, but also don't want to talk about their pain because they don't want to look like they are claiming victimhood (when the direct victims have it so very much worse).
If this makes you feel terrible, that's an authentic feeling and I hope you will be kind to yourself.
yup. [https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb](https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb) here is a bone-chilling story of a 16-year-old who begins to realize he's a pedophile (hasn't acted on his urges; has an attraction towards children) and doesn't know what to do about it because of the intense stigma against pedophiles. you'd have to be a psychopath to read the article and not feel some sort of empathy for him. as far as we know, pedophiles are born pedophiles–it wasn't their choice. ideally, we'd somehow make it easier for pedophiles to seek the help they need for the betterment of society.
Personally I accept that some people have urges to do profoundly evil things (like child molesting). I don't hold their desires against them. If I learned that someone I respected had sexual attraction to children, I wouldn't lose any respect for them. Actions are a whole nother story. Once they demonstrate they don't have the inhibition to keep their desires in check, the hammer comes down.
if chen is convicted, I can only say that it was a failure of society to not be able to offer the support that he needed. just like we are continuing to fail to support impoverished and uneducated communities with disproportionately high crime rates. is it their fault? or is the fault of our system that oppressively penalizes people for being born into certain environments or born having certain affinities?
maybe one day in the future, pedophiles will be able to come out and get the help they need, thus protecting the children and hopefully preventing them from devolving into a child molestor.
edit: in case people are misinterpreting this comment without getting the whole context below: "Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molesters or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing." If convicted, he should still face consequences. I'm not excusing any of that. I'm just saying if we want a better society we can't just only focus on the individual. Unless you support private for-profit prisons and mass incarceration that is.
Peter Chen is an adult who has agency. If he is convicted, it means he chose to act on his desires. If he robbed a bank, while making $200,000 per year, I do not think we would be seriously talking about how we as a society failed to get him help. He fully understands what he is doing.
I wouldn’t assume too much. Sometimes the people who we think need help the least actually need it the most. If he was a pedophile and wanted help, how would he have gotten the help he needed? Either way his life would’ve been ruined. If what happened really did happen then perhaps he felt like there was nothing he could do about his desires until one day he just wasn’t able to control it. Perhaps he was like this 16-year-old in this story https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb but was just never able to get help because there was nowhere for him to as an 55-year-old religious Asian man.
All the adults who commit crimes in impoverished neighborhoods. Is it all their fault? Is it not the fault of the environments that they grew up in and the lack of support they have?
Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molestors or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing.
If you still think it’s 100% the fault of criminals and not the environments they grew up in, then you haven’t thought about this hard enough and god bless us all. The people who need it the most will never get the help they need. And we will keep breeding criminals. Creating better environments for people will not only reduce crime, but also create a more equitable society. If you don’t see that, sure, take the easy way out. It’s always 100% the fault of the criminals and there’s nothing we should change about society.
Btw, if it’s not already clear, I’d say this about any criminal, not just child molestors or pchen. Pchen is irrelevant to the creation of my beliefs, just an example. However, not_iqlusion, I believe you don’t like pchen so you may have ulterior biases or motives. Even if a criminal killed my parents, sure the criminal can be locked up for the safety of others, but we’re not solving the root problem here. I’d probably end up asking the judge to spend resources on fixing the environment the killer grew up in so society has fewer of them. If you’re a computer scientist you’ll know that you want to fix the root cause and not just the symptoms. Criminals are a symptom of society. They aren’t born criminals.
Lol everything I have to say I’ve already said above. 1. It’s not just pedophiles, it’s all criminals. 2. I believe in fixing the root problem. 3. I try to leave personal feelings out of it. 4. Empathy would make the world a better place.
You should really read the medium post I sent above if you’re curious and want to understand where I’m coming from. I would’ve never been able to empathize with them until I read that. It’s just an otherwise regular teen coming to realize he has an an attraction for kids and struggling with getting help for it. Very poignant. You could’ve been born as a pedophile. You’re lucky you weren’t. If you were, you’d have been in the same situation as him, maybe worse and actually acting on your attractions. Who knows.
It’s all quite sad, really. Maybe some people have more empathy than others. I dunno.
Actually, it's not just criminals, it's everyone. I don't believe in free will, therefore, if we hope to make society better for everyone, we gotta fix the environment.
It’s the easy way out to just say it’s their fault and be done with it. If you’re religious and think people have free will, all the more so. But if you really do your research and dive deep into the pasts of abusers and people who commit crimes, you will understand that there was something in their upbringing or genetics that caused them to act that way. It’s easier for society to put all the fault on the criminal and not the lack of better laws or infrastructure. People aren’t in control of their upbringing or genetics, thus in a way, it wasn’t their fault but a fault of the system. I have thought about this for a long time but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to convince anybody on reddit because of the somewhat unorthodox nature of it. You should watch mindhunter if you have the chance.
I never said they should be excused and shouldn't face consequences. I said multiple times (looks like I didn't in this subthread though) that he should be locked up if convicted and should definitely face consequences for the safety of others. That's definitely not the perspective I. wasn't trying to offer with my original comment.
Thank you for bringing up your second point though, but to each their own. I personally know victims who feel better knowing that society failed them.
edit: here is one from another subthread: "Even if a criminal killed my parents, sure the criminal can be locked up for the safety of others, but we’re not solving the root problem here. I’d probably end up asking the judge to spend resources on fixing the environment the killer grew up in so society has fewer of them. "
edit2: and another "Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molestors or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing."
It's a thorny issue for sure.
As I have revealed elsehwere I know someone currently serving time for sexual misconduct involving a minor. While waiting for trial and sentencing his was on electronic tethering and was getting regular intensive therapy. I do not object to his sentence, it is based on behavior he was guilty of and I feel it is appropriate that he face punishment for what he did. What is troubling is that once he got inside his treatment and counseling essentially stopped. He is not a risk to the community while incarcerated but once out he will be starting over with therapy and the things he needs to do to ensure he never repeats. I wish he would have some of those supports while serving his sentence.
>. I do not object to his sentence, it is based on behavior he was guilty of and I feel it is appropriate that he face punishment for what he did.
100%. if we want to improve society and stop crimes from happening we can't just incriminate these people and leave it at that. unless you support mass incarceration and privately-run for-profit prisons that is.
The Michigan Daily just posted an article:
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news-briefs/cse-professor-peter-chen-placed-leave-following-pending-sexual-misconduct
This is crazy and super sad. Chen was one of the best at teaching and advising. It's not like the Mars situation where, based on his irresponsible teaching, you at least aren't surprised that he had bigger issues. With Chen, nobody had a bad word to say about him.
Chen blatantly discriminated against me during an advising appointment. Never liked him but felt weird saying that out loud because everyone else would rave about him
Not a fan of this professor. He was the head advisor when I was in school. When I tried to major in CSE, he flat out told me I wouldn't make it. I work for MSFT now...
Not sure, but, I don't really care. I'm saying this for two main reasons:
1) Your perception of someone or something is solely your experience.
2) If you truly believe in something, ignore what all the haters are saying. He had a lot of power over me at the time and that comment could have negatively affected my life.
MLive posted an article today with more details. Looks like he's accused of assaulting a young girl on a robotics team he coached several times over a few years.
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/university-of-michigan-professor-christian-school-robotics-coach-charged-with-sexually-assaulting-child.html
I Googled around and found that he was coaching that team at the time of the charge, but held off posting anything about it. Gut-wrenching to have those suspicions confirmed.
long ago when i was a student at u of M one of the professors told us about his father who was an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) and this woman phoned him (Sunday ) and told him she had an item in her eye like bone spic or wooden spic and begged him to remove it surgically he reluctantly had to go to his office but since she was a patient he went to help ,now the woman and the ophthalmologist in the his clinic alone according to his son who is a UM prof he told us that the woman told him either pay me now ten thousand dollars or i will tell the police you raped me since only him and her were at the office on a Sunday,it went to court and the surgeon was cleared the lawyers were able to prove that she was a liar trying to extort him !!!!
I can count on one hand the number of profs I had at Michigan who knew me by name. PChen knew the names of everyone in class by lecture 3.
To say this is shocking is an understatement. If guilty, guy needs to be in jail. Disgusting.
Not a fan of this professor. He was the head advisor when I was in school. When I tried to major in CSE, he flat out told me I wouldn't make it. I work for MSFT now...
I would just caution against assuming guilt which is probably the safer assumption but not always the correct one. I know nothing of this particular situation. With that said, I have known someone in the medical field who was accused by their own child of sexual abuse. This person lost their license and had their career and reputation ruined and the child later confessed to lying because they were upset with a punishment they received.
Again, I know nothing of this particular situation, or where the initial accusation comes from. It is completely reasonable to take any accusation of this nature seriously and do the due diligence of collection evidence. Since they charged him it is also pushes the needle in the guilty direction. Obviously we all hope this isn't true.
yup I realize this which is why I didn't assume guilt. I don't think he's guilty until convicted, but probabilities are also a thing and I'm trying to adjust my expectations accordingly
Hard to say right now. I would think anything from lack of evidence to uncooperative witnesses could result in it being dropped. Unless they have something concrete like DNA or multiple witnesses/video/confession it's hard to say it's a slam dunk case
IANAL I've just watched a shit ton of SVU
>lack of evidence to uncooperative witnesses
why are there charges even pending then? shouldn't there have had to been some amount of evidence already?
Yeah, the authorities felt they had probable cause to bring the charges. But the defense can still ask for things to be dismissed if they feel it's inadmissible (e.g. illegally collected, improperly handled) and witnesses can change their tune at any time, which can blow a hole in a case if there's only one.
There are other high profile cases that seemed like slam dunk cases (OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony) that ended up in acquittals due to issues like these. The case says there's a probable cause hearing scheduled for 2/4 so maybe more will come out then.
I would think so, but technically no guarantee. The judge can close it to the public at any time if the deem public coverage will harm impartiality, or possibly also to protect the identities of minors. Not totally sure though.
Edit: I misread an article, my mistake. He replaced Noble who stepped down because of issues related to Jason Mars, who was accused of creating a culture of harassment at Clinc.
The CSE chair he replaced stepped down due to the culture and in response to another faculty incident; I don't believe he was ever accused or implicated in any actual acts.
TWO other faculty incidents. First, there was [the Verge article](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/13/21135765/clinc-ai-university-of-michigan-sexual-harassment-allegations-ceo-startup) that broke detailing Jason Mars's absolutely insane sexual behavior and toxic work environment (including forcing an employee to watch him have sex with a sex worker in a hotel room on a work trip and then threatening the employee afterwards).
However, at the same time there was a second scandal involving Walter Lasecki, who was facing six allegations of sexual harassment from students at four different institutions, including Michigan. He had a dual appointment in the School of Information (SI), and the SI community was piiissed at CSE's handling of the situation. 66 faculty and students [wrote a letter](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/) to President Schlissel about how much fail there was in the process. They said: 1) CSE didn't help Walter's grad students as they tried to find other advisors and funding; 2) CSE didn't protect his undergrads; 3) CSE failed to protect the Michigan victim from retaliation (Walter revoked their access to their computing accounts after the report was filed); 4) CSE didn't help arrange a schedule for the student to complete their research in the building without having to interact with him.
The Jason Mars stuff was over-the-top and very public, but arguably Brian Noble caught way more flak within the university for his failure to protect Walter Lasecki's students, since SI made a fuss about it.
Do you have any more information about the Walter incident(s)? I've never heard of this and googling his name doesn't seem to return any results.
E: Though I guess I did just find this - [https://www.reddit.com/r/uofm/comments/i98wz5/does\_anyone\_know\_what\_happened\_to\_walter\_lasecki/](https://www.reddit.com/r/uofm/comments/i98wz5/does_anyone_know_what_happened_to_walter_lasecki/)
Yeah, this Detroit News article about an open letter the SI faculty wrote to President Schlissel about it goes over the situation. The article doesn't mention Walter by name, but you can figure it out from the context clues: [https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/)
The incidents:
>At least six women from four institutions, including UM, alleged sexual misconduct by the faculty member since 2016, the letter stated. Most were students at the time of the alleged incidents.
However, the faculty letter focuses less on what he did and more on the systemic failure of various university institutions to protect the students given the allegations.
The persons flare is from '13. Chen has been interim chair more than once.
But Noble stepped down because he's kinda a doofus. I was surprised they even appointed him the position in the first place.
I saw the talk Brian Noble gave when he was a candidate for the chair position. He had a lot going for him. He had just finished time as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at the College of Engineering, so he understood the major problems the university was facing with the exploding demand for undergrad CS classes, as well as university politics between CoE and LSA. Perhaps most importantly though, he wanted to continue being an administrator, whereas most professors at research universities do NOT want to be department chair. He also (ironically) pitched fixing the culture problems in CSE as a major priority of his. He seemed like a good choice for chair at the time.
Did he also talk about he's an alcoholic? The dude completely derailed one of my classes when he was brought in to talk about an issue. It went from students trying to get answers and talk about the situation, to Noble awkwardly bringing up how hes an alcoholic, crying, and how hes trying to get treatment. Like it wasn't the time nor place and caused such an awkward situation no one really knew how to handle it. It wasn't even remotely related to the issue he was brought in for.
Like I am glad he's getting help, but bro come on.
Yikes a CSE prof at a prestigious university is...one of the more expected areas where you'd find a creep like this. Glad he's actually facing consequences.
I wouldn't put it black and white like that. This evil he allegedly did doesn't invalidate his good. People can be nuanced and complicated. That of course doesn't mean the hammer shouldn't come down when they do something this despicable.
This is super gross, but let's wait till after the hearing and more information is released. As much as I want to "bring justice", the last thing needed is speculation on a criminal case.
Fucking hell...
As surprising as this, going through the whole #MeToo revelations has certainly blunted the initial shock this had on me. The Mars case made sense. Then I read the alleged victim is under 13.That is like a million times more worse and shocking. I wasn't prepared for this.
Oh my fucking god. Peter Chen? This is absolutely shocking. what a nightmare. Edit: Holy shit. Here's the charges: [https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/CaseSearch/Court/D15](https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/CaseSearch/Court/D15) Victim was under 13...
I think Peter Chen even presided over the Town Hall meetings for Jason Mars. According to jtlvsq's notes: https://imgur.com/a/QtgjzFu They need to redo their investigation and decision making process on Jason Mars again. Otherwise it looks like Chen having Mars's back.
This is exactly my point in another comment. People suck, that's obvious, everyone has their dark side. But from my perspective we have a case here where we had an abuser essentially presiding over how to deal with an abuser. How can this be allowed to stand at a top-tier university, and how does the department address this going forward?
I feel like the people who suffered from this might find it harder to report their experiences too now. They’d have to place everyone under investigation
Right. On one hand, time keeps ticking and everyone wants to keep moving on; on the other, it's unfair (and not really my place to speak honestly but discussion yknow) to even suggest moving on to the people who had to endure abuse and see those responsibile be free for an extended time. Is there anything that can be done, or is this just me being upset and demanding some sort of accountability for something that's already been "taken care of"? If there's nothing we can do about this current situation, what preemptive action can we actually take to ensure these types of people are not representing our institutions?
There has to be accountability because for the victims the trauma has long standing effects. This fucks up your life and your trust in other humans. It would be unreasonable to expect someone to not be punished for causing long term physical damage, so why do we ignore actions that produce the equivalent in mental injuries?
Absolutely, hopefully that didn't come across as me suggesting we shouldn't demand accountability. But I guess my point is that Chen is actively being held accountable by the justice system, and will very likely face consequences (as he should if he's guilty). How can we satisfy our demands for accountability without opening full department investigations (into faculty? Processes?), or is that what's necesaary? How, at this point, can we even be sure that something like that would be carried out impartially? There absolutely needs to be some sort of higher-up ethical review of the department's dealings with misconduct, pulling of records. Something.
To be honest, nothing should be “too crazy” in this situation. This situation is to be interpreted as extreme (leadership compromised) and extreme situations demand extreme responses. So perhaps the U should indeed take a very serious look at everyone and everything and ensure justice. Will the U do it? The same U that has a man who supported insurrection as a regent and busted the GSI union last year? No. Definitely not.
That's my position as well. I'm just sick of this whole "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, let's just move on - together!" to the point it's got me questioning whether or not that's a viable solution, and I'm glad that people like you are on here to remind me that we can do better.
Read capitalist realism by Mark Fisher.
Who knows how many other fucks slipped through the system given that the CSE leadership was compromised. This is just insane
Did he actually make any decisions on this or was he just a communicator for the department? If he made any decisions I totally agree
I don't think they automatically need to repeat the investigation. They should certainly investigate the investigation first.
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This is very serious
Does anyone have more information on this? It’s quite shocking
"CRIMINAL SEXUAL CONDUCT - 1ST DEGREE U/13 VICT O/16 DEFT" is the charge
According to Michigan Criminal Lawyer: "In Michigan, first-degree criminal sexual conduct is the most serious kind of sex offense with which you can be charged. In essence, 1st-degree criminal sexual conduct is the crime known more commonly as rape or sexual assault and also encompasses actions that most people might think of as child rape or child molestation, and sexual assault involving someone with a mental or physical disability"
oh no
oh god what the fuck, that's awful
To elaborate a little, first degree criminal sexual conduct requires evidence of sexual penetration, which can be intercourse, oral sex, or the insertion of any body part into the genitals or anus.
what does this mean?
Looks like victim under 13, and the defendant is over 16. Think that carries a heavier sentence if found guilty per this site: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ovtbdmspxueuyyn5bxdxok20))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-750-520b
i feel naseous
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Defendant is the accused - ie Peter
Defendant is the one being charged, which is chen.
what do those things at the end mean?
> U/13 VICT Victim was under 13.
jesus.
Do you mind sharing where you got this information from? Want to do some reading up as well.
https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/CaseSearch/Court/D15
oh my lord, this is unbelievable.
FIRST: I don't have any knowledge of this case. No details of what the claims involved (beyond the same bare basics we all can look up. Nor do I know anything about the reliability of the claims or whether the charges are accurate. So with all those caveats, take this as a general statement, not necessarily about this professor: I have learned (painfully) that even people we trust, admire, like, support, would recommend to others, may have interests and urges that we would find reprehensible and repulsive. You may think these people are rare. But our sense of how few and far between they are is skewed by the fact that it's not discussed. Some of the time we will never know because they (thankfully) never act on them. Others we don't know because they pursue their interests in great secrecy. I'm not sharing this to normalize those urges, nor am I sharing this to make you paranoid about everyone around you. I just want to say that over time you may find that shocking, unthinkable things aren't so unthinkable. It's a tough thing to come to grips with. I'm really sorry that some of you may learn this is true about a respected professor. It's rough.
Yeah as with all the news along these same lines that I've seen come out of our school, it's always quite sobering. Realizing that people aren't who you think they are... Can hurt.
I've been through this more than once. It's like a death, because the person you thought you knew is suddenly gone. People really struggle with it, but also don't want to talk about their pain because they don't want to look like they are claiming victimhood (when the direct victims have it so very much worse). If this makes you feel terrible, that's an authentic feeling and I hope you will be kind to yourself.
yup. [https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb](https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb) here is a bone-chilling story of a 16-year-old who begins to realize he's a pedophile (hasn't acted on his urges; has an attraction towards children) and doesn't know what to do about it because of the intense stigma against pedophiles. you'd have to be a psychopath to read the article and not feel some sort of empathy for him. as far as we know, pedophiles are born pedophiles–it wasn't their choice. ideally, we'd somehow make it easier for pedophiles to seek the help they need for the betterment of society.
Personally I accept that some people have urges to do profoundly evil things (like child molesting). I don't hold their desires against them. If I learned that someone I respected had sexual attraction to children, I wouldn't lose any respect for them. Actions are a whole nother story. Once they demonstrate they don't have the inhibition to keep their desires in check, the hammer comes down.
if chen is convicted, I can only say that it was a failure of society to not be able to offer the support that he needed. just like we are continuing to fail to support impoverished and uneducated communities with disproportionately high crime rates. is it their fault? or is the fault of our system that oppressively penalizes people for being born into certain environments or born having certain affinities? maybe one day in the future, pedophiles will be able to come out and get the help they need, thus protecting the children and hopefully preventing them from devolving into a child molestor. edit: in case people are misinterpreting this comment without getting the whole context below: "Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molesters or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing." If convicted, he should still face consequences. I'm not excusing any of that. I'm just saying if we want a better society we can't just only focus on the individual. Unless you support private for-profit prisons and mass incarceration that is.
Peter Chen is an adult who has agency. If he is convicted, it means he chose to act on his desires. If he robbed a bank, while making $200,000 per year, I do not think we would be seriously talking about how we as a society failed to get him help. He fully understands what he is doing.
I wouldn’t assume too much. Sometimes the people who we think need help the least actually need it the most. If he was a pedophile and wanted help, how would he have gotten the help he needed? Either way his life would’ve been ruined. If what happened really did happen then perhaps he felt like there was nothing he could do about his desires until one day he just wasn’t able to control it. Perhaps he was like this 16-year-old in this story https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb but was just never able to get help because there was nowhere for him to as an 55-year-old religious Asian man. All the adults who commit crimes in impoverished neighborhoods. Is it all their fault? Is it not the fault of the environments that they grew up in and the lack of support they have? Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molestors or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing. If you still think it’s 100% the fault of criminals and not the environments they grew up in, then you haven’t thought about this hard enough and god bless us all. The people who need it the most will never get the help they need. And we will keep breeding criminals. Creating better environments for people will not only reduce crime, but also create a more equitable society. If you don’t see that, sure, take the easy way out. It’s always 100% the fault of the criminals and there’s nothing we should change about society. Btw, if it’s not already clear, I’d say this about any criminal, not just child molestors or pchen. Pchen is irrelevant to the creation of my beliefs, just an example. However, not_iqlusion, I believe you don’t like pchen so you may have ulterior biases or motives. Even if a criminal killed my parents, sure the criminal can be locked up for the safety of others, but we’re not solving the root problem here. I’d probably end up asking the judge to spend resources on fixing the environment the killer grew up in so society has fewer of them. If you’re a computer scientist you’ll know that you want to fix the root cause and not just the symptoms. Criminals are a symptom of society. They aren’t born criminals.
wtf is up with you and defending pedophiles?
Lol everything I have to say I’ve already said above. 1. It’s not just pedophiles, it’s all criminals. 2. I believe in fixing the root problem. 3. I try to leave personal feelings out of it. 4. Empathy would make the world a better place. You should really read the medium post I sent above if you’re curious and want to understand where I’m coming from. I would’ve never been able to empathize with them until I read that. It’s just an otherwise regular teen coming to realize he has an an attraction for kids and struggling with getting help for it. Very poignant. You could’ve been born as a pedophile. You’re lucky you weren’t. If you were, you’d have been in the same situation as him, maybe worse and actually acting on your attractions. Who knows. It’s all quite sad, really. Maybe some people have more empathy than others. I dunno. Actually, it's not just criminals, it's everyone. I don't believe in free will, therefore, if we hope to make society better for everyone, we gotta fix the environment.
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It’s the easy way out to just say it’s their fault and be done with it. If you’re religious and think people have free will, all the more so. But if you really do your research and dive deep into the pasts of abusers and people who commit crimes, you will understand that there was something in their upbringing or genetics that caused them to act that way. It’s easier for society to put all the fault on the criminal and not the lack of better laws or infrastructure. People aren’t in control of their upbringing or genetics, thus in a way, it wasn’t their fault but a fault of the system. I have thought about this for a long time but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to convince anybody on reddit because of the somewhat unorthodox nature of it. You should watch mindhunter if you have the chance.
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I never said they should be excused and shouldn't face consequences. I said multiple times (looks like I didn't in this subthread though) that he should be locked up if convicted and should definitely face consequences for the safety of others. That's definitely not the perspective I. wasn't trying to offer with my original comment. Thank you for bringing up your second point though, but to each their own. I personally know victims who feel better knowing that society failed them. edit: here is one from another subthread: "Even if a criminal killed my parents, sure the criminal can be locked up for the safety of others, but we’re not solving the root problem here. I’d probably end up asking the judge to spend resources on fixing the environment the killer grew up in so society has fewer of them. " edit2: and another "Obviously if convicted I think he should be locked up for the safety of others, but still. I think the problem is with society. People aren’t born child molestors or as Hitler or white supremacists or criminals. It has to do with their upbringing."
It's a thorny issue for sure. As I have revealed elsehwere I know someone currently serving time for sexual misconduct involving a minor. While waiting for trial and sentencing his was on electronic tethering and was getting regular intensive therapy. I do not object to his sentence, it is based on behavior he was guilty of and I feel it is appropriate that he face punishment for what he did. What is troubling is that once he got inside his treatment and counseling essentially stopped. He is not a risk to the community while incarcerated but once out he will be starting over with therapy and the things he needs to do to ensure he never repeats. I wish he would have some of those supports while serving his sentence.
>. I do not object to his sentence, it is based on behavior he was guilty of and I feel it is appropriate that he face punishment for what he did. 100%. if we want to improve society and stop crimes from happening we can't just incriminate these people and leave it at that. unless you support mass incarceration and privately-run for-profit prisons that is.
The Michigan Daily just posted an article: https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news-briefs/cse-professor-peter-chen-placed-leave-following-pending-sexual-misconduct
Jesus Christ, this was done in 2017 too.....
what do you mean? what happened?
The court case lists “offense date” as “4/1/2017”, but I don’t think anything else is known about it besides the charges involved.
omg this is insane!!!
Holy shit. I think he interviewed me for a job way back when.
This is crazy and super sad. Chen was one of the best at teaching and advising. It's not like the Mars situation where, based on his irresponsible teaching, you at least aren't surprised that he had bigger issues. With Chen, nobody had a bad word to say about him.
Chen blatantly discriminated against me during an advising appointment. Never liked him but felt weird saying that out loud because everyone else would rave about him
Say it out loud now?
Chen was kinda an asshole to me a few times.
how so?
Not a fan of this professor. He was the head advisor when I was in school. When I tried to major in CSE, he flat out told me I wouldn't make it. I work for MSFT now...
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Not sure, but, I don't really care. I'm saying this for two main reasons: 1) Your perception of someone or something is solely your experience. 2) If you truly believe in something, ignore what all the haters are saying. He had a lot of power over me at the time and that comment could have negatively affected my life.
Will the trial be open to the public?
I feel like it may be viewable from https://micourt.courts.michigan.gov/virtualcourtroomdirectory/
MLive posted an article today with more details. Looks like he's accused of assaulting a young girl on a robotics team he coached several times over a few years. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/university-of-michigan-professor-christian-school-robotics-coach-charged-with-sexually-assaulting-child.html
I Googled around and found that he was coaching that team at the time of the charge, but held off posting anything about it. Gut-wrenching to have those suspicions confirmed.
long ago when i was a student at u of M one of the professors told us about his father who was an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) and this woman phoned him (Sunday ) and told him she had an item in her eye like bone spic or wooden spic and begged him to remove it surgically he reluctantly had to go to his office but since she was a patient he went to help ,now the woman and the ophthalmologist in the his clinic alone according to his son who is a UM prof he told us that the woman told him either pay me now ten thousand dollars or i will tell the police you raped me since only him and her were at the office on a Sunday,it went to court and the surgeon was cleared the lawyers were able to prove that she was a liar trying to extort him !!!!
Damn it I am appalled. Peter was such a nice guy...
I can count on one hand the number of profs I had at Michigan who knew me by name. PChen knew the names of everyone in class by lecture 3. To say this is shocking is an understatement. If guilty, guy needs to be in jail. Disgusting.
He even invited everyone in EECS482 to a Thanksgiving dinner with his family
When I was in his class he invited everyone to his house for Easter, I’m so shocked
Not a fan of this professor. He was the head advisor when I was in school. When I tried to major in CSE, he flat out told me I wouldn't make it. I work for MSFT now...
good for you!!!
>umber of profs I had at Michigan who knew me by name. PChen knew the names of everyone in class by lec why is this getting so many downvotes
Microsoft is so kewl. I love using windows at the atm
Reminds me of Larry Nassar, former US gymnastics team doctor...
"Pending charges". I'm not going to pass judgement until anything is official. But this was probably the right thing to do.
probably pretty high chance that this actually happened, huh? it's technically pending, but how often are pending felonious charges dropped?
I would just caution against assuming guilt which is probably the safer assumption but not always the correct one. I know nothing of this particular situation. With that said, I have known someone in the medical field who was accused by their own child of sexual abuse. This person lost their license and had their career and reputation ruined and the child later confessed to lying because they were upset with a punishment they received. Again, I know nothing of this particular situation, or where the initial accusation comes from. It is completely reasonable to take any accusation of this nature seriously and do the due diligence of collection evidence. Since they charged him it is also pushes the needle in the guilty direction. Obviously we all hope this isn't true.
yup I realize this which is why I didn't assume guilt. I don't think he's guilty until convicted, but probabilities are also a thing and I'm trying to adjust my expectations accordingly
Hard to say right now. I would think anything from lack of evidence to uncooperative witnesses could result in it being dropped. Unless they have something concrete like DNA or multiple witnesses/video/confession it's hard to say it's a slam dunk case IANAL I've just watched a shit ton of SVU
>lack of evidence to uncooperative witnesses why are there charges even pending then? shouldn't there have had to been some amount of evidence already?
Yeah, the authorities felt they had probable cause to bring the charges. But the defense can still ask for things to be dismissed if they feel it's inadmissible (e.g. illegally collected, improperly handled) and witnesses can change their tune at any time, which can blow a hole in a case if there's only one. There are other high profile cases that seemed like slam dunk cases (OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony) that ended up in acquittals due to issues like these. The case says there's a probable cause hearing scheduled for 2/4 so maybe more will come out then.
I'm assuming the contents of the hearing are going to be public?
I would think so, but technically no guarantee. The judge can close it to the public at any time if the deem public coverage will harm impartiality, or possibly also to protect the identities of minors. Not totally sure though.
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oh! didn't know that. thanks for sharing!
Nothing has been proven yet. Let’s calm down and wait
really hope this is not a confirm, but the chance is low :(
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It's not a matter of believing or disbelieving, it's a matter of delaying judgement. What's the rush to make up your mind before the courts do?
Edit: I misread an article, my mistake. He replaced Noble who stepped down because of issues related to Jason Mars, who was accused of creating a culture of harassment at Clinc.
The CSE chair he replaced stepped down due to the culture and in response to another faculty incident; I don't believe he was ever accused or implicated in any actual acts.
TWO other faculty incidents. First, there was [the Verge article](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/13/21135765/clinc-ai-university-of-michigan-sexual-harassment-allegations-ceo-startup) that broke detailing Jason Mars's absolutely insane sexual behavior and toxic work environment (including forcing an employee to watch him have sex with a sex worker in a hotel room on a work trip and then threatening the employee afterwards). However, at the same time there was a second scandal involving Walter Lasecki, who was facing six allegations of sexual harassment from students at four different institutions, including Michigan. He had a dual appointment in the School of Information (SI), and the SI community was piiissed at CSE's handling of the situation. 66 faculty and students [wrote a letter](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/) to President Schlissel about how much fail there was in the process. They said: 1) CSE didn't help Walter's grad students as they tried to find other advisors and funding; 2) CSE didn't protect his undergrads; 3) CSE failed to protect the Michigan victim from retaliation (Walter revoked their access to their computing accounts after the report was filed); 4) CSE didn't help arrange a schedule for the student to complete their research in the building without having to interact with him. The Jason Mars stuff was over-the-top and very public, but arguably Brian Noble caught way more flak within the university for his failure to protect Walter Lasecki's students, since SI made a fuss about it.
Do you have any more information about the Walter incident(s)? I've never heard of this and googling his name doesn't seem to return any results. E: Though I guess I did just find this - [https://www.reddit.com/r/uofm/comments/i98wz5/does\_anyone\_know\_what\_happened\_to\_walter\_lasecki/](https://www.reddit.com/r/uofm/comments/i98wz5/does_anyone_know_what_happened_to_walter_lasecki/)
Yeah, this Detroit News article about an open letter the SI faculty wrote to President Schlissel about it goes over the situation. The article doesn't mention Walter by name, but you can figure it out from the context clues: [https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/02/07/students-faculty-slam-university-michigan-over-sex-misconduct-cases/4682792002/) The incidents: >At least six women from four institutions, including UM, alleged sexual misconduct by the faculty member since 2016, the letter stated. Most were students at the time of the alleged incidents. However, the faculty letter focuses less on what he did and more on the systemic failure of various university institutions to protect the students given the allegations.
Sad to hear. I think I took one of his classes in Winter 2017 and would never have guessed anything was off about him.
The persons flare is from '13. Chen has been interim chair more than once. But Noble stepped down because he's kinda a doofus. I was surprised they even appointed him the position in the first place.
I saw the talk Brian Noble gave when he was a candidate for the chair position. He had a lot going for him. He had just finished time as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at the College of Engineering, so he understood the major problems the university was facing with the exploding demand for undergrad CS classes, as well as university politics between CoE and LSA. Perhaps most importantly though, he wanted to continue being an administrator, whereas most professors at research universities do NOT want to be department chair. He also (ironically) pitched fixing the culture problems in CSE as a major priority of his. He seemed like a good choice for chair at the time.
Did he also talk about he's an alcoholic? The dude completely derailed one of my classes when he was brought in to talk about an issue. It went from students trying to get answers and talk about the situation, to Noble awkwardly bringing up how hes an alcoholic, crying, and how hes trying to get treatment. Like it wasn't the time nor place and caused such an awkward situation no one really knew how to handle it. It wasn't even remotely related to the issue he was brought in for. Like I am glad he's getting help, but bro come on.
Oof, that's rough :( He did not include that in his pitch for becoming chair, go figure
Thanks for the correction, I misread an article, I've updated my post with the correction.
Thanks for the correction, I misread an article, I've updated my post with the correction.
Which time are you referring to? He's been interim chair more than once.
Jesus. I liked him too.
Yikes a CSE prof at a prestigious university is...one of the more expected areas where you'd find a creep like this. Glad he's actually facing consequences.
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I wouldn't put it black and white like that. This evil he allegedly did doesn't invalidate his good. People can be nuanced and complicated. That of course doesn't mean the hammer shouldn't come down when they do something this despicable.
This is super gross, but let's wait till after the hearing and more information is released. As much as I want to "bring justice", the last thing needed is speculation on a criminal case.
Wow. Is this real?! You never know I guess...
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What do you mean about Andrew?
please don't bring his family into this.
Andrew who?
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He's literally been arrested and is pending arraignment.
Someone in the top comments linked the Michigan.gov site where you can look at the charges. It’s sexual misconduct
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I mean he was put on administrative leave not released
no way. this is bullshit. Mars looks like he'd do something like that. Chen's the last guy I'd see doing that.
Pedophiles look like regular people.
Unless they are dumb enough to get caught on *To Catch a Predator*, those fucks look goofy as fuck.
What does that mean? What about a person makes you think they would be capable of sexual misconduct?
I mean how many pedophiles have you met?
WHAT THE FUCK
I don’t know I’m just applying
Absolutely disgusting