Hi all,

I am a graduate student at a state school. Prior to my arriving here, my PI was accused of sexual assault. It was thrown out in court and the department supported him. However, that did not stop the rampant feminists from going against him, and to a larger extent, myself because I chose him to be my adviser. They bring it up every damn fucking time I open my god damn mouth to talk about anything, including research (which is the only reason why I would talk to them).

Regarding the accuser, she recorded pretty much every interaction between her and my PI for months prior and his interactions with other lab mates as well. She even claimed other lab members were harassed even though they thoroughly refuted that statement in state court. So my PI was innocent even with plenty ‘evidence’ of the accuser’s own choosing. The current atmosphere in the lab is very jovial and friendly, so I am very happy here.

However, whenever I walk into the room, I know people treat me like I am at fault and facilitate this shit when I absolutely do not. In fact, I am probably amongst those most conscious about personal space and boundary being introverted myself. This topic keeps coming up even when I actively try to avoid it. What can I do? These people ignore the basic concept of due process and I currently do not have enough respect and capital from surrounding faculty to make a stand, not to mention that I will pretty much sabotage my own career if I do. These people spend half their working hours on their phone getting worked up about some random injustice somewhere (of course, they don’t actually do anything about it beyond getting enraged).

I just wanted to vent a little and ask for some advice on how to handle this. My PI is a great man who is such a wonderful, if sometimes very tough mentor and I truly admire him. It is such a shame that there are those who are simply addicted to outrage and hatred. I am not even gonna start how they are incredibly patronizing towards me and how my GF (who is also a PhD student) wants to take time off for kids. I guess it is just now that I am realizing that they may not care so much about objective improvement of the working environment as much as to enforce power over those who do not overlap their views.