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David Coppedge trial: Coppedge was never informed that he was being investigated

Denyse O'Leary
March 29, 2012
Academic Freedom, News
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Evolution News and Views

A scene anyone familiar with mediocre (average = awful) management will instantly recognize the scene, as recounted by Casey Luskin in “Into the Bureaucratic Nightmare of “Human Resources”: How JPL’s Investigation Denied Fairness and Due Process to David Coppedge” at Evolution News & Views (March 28, 2012):

2. Huntley Failed to Follow JPL Procedures when Investigating Complaints Against David Coppedge

JPL has a variety of policies designed to ensure that those accused of workplace harassment receive some basic modicum of due process during the investigation of their behavior. In Huntley’s investigation, many of these policies appear to have been disregarded.

One important JPL policy requires that HR inform a person facing harassment complaints of the relevant investigation procedures. HR must give the accused party an opportunity to comment on the suitability of the investigator. Huntley claims she did this. However, at the time, David Coppedge wasn’t even aware of this right. Huntley never told David “You are being investigated for harassment and I am investigating you.” David Coppedge was never informed that he was being investigated at all. So how could he possibly comment on the suitability of the investigator? Of course he couldn’t.

Another requirement is that HR investigators must summarize, for the person facing complaints about himself, the evidence in support of the accusation. This is meant to allow the accused party the opportunity to reply to the charges. Again, Huntley claims she did that at a March 5, 2009, meeting with Mr. Coppedge, but her claim can’t possibly be true. Coppedge’s attorney, William Becker, exposed Huntley’s lie (or faulty memory, perhaps). Becker showed that at the March 5 meeting, Huntley didn’t yet even know the precise nature of the complaints against Coppedge. So obviously she couldn’t have informed him of the charges.

Consider this exchange. (Margaret Weisenfelder is Coppedge’s colleague who initially complained about his lending her a pro-intelligent design DVD.)

It gets better of course.

And after you read this, you will never ever try selling chocolate almonds for charity  at work again.  Don’t let anyone know what you care about.

Comments
Oh, and by the way... Happy Holy Days, militant atheists! Since it's Lent, it's a good idea to prepare for them by increased prayerfulness. Drat! I forgot, as atheists, you will be celebrating these Holy Days most reluctantly. Yet another a cruel dispensation of Divine Providence! I look forward eagerly to reading about a Bill in Congress for Holy Days to be renamed, Unholy Days. Axel
This is over the top. This Mrs Huntley comes across as the most incompetent HR person, no just person, I ever dreamed of. And more bizzare, her bosses, for letting her handle this hot potato. The only other explanations are 1) that the Discovery Institute article was written by a total lunatic while hilucinating. or. 2) Huntley's bosses were conspiring to make JPL loook like fools. This is lawsuit crazy America, in 2011. And in a deposition, the HR rep is asked "Did you advise this guy of his rights as required by JPL's procedures"...... I cannot imagine the response was NOT either 1) "Yes, as documented by his signature on this acknowledgement form" or 2) "Yes, as doucemented by this memo to file signed by myself and another properly trained witness, HR offical Mr Joesph Schmoe." Instead is "Yes, I told him his rights, trust me I did." In a modern beuracracy? The say nobody ever lost money underestimating intelligence of people, but really. this Huntley is beyond belief. chris haynes
I found it too troubling to read the whole article, but it struck me how easy it is for apparently ordinary, regular-seeming people to lose the least vestige of honour and elementary decency, betraying their real character as individuals. 'The banality of evil' writ large, springs to mind. Atheism at its vilest. It's not difficult to envisage the protagonists lined up against Mr Coppedge at a Nuremberg Rally. Didn't Jewish survivors of the concentration camps identify the worst individuals, not as the monsters guarding the camps, but as the petty functionaries, pushing paper and 'pointing the gun', when 'given the office'. Axel
F/N: For those all too willing to misconstrue such a reference -- notice how "Christmas"[!] has now deliberately been increasingly turned into a dirty word by those with a venomous hostility to Christ . . . -- the above is a classic case of the way power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Arrogant and abusive bureaucracies are particularly prone to such. (The "investigation" of Coppedge, as summarised by Luskin from the trial, is a classic of this.) kairosfocus
Folks: All of this sounds ever so familiar:
Ac 6: 9 . . . some of . . . the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words . . . " [ESV]
And, Jesus speaking to Saul from that shaft of light brighter than the sun (where, plainly, Paul was one of those from Cilicia):
Ac 26: 12 “. . . I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. 14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,1 ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’[ESV]
KF kairosfocus
What kind of an obnoxious hateful peson this Margaret must be that she doesn't have the common decency to tell someone to their face I don't want this or don't give me something like this again. But why would that even be necessary all one has to say is no. What is the point of going to a higher up but to be malicious and malevolent? It is people like this who are divisive passive aggressive cowards and.this display their fear, smallness, and weakness for all who are observant to see Michael Servetus
Huntley testified Monday- according ENV. We can only guess that it didn't go very well for her. Unfortunately there isn't any daily "play-by-play" reporting going on. Does anyone know when this trial will be over? Joe

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