Dr. Eric Lander has left the building—presumably without a “Kick Me” sign affixed to his back.
The top science adviser to Joe Biden, Lander told the president of his intent to resign on Monday, just hours after a White House investigation found credible evidence of “bullying” behavior towards his staff and a track record of mistreating female colleagues.
Lander gave his notice after the Biden administration struggled repeatedly to explain, in the wake of the internal investigation’s findings, why he would not be fired from his post as a Cabinet member and head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
On day one of his time in office, the president had announced a zero-tolerance policy for disrespect, “no ifs, ands, or buts.”
“Nothing about his behavior is acceptable to anyone here at all,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki had said of Lander earlier on Monday afternoon, in response to reporters who pressed her on Biden’s policy, and whether or not it applied to Lander. “Quite the opposite. Let me be clear about that. But there is now a process in place that was not in place at the time to evaluate and determine what next steps should be taken.”
The two-month probe into Lander concluded that he had bullied his former general counsel, Rachel Wallace. In addition, Lander fostered a toxic work environment, according to more than a dozen current and former OSTP employees.
The investigation found that he often spoke or yelled “in a demeaning or abrasive way,” to colleagues—particularly female ones—in front of others, according to White House deputy director of management and administration for personnel Christian Peele. The investigation and its findings were first reported by Politico.
Fielding questions from reporters earlier on Monday, Psaki had said that senior administration officials “conveyed directly” to Lander that his behavior had been found “inappropriate,” as well as “the corrective actions that were needed.” She added that the White House would be monitoring the scientist for compliance in the future.
Hours later, Psaki confirmed that Biden had accepted Lander’s resignation “with gratitude for his work at OSTP on the pandemic, the Cancer Moonshot, climate change, and other key priorities. He knows that Dr. Lander will continue to make important contributions to the scientific community in the years ahead.”
As director of OSTP, Lander had been in charge of relaunching the “Cancer Moonshot,” aimed at reducing cancer deaths—an initiative close to the president’s heart after the 2015 death of his son Beau from brain cancer. It was unclear on Monday evening who would be taking over the project following Lander’s departure.
After becoming aware of Politico’s initial investigation into his misconduct, Lander sent an apologetic email to his roughly 140 staffers last Friday. “It's my responsibility to set a respectful tone for our community. It's clear that I have not lived up to this responsibility,” Lander wrote, expressing regret for speaking to colleagues in a “disrespectful and demeaning way,” Politico reported that day.
“Lander's apology did not come close to addressing the full extent of his egregious behavior,” Rachel Wallace told Politico.
The investigation, part of Biden’s Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy, was initiated after a September complaint from Wallace, who accused Lander of retaliating against her by demoting her to deputy counsel. The White House’s investigation found that her reassignment had been appropriate, but that she had been shut out of “meetings, conversations and assignments,” according to a recording of Peele briefing officials on the investigation in January.
“Numerous women have been left in tears, traumatized, and feeling very vulnerable and isolated” as a result of Lander’s treatment, Wallace told Politico.
Lander was tapped and later elevated to a Cabinet position by Biden last year, in an implicit rebuke of former president Donald Trump’s mistrust of scientific facts. Lander, well-known as a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient and for his pioneering work on mapping the human genome, had been publicly criticized before for his alleged treatment of women and people of color in the workplace, with critics irritated that he'd never faced disciplinary action for his behavior.
As the executive director of 500 Women Scientists, Emily Pinckney, put it to The Washington Post on Monday, Lander models “the epitome of White privilege in science.”
During his Senate confirmation hearing in May 2021, according to the Post, Lander admitted that he had written a 2016 paper that had “understated” the contribution of two female scientists to a revolutionary genome editing technology. He said he regretted not properly acknowledging the scientists, who would go on to win a Nobel Prize for their work.
“I made a mistake. And when I make a mistake, I owned it and tried to do better,” he said.
