Fermilab Whistleblower Report Alleges Sexual Harassment, Loaded Gun and ‘Chaotic’ Finances

Jared Rutecki | August 16, 2024, 5:37 pm

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Michael Kappel / flickr)

Update: The story was updated Monday with a statement from Fermilab.

A report alleging a series of human resources, safety and financial problems at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory was recently published by a group of whistleblowers.

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The authors believe the report shows the particle accelerator laboratory in suburban Batavia has serious issues, alleging “more than a decade of unethical conduct and sometimes conduct of questionable legality.”

The report, posted on an archive for academic articles, comes at a critical juncture for the Department of Energy, which is currently exploring options for a new contractor to manage the lab. This also follows a recent abbreviation of the time much of the lab will be closed due to budget issues starting this month.

Attribution in the white paper is anonymous, though the foreword is signed by two respected physics researchers, Giorgio Bellettini, who had a lengthy tenure at Fermilab, and William Barletta, who works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some incidents included what the researchers characterized as an outdated approach to human resources and legal matters under the purview of the Fermi Research Alliance, the partnership that manages Fermilab.

“Fermilab leadership takes the points raised in the report seriously. For the past two years, the lab’s leadership team has been addressing a number of issues. Additionally, Director (Lia) Merminga conducted a climate survey early in her tenure leading to a focus on some of the most pressing issues,” a spokesperson said.

The report detailed multiple incidents, including one where a postdoctoral researcher worked on an international research project at Fermilab with Christopher Backhouse.

He created social media accounts falsely identifying the researcher as a sex worker and sharing her personal phone number as a form of harassment, leading people to contact her directly, according to the report and court documents. Backhouse was alleged to have signed her up for various unwanted services and groups, including far-right hate groups and fetish websites, and delivered adult diapers and baby-proofing services to her home.

The researcher who claimed harassment reported the incident to HR, and later left the field, according to the report. Fermilab HR investigated an allegation of sexual assault with no finding of fact, according to the document. Backhouse was forced to pay nearly £50,000 in damages in the U.K. case, records show.

‘Hostile Work Environment’

Late last year, the Department of Energy issued its P5 (Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel) Plan, a document intended to chart a course for its future research, in the wake of previously poor health and safety evaluations at Fermilab. Costs have soared for multiple recent Fermilab projects, according to reviews by the DOE.

The whistleblowers’ paper reported a large part of the staff is unhappy with management based upon survey results. The report described a “hostile work environment, where constructive criticism is most often ignored and retaliated against.”

Allegations also included an employee carrying “a loaded gun at all times, either on his ankle or in his truck,” which was reported to HR before he was promoted and the reporting witness was fired. The documents said security and the Kane County Sheriff’s Office were called in 2022 and stopped the man, but did not search him, allowing him to leave the site. The Kane County Sheriff’s Office would not confirm this visit by the time of publication.

An injury connected to “an obsessed male employee…badly hurting a female electrician with an industrial vehicle,” and an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission retaliation lawsuit settled for $100,000, were also detailed.

Apart from issues with staff, “The business/financial side of the laboratory is beset with a large chaotic mix of problems,” the authors said. The report also criticizes the lab for its procurement practices, which “hinder the lab’s ability to deliver and enable its Science Mission.”

In response to the report, a statement read, “Fermilab’s leadership is deeply committed to ensuring that employees have the tools they need to accomplish the lab’s mission safely and effectively. Consequently, confidence and trust are being regained as the lab implements new processes.”

The lab highlighted improved site access and updated processes accomplished in collaboration with Fermilab, DOE and stakeholders.

‘The Time to Act Is Now’

Greg Stephens, the new chief operating officer of Fermilab, started in May. Lia Merminga has been the director of the lab since 2022.

The paper builds a framework suggesting some problems start at the top and trickle downward.

The “COO, CFO, and Comptroller departed in early 2024 with no qualified replacements promptly available to replace them. The stress is so intense that personnel retention is a challenge from top to bottom; stressful situations result from the many issues on the operations side of the lab,” according to the report.

This was similar to the conclusion reached by the woman involved in the sexual harassment case.

“The problem starts at the top, with FRA and the Fermilab directorate,” she said in the whistleblower report. “I may no longer be part of the field, but perhaps my experiences will mean others in the future don’t have to go through what I went through; that will have to be enough.”

The authors suggest eliminating redundancies in administrative positions at Fermilab as a cost-saving measure, among other moves. They presented the problems identified in the white paper as putting particle physics research in the United States in a challenging position.

The findings were communicated to staff at the DOE and U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), a physicist who previously worked at Fermilab, the report said.

Though critical of its operations, the two men who signed the document offered insight into what it might take to right the ship at the lab with an annual operating budget approaching $800 million in 2022.

“A transparent and honest approach to the change will substantially improve a productive dialogue with DOE as our funding agency, and strengthen a much-needed mutual trust,” Barletta wrote in the paper.

Both Barletta and Bellettini ended their passage with the same exhortation: “The time to act is now.”