Corrections and Clarifications to the July 26, 2018 Draft Investigation Report

Rebecca Gill

Summary: In this document, I outline several corrections and clarifications that must be made to the
Investigation Report. This report is unclear and inaccurate in several parts. It is also missing key
evidence. The report will be a much more complete and accurate representation of the
investigation when it is revised to include the many supporting materials that are critical to a
full accounting of events. Many of these details were included in the MSU Draft Report, which
I have included below as Appendix A.

1. Discussion of the Complainant’s Interview

a. Please clarify at the top of page 7 that the Respondent was listed as one of my
committee members when I checked my paperwork after Respondent’s wife was no
longer serving as the Director of Graduate Studies (sometime in late 2007). I did not
authorize this committee change, and it was done without my signature or consent.
2. Discussion of the Respondent’s Response to the Complainant’s Allegations
a. I disagree with the Respondent’s claim about the day of the harassment. In the first
paragraph of this section, the Respondent indicates that he “believes this was a
Wednesday” (UM Report, p. 7). I believe it was on Thursday. Before the outing, I visited
his “late office hours” to deliver a paper to him for feedback. Later at the bar, we
discussed the paper (what he had already read of it), before he proposed a quid pro quo
sexual relationship with me. Then, he sent me an email the following day (Friday, August
16, 2002) with additional comments on the paper. I have attached a scanned copy of
this email below. I no longer have access to the electronic versions of the emails from
that time, but I printed this one at the time because (1) I received it the day after the
harassment, and (2) because it included specific suggestions for revising my paper. In
the end, I never revised the paper, as it was directly connected to the harassment and I
wanted nothing to do with it. I did not attend a class meeting, office hours, or have any
other contact with the Respondent after the harassment until the 2005 meeting, which I
describe in my statement as summarized in the draft report.
b. I disagree with the contention by the Respondent that he must not have had many
beers because “he was teaching the next day” (UM Report, p. 7). The outing and the
harassment occurred on Thursday, (not Wednesday, as the Respondent asserts on p. 8),
the last day of classes. As the Respondent indicates in his email to me dated 8/16/2002,
(Appendix D), he was packing on Friday. Moreover, there is evidence that Respondent
had previously drunk to excess on evenings before teaching days.
can confirm that, during the
summer of 2002, witnessed him quite hungover on a day he was slated to teach.
c. Respondent misrepresents our interaction about the review of my research paper to
impute nefarious motivations for my request for feedback on my work. The paper in
question is one that I wrote for a course with Darren Davis and presented at the
Southern Political Science Association meeting in 2001 (Appendix E). It was at that
meeting when I first met the Respondent, who was in the audience for the panel at
which I presented. After the presentation, he approached me and complimented me on
the presentation. He also suggested that I attend ICPSR the next summer to take his
 course. This is how it came to be that I returned to ICPSR in 2002 (I had already
completed enough coursework to meet my degree requirements in the summer of
2001). The Respondent erroneously asserts in his testimony that “the purpose of the
review was to assess whether, as the Complainant believed, the professor [Darren
Davis] had been excessively harsh in his grading of the paper” (UM Report, p. 8),
followed by the claim “that he felt somewhat uncomfortable with the request as he had
accepted an offer earlier in the summer to teach at MSU beginning the following year,
so he knew that the professor in question would be his colleague in the near future”
(p.8). In fact, the Respondent’s email (Appendix D) illustrates clearly that this was not
the purpose of my request. In that email, he accurately identifies a different scholar, Dr.
Luke Keele, as the source of the commentary on my paper and the reason for my
request that he review it. Moreover, my transcript (Appendix F) indicates that I received
an A in Darren Davis’s course (PLS 828), and this paper was the major component of that
grade (Appendix D, p.2). I Thus, I requested that he review the paper only because (1)
he expressed an interest in the work at the 2001 SPSA conference panel, and (2) I
thought he might be able to provide suggestions about how to incorporate the
comments from Dr. Keele, who was the discussant on that panel and, notably, who was
not then, and has never been on the faculty at Michigan State University. In the end,
Respondent implies that I acted improperly by asking him to review my conference
paper. This is untrue, a fact substantiated by Respondent’s own email. He also described
my work in negative terms in his testimony, even though he stated in his email
(Appendix D) that the paper I asked him to read would likely see print. This is not a light
or frivolous comment. One would not make this statement for truly substandard work.
d. The Respondent appears to give the possibility of an affair some detailed thought. In the
last paragraph of page 8, the Respondent surmises that “he understands [my] allegation
to be that he invited [me] to engage in an affair beginning at that time, rather than
delayed until he joined the faculty at MSU.” I have no way of knowing what his
intentions were or what time frame he applied to “affair.” I did not ask for clarification,
of course, because I was not interested in any sort of romantic relationship with the
Respondent. It is worth noting that the “arrangement” he struck with ,
whose story I discuss further in Section 8 below, may provide insight into what he hoped
to arrange with me.
e. The Respondent is wrong that a meeting took place between myself, my advisor, and
the Respondent (as he claims, first full paragraph of page 9). This meeting never
occurred, a fact my advisor, Reggie Sheehan, can confirm. The only meeting I had with
the Respondent after he harassed me was the 2005 meeting I discussed in my
statement. My advisor did not accompany me. At that meeting, I did not ask
Respondent to be on my committee. Instead, my purpose was to arrange for him to
NOT be on my committee. The challenge was that Director of Graduate Studies, Saundra
Schneider (Respondent’s wife) purportedly required that committees in my subfield
must include the Respondent. My advisor, Reggie Sheehan, can confirm this. My goal in
meeting with Respondent was to see if there was a way to clear the air so that I could
complete my degree without him on my committee. When he asked why I hadn’t put
 him on my committee to begin with, I explained that his proposition at ICPSR made me
feel very uncomfortable, and I reminded him of the events of that evening.
f. Again, the Respondent tries to deflect attention from his behavior by suggesting
nefarious motives to my complaint. In the first full paragraph of page 9, the Respondent
claims that I “appeared entirely disinterested in the methodological strategy he
recommended for her research, ”as if this might demonstrate his disinterest in me and
my work. In fact, I had already presented a paper at the Southern Political Science
Association Meeting in 2002 (attached as Appendix G) that used the multidimensional
scaling technique I’d learned in Respondent’s class. Moreover, even a quick perusal of
my dissertation shows that a version of this analysis also features very prominently in
the final substantive chapter of my dissertation (attached as Appendix H). Finally, and
regardless of where I might have been interested or not in his expertise, the Director of
Graduate Studies at the time, Saundra Schneider (Respondents’s wife), had a blanket
policy that all American politics dissertations committees would include the
Respondent, regardless whether the Respondent was an appropriate addition to a
committee.
g. Again, the only meeting I had with the Respondent was the 2005 meeting I’ve described
in my statement. The second paragraph on page 9 is wrong. In the 2005 meeting, I told
him that I wanted to complete my degree without him on my committee.
h. Again, Respondent tries to impute nefarious motives to me in paragraph three on page
9, when he suggests that his powerful positions as editor of some of the top journals in
my field may have affected my complaint. However, I told my story to several people
back in 2002, well before I submitted any work to any of these journals.
i. Respondent makes clear his general intention of framing his behavior as my character
flaw in the last paragraph on page 9 when he claims that the venue in which I I made my
story public was “particularly vindictive.” Here, it is critical to include in this report my
full statement, attached as Appendix C. I was invited to speak at the 2018 Southern
Political Science Association meeting on a roundtable entitled “Mentoring Across
Genders.” I told my story to illustrate how difficult it can be for male mentors to
anticipate the effects of sexual harassment and other experiences of discrimination on
their female students. The text of my statement was carefully tailored to this purpose.
That the Respondent and his wife have long been involved with the Southern Political
Science Association was irrelevant to my decision to talk about this issue. As I said, I was
invited to speak on this topic at this conference.
j. The remainder of the discussion of the Respondent’s statement focuses on the post on
the website “poliscirumors.com.” The statement posted there is certainly retaliatory
and troubling, but I have no independent knowledge of whether this statement was
written by the Respondent or one of his associates.
3. Witness 4
a. Testimony from Witness 4 that was included in the MSU Draft Report (Appendix A) is
excluded in the UM Draft Report. The omitted testimony should be included, as it
provides a clearer and more accurate description of the events.
b. My sense is that there is some confusion about the nature of the quid pro quo offer
discussed near the end of summary of this statement. When I spoke to Reggie Sheehan
 about this recently, I did not indicate anything about “guaranteeing my dissertation” or
about the Respondent offering to be the “chair of [my] committee.” Instead, I told
Reggie that the Respondent had talked about the possibility of being on my committee,
and he had also talked about wanting me to work as part of his staff when he brought
the Journal of Politics came to Michigan State University. When he harassed me by
asking if I would have an affair with him, he made it clear that being associated with him
in these ways would be important for my career. This is, of course, the essence of quid
pro quo harassment.
c. In the summary of Reggie Sheehan’s testimony to the MSU investigators (Appendix A,
pages 3-4 as clarified by my response in Appendix B, section 3), he made it clear that
“there was a lot of pressure in the Department, especially from the Director of the
Department, to put … [the Respondent on] dissertation committees” (Appendix A, p. 4).
It is critical to include this testimony in this report as it shows why I felt the need to talk
to him in 2005, despite having been harassed by him.
4. Witness 5
a. Details of the testimony of this witness that are included in the MSU Draft Report
(Appendix A) are excluded in the UM Draft Report. The omitted testimony should be
included, as it provides a clearer and more accurate description of the events.
b. In the third paragraph of the summary of testimony to the MSU
investigators (Appendix A, p. 4), notes that the incident happened “on the last night
of the program.” This would have been Thursday, August 15, 2002. I did not have
occasion to see the Respondent after that (in class or elsewhere) until the 2005 meeting
I discuss in my testimony. I did not go to his office hours the next day for feedback on
the paper; the feedback came from him electronically on Friday, August 16, 2002
(Appendix D).
5. Witness 8
a. I do not know who this witness is, so I cannot compare their testimony to the testimony
provided in the Draft Report from MSU (Appendix A).
b. This witness indicates that the Respondent “told him/her that the Complainant was not
a great student and had come to the Respondent’s office a day or two after the
conversation in question and sought help from him. S/he said that the Respondent
questioned why the Complainant would have done such a thing if he had made her feel
uncomfortable a few days prior” (UM Report, p. 13). The first part of this quote is
retaliatory; I received a strong grade in his course (Appendix F, entry for CIC TS05) and
he was supportive and complementary in his feedback on my paper, delivered in his
email of August 16, 2002 (Appendix D). The second part of this quote is also refuted by
Respondent’s August 16, 2002 email (Appendix D), as well as my own testimony and the
testimony from Witness 5 in the MSU Draft Report (Appendix A, p. 4).
6. Witness 9
a. I did have one additional interaction with . attended the panel at the
2018 SPSA where I made my statement (recounted in the Tweet in Appendix C, and at
some point after I told my story, commented that he often paired women
professors with women students for mentoring about how to navigate academia as a
woman. I responded that men need to take the time to understand the needs of their
 women graduate students instead of relying upon the largely uncompensated labor of
already over-worked women colleagues. After the panel, I reached out to via
email about the comment that I made. That email exchange is included as Appendix I.
7. Witness 11
a. This summary of story leaves out key details that suggest he may be
confusing his behavior and interaction with with his harassment of me. At the
time,
.

The morning after the incident she describes, the Respondent asked to see
her in his office and she agreed/obliged. At that time, he claimed not to remember all
his behavior from the night before, but he apologized to her in case he had done
anything inappropriate. For some reason, Respondent claims that I met with him in his
office the day after he harassed me. He then implies that doing so suggests that he
didn’t harass me (although women often need to continue to interact with their
harassers in professional settings, despite their fear and discomfort). Yet, as I have
documented in my statement, and repeated here several times, I did not meet with him
at ICPSR after he harassed me. I did not meet with him again until 2005 for the
discussion about my dissertation committee. I can’t speak to his confusion on this point;
perhaps he is confusing me with . Witness 5 may be able to
corroborate this, since she and

also be able to corroborate that the incident with happened before he harassed
me, which was on the last day of the semester.
8. Concerns Involving Witness 1
a. I object strongly to the omission of the testimony of Witness 1 and the other witnesses
she provided to the investigators, as it leaves out evidence critical to establishing a
pattern of harassment by the Respondent. Omitting this evidence biases the report in an
arbitrary and unfair manner that benefits the Respondent.
b. The UM Report simply describes Valerie Sulfaro as having been “engaged in a sexual
relationship between 1990-1991 and 1993” with the Respondent. The UM Report omits
entirety of Sulfaro’s testimony, as well as the testimony of the witnesses she identified.
The Report asserts that they are not included because her “concerns are not at issue in
this investigation.” However, the summary of her testimony in the MSU report
(Appendix A, pp. 5-13) reveals the impetus for this “sexual relationship” was the
Respondent propositioning Sulfaro just as he propositioned me. Sulfaro’s story is
important evidence of a pattern of behavior. I strongly object to the omission of this
testimony.
c. I also object to the omission of testimony from Sulfaro’s witnesses, particularly
. Summaries of the testimony of these witnesses can be found
in the MSU Draft Report (Appendix A, pp.13-15).
i. testimony is critical because he admits a longstanding friendship with
the Respondent and the Respondent’s wife. supports Sulfaro’s
testimony. He provides evidence that Respondent retaliated against Sulfaro. He
 notes that the Respondent told “on several occasions that Ms. Sulfaro’s
work ‘wasn’t very good,’” and that he “often said things about her being ‘flighty’
and ‘not as professional as she should be’ and would criticize Ms. Sulfaro’s
work” (Appendix A, p. 14). This is important because it is in keeping with
Respondent’s recent comments to colleagues that I “was not a great student”
(UM Report, p. 13).
ii. testimony also corroborates Sulfaro’s story, which itself establishes a
pattern of the behavior I experienced in 2002 and since. His story also illustrates
the retaliation and Sulfaro suffered, both from the Respondent and from
his wife. Indeed, testimony ends with the sentence that he wrote in a
discussion about my case on the blog at “www.poliscirumors.com”: “I know for
a fact this is something Jacoby would do” (Appendix A, p. 15).
9. Other Evidence: Interviews of Recent Students
a. I object to the inclusion in the report of this section for several reasons, which I detail
below.
i. I was harassed by the Respondent in the summer of 2002. The interviews
mentioned in this section were of students from 2015-2017. This is more than a
decade after the harassment I experienced. If it is true that the Respondent did
not harass women between 2015 and 2017, this says nothing about whether he
harassed women in the early 2000s. Instead, it is relevant that
witnessed his drunkenness and inappropriate behavior at other times during the
same semester I was harassed by him.
ii. The selection of former students from 2015-2017 is particularly problematic for
another reason. It is quite likely that these students are still graduate students;
if they have finished their degrees, they are almost certainly too early in their
careers to have tenure. The likelihood that they would feel comfortable
reporting harassment by such a powerful figure is extremely low. (e.g., at the
time, Respondent was the editor of the highest ranked journal in the discipline).
iii. Ultimately, though, the fundamental point here is that the evidence provided
here is absolutely irrelevant to the veracity of my claim. The fact that there may
be women who did not experience harassment by the Respondent says nothing
about whether I was harassed by the Respondent. This should be obvious, but a
recent piece in the Washington Post makes this point convincingly. I have
included it as Appendix J.
10. Omission: Evidence of Retaliation.
a. This report omits the retaliatory statements Respondent made in his official capacity as
editor of the American Journal of Political Science on the journal’s public webpage. I
strongly object to this omission.
b. In his testimony, the Respondent claims that he is not the author of the anonymous
posting on the Political Science Rumors blog, and therefore the post is not evidence of
retaliation. I do not know if Respondent is the author of the post or not. But there is
additional evidence of retaliation in the official statements posted by the Respondent
on the website of the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS). Yet, this is not
mentioned anywhere in this report. The decision to leave this information out should be
 justified, particularly if the assessment has been made that those web posts did not rise
to the level of retaliation as currently defined in SPG Section 201.89-0 and under Title IX.
Such an assessment is extremely problematic. Although the Respondent has the right to
deny the accusations, the venue he used was an official statement in the highest impact
journal in my academic discipline. In that statement, he denied the veracity of my
claims, and directed the discipline’s attention to the Political Science Rumors website. It
is inconceivable that he didn’t know about the reputation that website has for being a
“cesspool,” as so many in the discipline describe it. His posts to the AJPS website called
attention to and expanded the reach not only of the defamatory rumors in the specific
post he mentioned, but also the misogynistic and other derogatory things people wrote
about me elsewhere on that website. He drove traffic to those sources by posting this
official statement as Editor on the AJPS website.
c. The extreme and unusual nature of the Respondent’s posting on the AJPS website cannot be
dismissed. It is entirely different in form and effect than a post on a personal Facebook or Twitter
account. Indeed, the reaction of the political science discipline makes it clear that the
Respondent’s use of this venue for this purpose should be considered professional
retaliation. In response to the AJPS posting, the executive council of the Midwest
Political Science Association (MPSA), the organization that controls the AJPS, voted
unanimously to remove Respondent as editor effective immediately. This fact can be
confirmed by Elisabeth Gerber (ergerber@umich.edu), who is the President of the
MPSA. Writing on this official outlet lends his claims an air of veracity and authority.
Here, the Respondent abused his power and privilege as Editor to cast aspersions about
my claims and my character. The decision of the MPSA to remove him substantiates this
interpretation. In other words, the Respondent’s post on the AJPS website is the very
essence of retaliation, and it must be included in this report. Appendix K contains the
email I forwarded to the various investigators when I first became aware of AJPS
posting. It contains the full text of that official message. Screen shots are available from
various sources on Twitter and elsewhere.
 Appendix A

June 5, 2018 Draft Investigative Report, Michigan State University, Office of Institutional Equity
 Draft Investigative Report
Michigan State University, Office of Institutional Equity

Date: June 5, 2018

Re: Matter of Jacoby/Gill
OIE Case No.: 00042-2018

Background

On January 30, 2018, Rebecca Gill (“Claimant Gill”), a former MSU student, contacted OIE to report an
incident she considered retaliatory in nature involving Respondent. According to Claimant Gill, Respondent
authored a letter that was published on the Political Science Rumors blog in which he denied the allegations
made by Claimant Gill a few days earlier at the 2018 Southern Political Science Association Conference
(“the Conference”). During a panel presentation, Claimant Gill had revealed that in the summer of 2002
when she was a graduate student, a faculty member asked her to have an affair with him. Although she
did not name Respondent at the time, the details provided made it apparent the faculty member was
Respondent.

The University commenced an investigation into these alleged violations its Policy on Relationship Violence
and Sexual Misconduct (“RVSM Policy”).

Issue

I. Whether Respondent engaged in conduct that subjected Claimant Gill to retaliation

in violation of section R of the RVSM Policy.

Jurisdiction

The University’s RVSM Policy applies to all relationship violence, sexual harassment, and sexual
misconduct committed by or against a member of the University community when the conduct occurs on
campus, in the context of a University program or activity, or when there are continuing adverse effects on
campus or in a University program or activity. In 2018, Respondent was an MSU employee at the time of
the alleged retaliation against Claimant Gill. The alleged conduct caused continuing adverse effects on
MSU’s Political Science department in that it has generated negative national attention to the department
and faculty members have expressed concerned that the public perception of the department could affect
the recruitment and retention of faculty and students. For these reasons, OIE determines it has jurisdiction
to investigate the allegations.

Investigation

Claimant Gill

On March 14, 2018, Kroll investigators1 Kenya Faulkner and Ana Davila (collectively, “Kroll”), on behalf of
OIE, interviewed Rebecca Gill (“Claimant Gill”), a former MSU student, regarding the report of a sexual
proposition made by Professor William Jacoby (“Respondent”). Claimant Gill was advised of OIE process
and protocol pursuant to the Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Policy, including investigator
neutrality, the investigation process and timeline, the prohibition against retaliation, and the availability of
interim measures. She also reviewed and signed the Claimant Information Form.

1 Kroll is a global investigations and risk management consulting firm headquartered in New York, NY. In February 2018, MSU retained
Kroll to assist in OIE investigations of alleged violations of the University’s RVSM policy.
Kroll notes that Claimant Gill initially contacted OIE in January 2018 to report potential retaliation from
Respondent. Further information about the alleged retaliatory actions are included in the summary below.

Claimant Gill is a former MSU student. She received a PhD in Political Science from MSU in 2008. Claimant
Gill currently serves as the Director of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada and is an Associate
Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada.

When asked about the first time she came into contact with Respondent, Claimant Gill stated that it was
around November 2001 at a conference on Public Opinion. Claimant Gill presented a paper at the
conference and Respondent later approached her to discuss her project. Respondent told Claimant Gill he
found her “interesting” and that she “showed a lot of promise.” The next time Claimant Gill saw Respondent
was in the summer of 2002 at the Inter-University Consortium of Political Science Research (“ICPSR”), a
summer program focusing on quantitative methods. Claimant Gill stated that at the time, she was an MSU
student, but the program took place at the University of Michigan. Claimant Gill added that Respondent
was an employee of the University of South Carolina but was joining MSU in the fall of 2002.

When asked about the incident, Claimant Gill stated that she was Respondent’s student at ICPSR and said,
“everything went well until the last day of the program [ICPSR],” when the members of the program went
to a bar. Claimant Gill explained that it was customary for the participants to go “bar hopping” during the
summer program but she never went before because she had a long commute. On her last day of class,
she decided to go to a pub with the group. Respondent was at the pub as well. Claimant Gill stated that at
some point during the night, Respondent sat next to her at a table and they started talking about different
topics. Claimant Gill told Respondent she was working on a paper related to her dissertation and was
thinking of using some of Respondent’s methodology of expertise for her research. Claimant Gill thought
Respondent perceived her as someone who was “clever” and “with potential.” During their conversation at
the pub, Respondent told Claimant Gill he remembered the first time he saw her and how he found her “so
mysterious.” Respondent then asked Claimant Gill, “Would you consider having an affair with me?”
Claimant Gill was shocked and responded “something like, “you can’t expect me to answer that.”” Claimant
Gill stated that her friend, who noticed that she was visibly uncomfortable, interrupted the conversation and
told her, “We have to leave.” Claimant Gill left with her friend and her friend said, “I can’t believe he said
that.” Claimant Gill identified her friend as . When asked if she shared information about the
incident with anyone else, Claimant Gill stated , a friend, heard her and
discussing the events right after they occurred. Claimant Gill added she also told her mother and later on,
Reggie Sheehan and Harold Spaeth, a faculty member who recently passed away. The reason why she
told Harold Spade was that she was planning her dissertation and she didn’t want Respondent involved in
her dissertation committee at all after the incident. Claimant Gill stated that her desire to keep Respondent
out of her dissertation committee would delay her degree. Claimant Gill added that Respondent’s wife was
the director of the program and “her policy was to have Bill [“Respondent”] in every dissertation committee.
I’m not sure if that was “lawful” but no one complained about it, because there was no one to complain to.”
Claimant Gill stated that she decided to take a job out of state as an adjunct professor and “waited it out,”
referring to her dissertation.

Claimant Gill stated that at some point when she returned to MSU she asked Respondent for a meeting to
discuss her dissertation and “clear the air.” Claimant Gill stated that this meeting took place after she had
back surgery and had taken the job in Massachusetts. She stated that she “felt alienated from MSU” and
as if her career wasn’t going anywhere. During the meeting, Claimant Gill could feel that Respondent was
“angry or offended” because she didn’t ask him to be in her dissertation committee. Claimant Gill then
explicitly told Respondent that she didn’t ask him to be on her committee because of the interaction at the
bar. Respondent asked, “what do you mean,” and then insisted that “it didn’t happen.” Claimant Gill
informed Respondent that her friend had also heard him proposition to her, and Respondent said about
Claimant Gill’s friend, “she has a reason to lie.” Claimant Gill explained that her friend’s advisor and
Respondent “hated each other” and she thought that was where Respondent’s comment was coming from.
Claimant Gill stated that she felt intimidated during the meeting and that Respondent rapidly became “brisk
and defensive.” The meeting didn’t end well and she left feeling “shaken.” Claimant Gill stated that in 2008,
when she was preparing her paperwork for graduation, she found out that Respondent’s name was listed
in her Dissertation Committee. Once more, Claimant Gill had to take action to remove Respondent from
the OIE. Mr. Sheehan stated that he currently lives in South Carolina because he retired in May 2016, but
noted that he still teaches the MSU Study Abroad program.

Mr. Sheehan stated that Claimant Gill was his graduate student in South Carolina and that he was aware
of the accusations she made against the Respondent in January 2018. According to Mr. Sheehan, Claimant
Gill first contacted him the year that she put together her Dissertation Committee, around 2002 or 2003.
Mr. Sheehan was her Director of Dissertation and noted that at the time, “there was a lot of pressure in the
Department, especially from the Director of the Department, to put the Bill [Respondent] in dissertation
committees.” One day, Claimant Gill contacted Mr. Sheehan because she wanted to know if it would be
“ok” not to have Respondent in her Dissertation Committee. Mr. Sheehan told Claimant Gill that it was her
decision and asked her why she didn’t want the Respondent in her committee. According to Mr. Sheehan,
Claimant Gill told him that Respondent had “actually sexually harassed her,” but was very “vague” on her
statement back then. Mr. Sheehan said he assumed that Respondent made inappropriate comments to
Claimant Gill. When asked to describe the moment when Claimant Gill told him about the sexual
harassment, Mr. Sheehan stated that Claimant Gill “was just matter of fact, not crying or anything. She just
didn’t want him [Respondent] in the committee, and it was a short conversation because I didn’t want him
on my committee anyway so, I had a reaction along the lines of “what an ass.” In hind sight, I wish I had
done something else, or provided options.” Mr. Sheehan said he then asked Claimant Gill if she wanted to
do something about it and Claimant Gill said that she did not, she only wanted Respondent away from her
Dissertation Committee. Mr. Sheehan recommended someone else, a good friend of his who also does
methods, for Claimant Gill’s committee. After that Mr. Sheehan started recommending his friend to his
students for their Dissertation Committees. Mr. Sheehan said he didn’t share this information with anyone
else because Claimant Gill had asked him not to.

Mr. Sheehan said he learned more details regarding Claimant Gill’s experience with Respondent until
recently, when he attended the Conference in New Orleans. Mr. Sheehan said Claimant Gill recently told
him about the “quid pro quo kind of deal.”

When asked about his relationship with the Respondent, Mr. Sheehan said that the two “never got along,
there were some issues with my mentor in South Carolina and I knew about things that happened back
then. Also, I had been teaching this Australia program and he and his wife wanted to take over that program.
I kept teaching, and he didn’t like it. We didn’t have a relationship.” Mr. Sheehan added that his mentor
passed away two years ago.

On April 26, 2018, Kroll interviewed Below is a summary

.

stated met Claimant and Respondent at the ICPSR in 2002, while Respondent was a
professor at the University of South Carolina.

When asked about knowledge of the allegations made by Claimant Gill, stated that
witnessed the incident. stated that on the last night of the program, the group went out to a
pub in Ann Arbor. stated the group was sitting in a long table and she was sitting right across
Respondent and Claimant. stated Respondent and Claimant had been talking most of the
night and said, “I was kind of listening in and at some point I heard him [Respondent] ask about having an
affair. I heard the word “affair” and given what I thought I heard, she was very calm. Our eyes met and we
realized we had heard the same things. I waited a few minutes, maybe it was seconds and I got up and
said to her [Claimant Gill], “I’m ready to go, are you ready to go?” and she got up and walked outside with
me.”

stated that didn’t hear the entire conversation between Claimant and Respondent but
heard the word “affair” and interpreted it in the context of Respondent’s body language. When asked to
elaborate, stated that Respondent “leaned in closer to her [Claimant Gill]” and looked directly
at her. stated that Claimant Gill seemed uncomfortable.

stated that after they left the bar together, Claimant Gill asked “did you hear that? He
asked me to have an affair with him.” recalled responding, “yeah, that’s what I thought I heard.”
stated that after the bar, the two went to Claimant Gill’s apartment and talked about the
incident. Claimant Gill decided she wasn’t going to do or say anything about the incident.
stated that kept it a secret for many years.

Additionally, the following witness provided information about her experience with Respondent in
connection to Claimant Gill’s incident.

Valerie Sulfaro

On January 18, 2018, Valerie Sulfaro (“Ms. Sulfaro”), a former student of Respondent at the University of
South Carolina, sent a letter to OIE requesting that MSU re-open a sexual harassment investigation of
Respondent, initially based on a complaint file by Claimant Gill. 3 Ms. Sulfaro’s letter also stated that she
had “additional information to offer” based on her own experiences with Respondent, which would support
Claimant Gill’s allegations.

On March 21, 2018, Kroll interviewed Ms. Sulfaro to discuss the letter she submitted to OIE regarding
Respondent, via phone.

Ms. Sulfaro is currently a professor of Political Science at Madison University.

When asked about the first time she came into contact with Respondent, Ms. Sulfaro stated she first met
Respondent in her first semester as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina in the 1990-
1991 academic year. Ms. Sulfaro detailed she took Respondent’s course, which was mandatory. Ms.
Sulfaro stated she was Respondent’s student but also served as his Teaching Assistant “multiple times.”
In total, Ms. Sulfaro took three research methods classes from Respondent and was also issued an
independent student based on her research interests. Ms. Sulfaro stated that during her second year, she
had her own office at the university because another professor she was working with would let her use his
space during his absence. Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent “would drop by” her office to talk to her “almost
every day.” She added, “he spent a lot of time visiting me and talking to me, and at one point, he
propositioned to me.”

When asked to describe the proposition made by Respondent, Ms. Sulfaro stated that one day, Respondent
went into her office and closed the door. Respondent told Ms. Sulfaro that he felt Ms. Sulfaro “had been
making suggestions to him” and “wanted to lay his cards on the table.” Respondent then asked Ms. Sulfaro
if she would like to “pursue a relationship.” Ms. Sulfaro stated she “didn’t’ say yes or no.” Ms. Sulfaro stated
she was surprised and immediately worried about what could happened if she refused. Ms. Sulfaro stated
she was concerned about her career in the Political Science field, where Respondent was a prominent
figure. Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent took her “maybe” as a “yes” and “made a physical advance at the
very moment.” Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent “kissed me and rubbed against me, and he grinded his pelvis
against me, it was clearly sexual.” Ms. Sulfaro added she had a boyfriend at the time, named
and she “hadn’t intended to be unfaithful but he [Respondent] backed me into a corner, he
had also talked me out of applying to another program for my doctoral so I was staying at South Carolina.
If I said no, it would mean that I would have problems in my department. He made me feel like I had already
cheated on and implied that he had gotten these signals from me. I felt embarrassed.”

3An allegation of sexual harassment that occurred in 2002 was reported to the University involving Respondent and Claimant Gill.
After interviewing Claimant Gill, it was determined that jurisdiction did not exist at MSU, but rather the University of Michigan. OIE
contacted the University of Michigan Office of Institutional Equity and transferred the report and information to that institution. The
matter was closed with MSU.
When asked to describe her relationship with Respondent, Ms. Sulfaro stated that the relationship became
sexual right away. Ms. Sulfaro stated she and Respondent would have intercourse at her home or at his
home, when their partners weren’t around. Ms. Sulfaro stated that she and Respondent also kissed in their
offices at the university but never had intercourse on campus. She noted that they “didn’t’ have many
opportunities” to see each other in a romantic way because Respondent’s wife also worked at the University
and was a student in the program.

When asked about the end of the relationship, Ms. Sulfaro said the relationship ended once Respondent’s
wife found out. Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent’s wife found an e-mail she had sent to Respondent and
noted that Respondent’s wife would often check Respondent’s e-mail. Ms. Sulfaro didn’t remember the
content of the e-mail. Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent and his wife called her and Respondent told her he
didn’t want to be involved with her anymore. Ms. Sulfaro immediately told about the relationship
because he was in the same room when Ms. Sulfaro received Respondent’s phone call. Ms. Sulfaro stated
the situation was “very distressing” and she decided to call her at that point as well.
Ms. Sulfaro said she later wrote a letter to Respondent’s wife. According to Ms. Sulfaro, in the letter she
“lied” and said she was the one who initiated the relationship to “let him [Respondent] off the hook.” Ms.
Sulfaro added, “he made me feel like I owed him something, so I attempted to assume responsibility so she
[Respondent’s wife] would stay with him [Respondent]. He [Respondent] was “shitty” to my partner but
somehow made me apologize to his.”

When asked about the events that followed after the relationship ended, Ms. Sulfaro stated that she
maintained the relationship with . When asked if she stayed at Respondent’s home in the summer
after the relationship ended, Ms. Sulfaro stated Respondent had told her she and had to stay at
his home over the summer to watch the place and that they “didn’t have a choice.” Ms. Sulfaro stated that
didn’t want to have anything to do with Respondent anymore but they were threatened. Ms.
Sulfaro stated she and agreed to stay at Respondent’s home but tried to be there as little as
possible.

Ms. Sulfaro provided the following statement about her experience with Respondent.
Ms. Sulfaro provided contact information for the following witnesses

On April 6, 2018, Kroll interviewed

, via phone. Below is a summary of statements.

When asked about his relationship with Respondent, stated that he knows Respondent and his
wife very well. stated that he has known Respondent and his wife for years and they are
“longtime friends.” explained that he was

they “stayed friends” and see each other “professionally.

When asked about his relationship with Ms. Sulfaro, stated that Ms. Sulfaro is a former student
who he “cares about” and stays in touch with. stated that he met Ms. Sulfaro at the university
.

When asked if he knew about the allegations made against the Respondent, stated he did and
said this is “difficult” for him because of his relationship with Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent. stated
that in the early nineties, Ms. Sulfaro told him that she was working with Respondent. A few months later,
Ms. Sulfaro approached him was confused
and told Ms. Sulfaro that . Ms. Sulfaro told
I don’t want to work with him [Respondent] anymore.”
Ms. Sulfaro told him she had an affair with Respondent
which ended because Respondent’s wife found out. Ms. Sulfaro told that Respondent’s wife
had made it clear that Respondent couldn’t have anything to do with Ms. Sulfaro moving forward.
stated that
Ms. Sulfaro confided in him and in several occasions told him about Respondent’s behavior. According to
Ms. Sulfaro told him several times that Respondent reached out to her when his wife was out
of town, to try to arrange a meeting. Ms. Sulfaro also told him that in several occasions, Respondent went
to her apartment to “try to resume things.” , Ms. Sulfaro was worried because after
she rejected Respondent, Respondent got very upset. stated Respondent was pressuring Ms.
Sulfaro to continue the relationship after the initial breakup. added that both the Respondent
and his wife were “nasty” to her when they ran into each other at the university or at a conference, which
happened often because “it’s a small discipline.”

stated he knew what sexual harassment was “in theory” but thought that “this was just a
relationship that went bad” at the time. he and Ms. Sulfaro stayed
in touch, stated Ms. Sulfaro wrote to him several times to tell him about the contact she had
with Respondent and how it was unpleasant.

When asked if he was aware of any additional allegations made about any Respondent, stated
Ms. Sulfaro recently reached out to him “with a re-do sense of hurt after the episode of the other women
from MSU.” According to , in these communications Ms. Sulfaro “made more explicit that there
had been pressure on her from the beginning, that the relationship hadn’t been as consensual as I thought
it had been. There was inducement as in “this will be good for your career.”” stated that he didn’t
have any additional first person knowledge on the other allegations and noted he has never seen
Respondent interact with Ms. Sulfaro since the “early days” .
When asked if the Respondent ever shared any information with him about his relationship with Ms. Sulfaro,
said that he was in an uncomfortable position because Respondent doesn’t know that he knows
about the affair Respondent had with Ms. Sulfaro. recalled Respondent “saying demeaning
things about her work,” when Ms. Sulfaro was a student. Respondent told in several occasions
that Ms. Sulfaro’s work “wasn’t’ very good” and made comments such as, “she is spending too much time
on her teaching and on her boyfriend and should be working more on her craft.” When asked if the
Respondent made it seem like Ms. Sulfaro wasn’t a good student or a good worker, said
Respondent often said things about her being “flighty” and not as “professional as she should be” and would
criticize Ms. Sulfaro’s work. He added, “maybe earlier on he felt he [Respondent] thought Valerie [Ms.
Sulfaro} was a good student but that later changed.” When asked if the Respondent ever made comments
about Ms. Sulfaro’s boyfriend at the time, said “yes.” Respondent expressed several times that
he thought Ms. Sulfaro’s boyfriend was “bad for her.”

On April 6, 2018, Kroll interviewed

, via Google Hangout. Below is a summary of
.

is Ms. Sulfaro’s friend. explained that he formally met and became friends with
Ms. Sulfaro and her then boyfriend,

Ms. Sulfaro were in the Government and International Relations program.

When asked if he had any knowledge regarding the allegations involving Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent,
said he did, and noted that Ms. Sulfaro and him had a discussion about the topic recently.

When asked when he first learned about the relationship between Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent, Mr.
answered, “over a winter break in the early nineties.” stated they were students and
was out of town, visiting his parents in Ohio. visited Ms. Sulfaro and the two were
having some drinks and talking in Ms. Sulfaro’s apartment when he saw from the window a car pulling into
the driveway. noted that he paid significant attention to the car because the man driving it
looked like one of his professors, , and he thought that was weird. However,
then realized it was Respondent who was driving the car. Ms. Sulfaro noticed Respondent’s car
and “immediately rushed out of the apartment and into the highway to intercept him.” said he
didn’t hear anything that was said between Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent because he was inside the
apartment, and observed everything from the window. According to this was the “first
inclination” he had into Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent’s relationship, but he didn’t ask Ms. Sulfaro or “push
it” at the time. added that when Ms. Sulfaro and Respondent’s relationship ended, “things
blew up and we had more conversations about it after.”

stated that several months after “things blew up,” he was organizing a Christmas party with
Ms. Sulfaro and she mentioned that her affair with the Respondent had ended when Respondent’s wife
found out about the affair.

When asked if his relationship with the Respondent at the university changed in any way due to his proximity
to Ms. Sulfaro, said no.

When asked about additional detail on Ms. Sulfaro’s relationship with Respondent, said “I am
under the impression she was dragged into it, but we never really discussed it in detail.

On March 23, 2018, Kroll interviewed Ms. Sulfaro’s former boyfriend. Below is
a summary of statements.
When asked about when he first learned about Ms. Sulfaro’s affair with Respondent, stated that
he first noticed changes in Ms. Sulfaro’s behavior in the early nineties, during a summer at ICPSR. He
stated that Ms. Sulfaro was his girlfriend at the time and they were both students in the same program at
the University of South Carolina. stated that he noticed that Ms. Sulfaro was “spending a lot of
time away” from him, and this was around the time Ms. Sulfaro was starting her dissertation with
Respondent. stated that when the two returned to the University of South Carolina in the fall, he
continued to observe this behavior, but assumed Ms. Sulfaro was simply busy with her dissertation.
stated that he found out about the affair during a winter break. recalled that he and Ms.
Sulfaro, who lived together at the time, were sitting by the Christmas tree at their apartment when she
received a phone call. stated Ms. Sulfaro looked horrified as she listened through the phone.
She talked briefly and hung up the phone, crying. Ms. Sulfaro immediately told that she had an
affair with Respondent and that earlier that day, Respondent’s wife had found an e-mail sent by Ms. Sulfaro
to Respondent that revealed the affair. said Ms. Sulfaro was terrified and was crying intensely.
He added, “it was terrible, I felt sorry for her, I had mixed emotions, I also immediately worried for myself
because Jacoby was in my Dissertation Committee.” stated that Ms. Sulfaro was worried about
her academic future as well, considering that Respondent and his wife held significant power in the Political
Science field. said that “essentially, Sandy [Respondent’s wife] ordered Bill [Respondent] not to
be on Valerie’s committee. She had to find a new member for her committee and ended up with
She was very worried.” stated that he and Ms. Sulfaro continued
their relationship but “it was messy.”

When asked about his relationship with Respondent, stated that Respondent was in his
Dissertation Committee because he was using one of Respondent’s techniques of expertise.
stated that his relationship with Respondent dramatically changed after Respondent’s wife found out about
the affair. said Respondent had been “friendly, always willing to help, nice” before then.
Respondent suddenly “became chilly, it was hard to approached him, he never smiled, he stopped helping
me with my research, it was just uncomfortable.” said the same happened with Respondent’s
wife, who “would never even look at me again” and “barely acknowledged my presence in an elevator.”
stated he was certain that “the force behind the chilliness was Sandy’s [Respondent’s wife]. I heard
that she was saying to him “end it, save our reputation, make it go away.””

stated that he tried to complete his dissertation, despite these obstacles, but got delayed. He
said, “all I had to do was write one more chapter, but I couldn’t, it was all uncomfortable and hard.”
said that eventually, Ms. Sulfaro received an offer for a temporary position out of state and the two
decided to go. then accepted an offer from the y and Ms. Sulfaro moved to
Virginia. He never finished his dissertation. said, “part of the blame is mine, but I was so
uncomfortable about the situation and always had a general sense of fear regarding Jacoby, even though
I did nothing wrong.” relationship with Ms. Sulfaro eventually ended.

When asked if he knew who started the affair, or whose idea it was, stated he never discussed
the origins of the affair with Ms. Sulfaro and noted that the two aren’t in speaking terms at the moment.
noted that while he didn’t know, Ms. Sulfaro was “a chilly person,” and he stated he “found it hard to
believe she would initiate. She was not like that, she was always very straight forward and cautious.”

stated that he found out about the investigation involving Respondent because earlier this year,
he heard about the blog post in the Political Science Rumors Website regarding Claimant Gill.
said he was shocked when he learned about how Claimant Gill “was pushed around by one professor” and
was upset to see people saying about Claimant Gill things like “she has an agenda” and “she has no
evidence.” said he read an entry in the blog saying that Respondent “would never do something
like this” and he got upset and wrote back “I know for a fact this is something Jacoby would do.”
Respondent

On March 12, 2018, Kroll interviewed William Jacoby (“Respondent”) to discuss the claims made against
him. Respondent attended the meeting in company of his Advisor, John Shea. Respondent was advised of
OIE process and protocol pursuant to the Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Policy, including
investigator neutrality, the investigation process and timeline, the prohibition against retaliation, and the
availability of interim measures and supportive resources. He also reviewed the Respondent Information
Form and signed the form.

Respondent is a tenured professor in the MSU Department of Political Science and has held this role since
the fall of 2003, when he and his wife, Saundra K. Schneider (“Ms. Schneider” or “Respondent’s wife”),
came to MSU. Respondent noted that they were “recruited together.” The two serve in the university’s
Political Science department. Prior to joining MSU, Respondent and Ms. Schneider were employed at the
University of South Carolina since approximately 1989. Respondent has served as an instructor in the Inter-
University Consortium of Political Science Research (“ICPSR”), a summer program focusing on quantitative
methods, since the early nineties, and has served as its director. Schneider is currently the director of the
program. Respondent explained that he stepped down from his role as director in December 2013 and his
wife was appointed in August 2014, following an interim director. Since January 2014, he has served as
the editor of the American Journal of Political Science, a role that “takes half of his time.”

Below is a summary of Respondent’s statements regarding Claimant Gill:

Respondent stated he met Claimant Gill in the summer of 2012 at the ICPSR. Claimant Gill was a participant
and took his courses on Dimensional Analysis during the summer program. Respondent explained that the
ICPSR has an “informal format” and stated that students and professors are called “participants,” and that
there is often a lot of social interaction among participants. Respondent noted that the program took place
before he and his wife moved to Michigan to join MSU, but said he had already accepted the offer from the
university.

When asked about the first time he had contact with Claimant Gill, Respondent stated that he “couldn’t tell,
it was long ago.” Respondent recalled first noticing Claimant Gill’s name in the attendance sheet, because
the sheet noted Claimant Gill’s affiliation to MSU. At some point, the two started talking about MSU and
then discovered they had certain common interests, one being Australia, where both of them had traveled
to in the past and had “contrasting opinions about.” Respondent also stated that Claimant Gill’s dissertation
advisor had been a graduate student of his in South Carolina, who lived at his house for a period of time.
Respondent described this as “points of connection between us.”

When asked about the night of the alleged incident, Respondent stated that “the night she says this
happened was the Wednesday of the last week in the ICPSR in 2002.” According to Respondent, it was a
tradition for all participants, including faculty, go out bar hopping the last week of the program. Respondent
stated that some people went to Ashley’s bar, but he didn’t recall how many people from the program where
there that night. At some point, Respondent and Claimant Gill sat next to each other and talked about
several topics. Respondent recalled discussing Australia with Claimant Gill and stated that Claimant Gill
later asked him to “look at a paper that Darren Davis, a professor at MSU, had been very critical about.”
Respondent stated that Claimant Gill was unhappy with the feedback she had received from her professor
and wanted a second opinion. He agreed to take a look at her paper at a later time, but didn’t recall
discussing it again that night, what other topics they discussed or when they each left the bar. Respondent
stated the two didn’t leave together, and added he didn’t remember how or at what point he and Claimant
Gill parted ways. Respondent added he didn’t talk to Claimant Gill “the whole night,” because people were
coming and going. When asked about his alcohol intake that night, Respondent stated that he had “two or
three drinks” and was at the bar for about two hours because he was “teaching the next day and needed
to get some rest.” Respondent said he went home around 11:00 p.m.
Respondent stated that after teaching class the next day, on Thursday, he held “after hours” and Claimant
Gill came by with the paper she mentioned the night before. Respondent looked at her paper and recalled
it being “ok” but needing some work. He told Claimant Gill that her work was good but needed to be
improved to be published. Respondent didn’t recall additional details. Respondent said that after that brief
meeting, he didn’t see her again until he arrived at MSU in the fall of 2003.

Kroll asked Respondent about his interactions with Claimant Gill at MSU in the fall of 2003. According to
Respondent, one day Claimant Gill “showed up” to his office with her advisor to talk about her dissertation,
which focused on the Supreme Court of Justice in Australia. Respondent recalled thinking that her
dissertation was relevant to his work at MSU, and laid out several methods she could use in her research.
Respondent added that Claimant Gill was “totally disinterested and didn’t have a hypothesis.” After that
conversation, Respondent stated that he never saw Claimant Gill again “until probably the fall of 2004.”

When ask if he could think of a reason why he Claimant Gill had made these allegations, Respondent stated
he had “no idea” and thought it was all “made up.” Kroll asked about Respondent proposing an affair to
Claimant Gill at the bar in the summer of 2002 and Respondent said “no, not at all.” Respondent said he
was shocked to hear the allegations and noted that he couldn’t think of a reason why Claimant Gill would
do that. Respondent stated that “it never happened” and noted that “it never could” because “she lived in
Michigan and I was in South Carolina.”

When asked about the first time he heard of Claimant Gill’s public allegations against him in January 2018
Respondent said a friend who had attended her panel at the Southern Political Science Association Annual
Conference informed him that Claimant Gill had mentioned him, without saying his name. Respondent
explained that he and his wife attended the Conference, which took place from January 4 to January 6 in
New Orleans, Louisiana. At the conference, Claimant Gill presented a panel regarding the impact of sexual
harassment in the professional development of women in the field. Respondent did not attend this panel
during the conference.

Respondent stated he later found out that the night before her panel, Claimant Gill published a Tweet
announcing that she was “going public” with her story at the Conference. Respondent noted he never saw
the Tweet but he did see her Facebook page, where she posted the same message. Respondent stated
that through the post, she announced that she was “going to do something significant the next day.”

Respondent talked to about the incident, then went to his hotel room and talked to his wife
about it. The two decided to attend a lecture imparted by a former governor and then went to bed. The next
morning, Respondent went for breakfast with a friend and noted that he didn’t have internet reception until
later that day. Once his e-mail started working again, he received an e-mail from , who was
“offering to talk” and saying things like “I’m here for you.” Later that day he went for lunch with
, and found out that he also had heard about the allegations. The two
talked about it and later decided to contact , from human resources, to report the incident.
Respondent said that by the time he contacted the university, “they already knew about it.”

When asked if he knew what Claimant Gill was referring to in her Tweet and Facebook post regarding how
it could have been beneficial for her to have an affair with her professor, Respondent stated that Gill “maybe
thought” that he could have helped her in the journal, but that wouldn’t be easy since there is a review
process that is hard to skip and that she really wasn’t in the field he was in.

Respondent provided the following Facebook post and Tweet shared by Claimant Gill, dated January 4,
2018.
Respondent stated that he didn’t write the letter and provided a copy of the letter with his notes on why he
couldn’t have written that letter.
Respondent stated that he hasn’t attempted to contact Claimant Gill since the letter was posted and that
he hadn’t had any contact with her.

Witnesses

Respondent provided contact information for the following witnesses:

On April 4, 2018, Kroll interviewed

at MSU. Below is a summary of statements.

When asked about his knowledge of the allegations made against the Respondent, stated that
he was “puzzled to receive this invitation” because he doesn’t know much about the allegations.
stated he knew there was a “social media post at a professional conference earlier this year involving an
incident at the ICPSR program.” added that he participated in “discussions” at that time about
how MSU should handle these allegations and that such discussions took place about six weeks ago.

When asked if he had any first-hand information on the allegations, said he didn’t. He added that
he was not present at the conference, but heard about the allegations from other people, maybe that same
day.

When asked if he had any other information or background on the allegations made against the
Respondent, said he didn’t. He added that he had never heard about allegations of this nature
made against the Respondent over the course of his tenure at MSU.

Ryan Bakker

On March 21, 2018, Kroll interviewed

Below is a summary of statements.

When asked about his knowledge of the allegations made against Respondent, stated that the
first time heard about the allegations was in January 2018, at the Political Science Conference.
stated that he was having a conversation with a professor named
when asked him to attend a panel with him the next day.
explained that he had seen a social media post by Claimant Gill in which she said she was making an
announcement at her panel and he wanted to attend. attended the panel and sat with
. He noted that Respondent did not attend Claimant Gill’s panel. stated Claimant Gill’s
panel was about “mentoring grad students across gender” and she said that when she was a student, she
attended a summer program in Ann Arbor. She said she took a course of a professor who later suggested
that they had an affair, saying that it could be very beneficial for her career. said Claimant Gill
didn’t refer to Respondent by name during her presentation, but she provided “a considerable amount of
identifying information. People familiar with the field immediately knew who she was talking about.”
stated that later that day, Claimant Gill posted a summary of her allegations on her Facebook page,
this time naming Respondent, but later deleted the post.
When asked about the events that followed after Claimant Gill made her allegations public during her panel
presentation at the conference, stated that he ran into Respondent and a former student around
lunch time that day while crossing the street. told Respondent, “Bill, you won’t like what I’m
about to tell you,” and he proceeded to inform Respondent about the allegations Claimant Gill made during
her presentation. said Respondent “appeared to be in shock, totally not familiar with who I was
talking about. He kept shaking his head.”

stated that he hasn’t seen Respondent ever since the conference in January 2018 but noted
that he received “a mass e-mail” from Respondent regarding Claimant Gill’s allegations shortly after the
incident. answered Respondent’s e-mail saying, “You have my support in whatever way.”
noted that Respondent’s wife is his boss in the summer time and they correspond often, but “just
about work.”

On March 21, 2018, Kroll interviewed

via Google Hangout. Below is a summary of statements.

When asked about his knowledge of the allegations made against Respondent, stated he first
heard about Claimant Gill’s allegations the night before he attended the Political Science Conference in
January 2018. He stated that his friend, who he knows “through professional channels” told him that
Claimant Gill had announced “she was going to share a big MeToo moment” the next day at a panel on
Gender. stated he had only met Claimant Gill one time. didn’t attend Claimant Gill’s
panel, but later that day, he and were crossing the street when they ran into Respondent.
stated that stopped to tell Respondent about what he had heard on Claimant Gill’s
panel but he wasn’t part of that conversation because he was walking with someone else.

When asked if he ever talked to Respondent about the incident, said he did. read
Claimant Gill’s Twitter post and shared the information with Respondent during a conversation after the
conference.

Saundra K. Schneider

On April 3, 2018, Kroll interviewed Saundra K. Schneider (“Ms. Schneider”) at MSU. Ms. Schneider is a
Professor in the Department of Political Science at MSU and a member if the Instructional Staff at the
ICOSR Summer Training in Quantitative Methods of Social Research (“ICPSR”) at the University of
Michigan. Ms. Schneider is the Respondent’s wife. Below is a summary of Ms. Schneider’s statements:

When asked about her knowledge of the allegations made against the Respondent, Ms. Schneider said
she was aware of the allegations and of the investigation. She added that she was the Chair for the
Southern Political Science Association Conference and stated that the information “came back to me from
several sources.” When asked about what she learned from those sources, Ms. Schneider stated that she
received a message from a former graduate student, , who attended the session where the
allegations against the Respondent were made and inferred Claimant Gill was speaking about Respondent.
After that, Ms. Schneider received a message from a member of her staff, who had identified a post on
Facebook or Twitter about the allegations made by Claimant Gill and wanted to alert her. Ms. Schneider
then contacted her supervisor, the Director of ICPSR, and notified her about the allegations.

When asked about Respondent’s reaction to these allegations, Ms. Schneider stated that Respondent had
gone to lunch or to a session earlier that day and when Respondent came back to the hotel room where
Ms. Schneider and Respondent were staying and told her about the allegations he had heard, he was
“numb” and “in shock.” According to Ms. Schneider, Respondent said he “didn’t know anything about this,
or why this was being said.” According to Ms. Schneider, the Respondent was “shell shocked.”
Ms. Schneider stated she and Respondent kept a “low profile” at the conference after the allegations were
made. Ms. Schneider attended the panel sessions she had attend to spent the rest of her time taking walks
or in the hotel room. Ms. Schneider described the experience as “very unpleasant.”

When asked if she knew about any other allegations made against Respondent, Mr. Schneider stated that
she did and added that Respondent told her about another allegation made by another graduate student.
She stated that she didn’t know much about that or had more details, but it was “in the same kind of context.”

On April 6, 2018, Kroll interviewed

at MSU, via phone. Below is a summary of
statements.

When asked about his knowledge of the allegations made against the Respondent, stated: “I’m
aware of Rebecca Gill’s [Claimant Gill] allegations in detail and I recently learned from the American
Science Association that there’s a second one.” stated that he was at the Conference in January
2018, when the allegations were made public at a panel, but noted that he never had any interactions with
Claimant Gill and that he never heard anything
about any allegations related to harassment involving the Respondent.

stated that after he heard about the allegations at the Conference, he talked to Respondent.
also called the Dean, to report what he had heard. Later that same day, visited
Respondent in his hotel room and the two discussed the issue. added that Respondent’s wife
was in the hotel room as well. When asked about Respondent’s behavior that night after he learned about
the allegations, stated that Respondent was “in a state of shock,” and added that Respondent
“didn’t seem angry, he seemed shocked and mystified. stated that he then learned about the
blog post in the Political Science Rumors website. stated that he was “confused” because “when
the original thing happened, we were told that OIE wasn’t going to pursue it, so I was thinking that University
of Michigan was looking at the incident, since it took place in a summer program in Anne Arbor at the
university and Bill wasn’t MSU faculty at the time, he came here later.”

On April 11, 2018, Kroll interviewed

. Below is a summary of statements.

When asked about his knowledge of the allegations made against Respondent, stated that he
learned about the allegations earlier this year. heard from a friend about the allegations.
stated that Respondent was when he was a student at MSU , and
have remained friends. also stated that he knows Claimant Gill and has had “significant contact”
with her. stated that Claimant Gill was a Graduate Assistant when he was a student.

stated that he didn’t witness anything himself but noted that he observed Claimant Gill’s behavior
around the time of the incident, and he never noticed any changes in her. However, stated that
he only had a “professional” relationship with Claimant Gill.
 Appendix B

Comments on the June 5, 2018 Draft Investigative Report (OIE Case 00042-2018) Rebecca Gill

Comments on the June 5, 2018 Draft Investigative Report (OIE Case 00042-2018)

Rebecca Gill

1. Background.
a. Contacting OIE. This section implies that I contacted OIE about this incident. However, it
was someone else (Valerie Sulfaro) who contacted OIE about this retaliation. On January
30, Debra Martinez from MSU OIE contacted me to discuss that claim:

Martinez, Debra <rousse15@msu.edu> Jan Share

30 this
email

to me

Good Afternoon Dr. Gill,

Are you available to speak with me today or tomorrow? An additional matter has come to light and I would like
to discuss it with you and explore your desired level of participation. Again, my direct line is 517-884-8680.

Best,

Debra Rousseau Martinez, J.D.

Michigan State University
Senior Institutional Equity Investigator
Olds Hall
408 W. Circle Drive, Suite 4
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 353-3922
Fax: (517) 884-8513
www.oie.msu.edu

b. Additional Examples of Possible Retaliation. Additionally, the background statement

includes only the anonymous posting on the Political Science Rumors blog as evidence
of possible retaliation. However, I also raised the issue of an email that was apparently
sent by the Respondent to a number of colleagues about the accusations. I have not
seen this email, so I do not know whether the content of it rises to the level of
retaliation. notes that he received a “mass email” about the allegations , but
does not indicate whether that email is the same email included in the Respondent’s
evidence (dated January 7). Finally, as I noted in my recent discussions with Ms.
Faulkner, the official statements posted by the Respondent on the website of the
American Journal of Political Science are not mentioned anywhere in this report. It is my
understanding that the OIE decided that those posts did not “rise to the level” of
 retaliation as currently defined in section R of the RVSM policy and under Title IX. I
object strongly to this assessment. Although the Respondent has the right to deny the
accusations, the venue he used was an official statement in the highest impact journal in
my academic discipline. In that statement, he denied the veracity of my claims, and
directed the discipline’s attention to the Political Science Rumors website. He either
knew or should have known the depth of the vile responses demonizing me on that
website, and this served to call attention to and expand the reach of the defamatory
rumors in the specific post he mentioned, as well as the terrible things people were
saying about me elsewhere on that website. He drove traffic to those sources by posting
this statement as Editor on the AJPS website. Indeed, the reaction of the political
science discipline makes it clear that the Respondent’s use of this venue in this way
should be considered professional retaliation. In response to this posting, the executive
council of the Midwest Political Science Association, the organization that controls the
AJPS, voted unanimously to remove Respondent as editor effective immediately. Below
is the email I forwarded to the various investigators when I first became aware of this
posting. It contains the full text of that official message. Screen shots are available from
various sources on Twitter and elsewhere.

Rebecca Gill <rebecca.gill@unlv.edu> Apr Share

17 this
email

to bcc: Ana, bcc: Elisabeth, bcc: Elizabeth, bcc: Kenya, bcc: Kathryn, bcc: Debra

Dear all,

I am forwarding this official message from William Jacoby. It is printed on the

official American Journal of Political Science website: www.ajps.org. I thought it
might be relevant to the ongoing (or recently closed) investigations into
harassment and retaliation claims against him. Keep in mind that this is among
the very top peer reviewed journals in the discipline, and this official statement
from the editor appears on the front page of that website.

My best,
Rebecca

From the Editor:

It is apparently widely known that allegations related to sexual harassment have been made against me.
The allegations are untrue. I never engaged in the behaviors described in the allegations. And, the
supposed response from me that was posted on the political science rumors blog is a fake. That message
is not from me, and I have no idea who created it or posted it to the blog.
I reported the initial allegation immediately to the proper individuals and offices at Michigan State
University, the University of Michigan, and the Midwest Political Science Association. There is an ongoing
investigation being conducted by a national firm on behalf of Michigan State University. I understand that
the University of Michigan is conducting an investigation, although I have not yet been contacted about it.
The Midwest Political Science Association also conducted an investigation which I believe has been
completed. Theirs is internal and I have been told that no report will be issued.

To be clear, I completely support these investigations and am cooperating fully. I believe they are the only
way I can clear my name. However I have no idea how long the MSU and UM investigations will take or
when they will be completed. So, despite their false nature, the allegations are not going away. I am
concerned that the longer the allegations linger, the greater their potential for bringing serious damage to
the American Journal of Political Science. Therefore, I have decided to step down as AJPSEditor, effective at
the end of this calendar year, December 31, 2018.
I am taking this action with regard to the best interests of the American Journal of Political Science, the
Midwest Political Science Association, the political science discipline, and the social science community.
In addition, I believe this decision is in my own best interest as well. I do not want any questions about me
as an individual (rather than as a scholar or editor) – unfounded as these questions are – to have any
detrimental impact on he incredible, great things that have been accomplished at the Journal so far.
Please understand that this is my decision. I feel compelled by circumstances. But, I have not been
compelled to do this by any individuals, groups, or institutions. Again, I truly believe this is the best course
of action for me to take at this time.

William G. Jacoby
Editor, American Journal of Political Science

2. Investigation: Claimant Gill.

a. Paragraph 2. Paragraph two again implies that I contacted OIE in January 2018 to report
retaliation. As I discussed in Section 1(a) above, OIE contacted me about a report
originating from another claimant.
b. Paragraph 4. I met the Respondent at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political
Science Association. I was presenting a paper on a panel about public opinion. At that
meeting, I he said my work was “interesting” and “showed a lot of promise.” I don’t think
he said that about me. At that first meeting, he did suggest to me that I should take his
course at ICPSR the following summer. A further point of clarification from paragraph 4:
By the summer of 2002, it was known that Respondent and his wife had accepted an
offer to move to MSU. However, it is my understanding that this move did not happen
until sometime in 2003.
c. Paragraph 5. It is important to note here that one of the topics of conversation at the bar
was his role as the editor of the Journal of Politics, and how useful it would be for me to
have someone like him in my corner. It was in this context that he made his proposition. It
was clear to me at the time that what he was proposing was a quid pro quo arrangement.
I told both Harold Spaeth (whose name is misspelled in this paragraph) and Reggie
Sheehan in order to communicate to them that I did not want Bill to be on my committee.
This paragraph makes it seem like this was my motivation for telling Spaeth only. Finally,
it’s also important to note that Respondent’s wife was the graduate director starting in
2004 until 2007. When she moved on from that position, her policy of requiring the
Respondent serve on American Politics subfield committees left with her. This is how it
came to be that I was able to put together a committee and defend in 2008.
d. Paragraph 6. I am not exactly sure when the meeting with Respondent happened, but I
am quite sure that it was not after my 2006 back surgery. I do not recall being on campus
after that surgery. The meeting happened earlier than this, probably sometime in 2005. It
was after this meeting that I sought out the adjunct position. I know this because the
Respondent was in charge of job placement for the graduate program at that time. The
meeting with him made it clear to me that I should take care that he was not involved in
my job search process (for fear that he would sabotage it). Finally, I want to clarify the
context in which I changed my dissertation committee and ultimately graduated. After
learning that Respondent’s wife was no longer the graduate director, I started trying to file
my paperwork. This was likely sometime in late 2007. This is when I discovered that
 Respondent was, indeed, listed as a member of my committee (despite my longstanding
protest). I changed my committee’s membership officially in the late spring of 2008, and I
defended my dissertation as soon as was allowed by the rules in force at that time. I
wouldn’t say that I didn’t “[enjoy] graduation,” but I would say that I managed to change
my committee and defend my dissertation without Respondent or his wife knowing it, and
I “slip[ed] out of MSU” and into my new job without any additional interference from them.
e. Paragraph 7. I’m misquoted here. The panel I participated in was called “Mentoring
Across Genders.”
f. Paragraph 9. Here, again, this paragraph states that I contacted OIE to report retaliation.
That isn’t accurate. A third party contacted OIE about the possible retaliation, and OIE
reached out to me about it in late January. Additionally, I wouldn’t have said that
Respondent authored the post, because I had no way of knowing for sure. I did say that
the post claimed to have been from the Respondent. I also would have noted that there
were some details that were incorrect (e.g., the timing of the harassment), but that there
were also details in the letter that few other people would have known about (e.g., the
2005 meeting between myself and the Respondent). My friend’s name is
, not . Finally, there are some inaccuracies as it relates to the way I knew
about the whisper campaign against me. One of Respondent’s students and witnesses,
, applied for a job at UNLV . It was in the context of
that job search that I came to learn that knew about my allegations and had
warned people about me because I had spread rumors about the Respondent. This
wasn’t something that disclosed on an interview. Instead, it was something that a
third party contacted me about in the context of the job search process. However, I was
not on the search committee, and I took no action on this information at the time.
3. Investigation: Reggie Sheehan
a. Paragraph 3. Here, the report states that I was Reggie’s graduate student in South
Carolina. I have never been a student there. I was his student at Michigan State.
b. Paragraph 4. There appears to be a typo in the first sentence of this paragraph that
changes the meaning of the sentence. Perhaps delete the word “until.” Also, I’m sure that
Reggie did not attend the 2018 SPSA conference. I talked to him on a private social
platform about it after I told my story at the conference.
4. Investigation: Valerie Sulfaro
a. Paragraph 3. Valerie is a professor at James Madison University.
5. Investigation:
a. Paragraph 6. My guess is that he probably said “renewed sense” and not “re-do” sense of
hurt.
6. Investigation: Respondent
a. NOTE: There are many, many points in this statement that I disagree with, and that I
regard as false. I will not comment on all of these, unless I have specific evidence that
they are not true. However, please do not interpret my lack of commentary on certain
points in this testimony as tacit agreement. For the most part, the whole of this testimony
is inaccurate.
b. Paragraph 7. I am assuming that the quote in here should be “office hours,” not “after
hours.” I do recall meeting with the Respondent in his office hours, but it was before the
night in question. I did not interact with the Respondent after that night until I requested a
meeting with him in about 2005, as I detail in my testimony.
c. Paragraph 8. The court in question is the High Court of Australia, not the “Supreme Court
of Justice in Australia.” In any event, Reggie and I did not ever meet with Bill about this.
My testimony and Reggie’s testimony reflects this.
d. Paragraph 9. Respondent’s own testimony reflects the fact that he and his wife had
already accepted an offer of employment at Michigan State University by the time we
were at ICPSR in 2002.
e. Paragraph 10. As my testimony reflects, I did meet with Respondent in about 2005. In
that meeting, I told him about my concerns. I recounted the behavior that made me feel
uncomfortable. This includes the proposition. At that time, I also told him that my
eyewitness had heard him proposition me. In addition, it came to my attention during the
 2016 hiring season that Respondent’s student, , was aware of
the nature of my accusations against the Respondent. The implication was that he had
learned this directly from the Respondent, and it was common knowledge among
Respondent’s students at the time.
f. Paragraph 12. My guess is that he spoke to , not . This is the
same
g. Paragraph 13. The journal the Respondent was editor of at the time was the Journal of
Politics. This is a general political science journal, meaning that it publishes content from
all different subfields of political science. It is well understood that journal editors have
tremendous power over what ends up in their journal, the blind peer-review process
notwithstanding. In addition, the Respondent had the ability to hire his own editorial staff,
and this was the part of the quid pro quo bargain he proposed to me at ICPSR in 2002.
h. The PSR Letter Rebuttal. Again, there are many points of Respondent’s rebuttal that I
disagree with. I will highlight just a couple of points here. He notes that “it became clear
that she was not interested in the methodological approach that would have been my
contribution to the dissertation project. So I just assumed I was not on the committee and
would not be asked to join it.” The method to which he refers is “multidimensional
scaling,” the technique I learned from him at ICPSR in 2002. However, if you look at
Chapter 6 of my dissertation, it is clear that I did use that method in my dissertation. My
dissertation is available online. What’s more, I had planned to use multidimensional
scaling in my dissertation all along. That’s the reason I took the course from him in the
first place. This is also clear because that section of my dissertation is based upon my
2002 paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science
Association entitled “Dimensions of Decisionmaking.” This paper is available on SSRN.
Also, as I noted earlier in these comments, there are very few people who knew about
the one-on-one meeting I had with him on or about 2005. In that meeting, I reminded him
about the precise nature of his proposition to me as a way of explaining to him why I had
not invited him to be on my committee.
I blurted out, “you can’t expect me to answer that.” Thankfully, my friend had noticed my
discomfort and leaned in close enough to hear the exchange. She escorted me from the pub. As
the shock started to wear off, it was replaced by a deep sense of shame and embarrassment. 10/n
Who was I kidding? Of course he wasn’t interested in my work. What did I have to say about
these topics that hadn’t been said before, and better? What a fool!

That was the beginning of what I now refer to as my “harassment sabbatical." 11/n
I kept teaching, but I stopped writing. I just couldn’t get any words on paper that didn’t seem
idiotic. At the beginning, I didn’t tell a soul. When a senior member of my committee insisted
that I add the man to my committee, I finally had to confess. It was humiliating. 12/n
The senior member of my committee sort of shrugged his shoulders and looked very
disappointed in me. At that point, I told one more person—my dissertation chair—who said
something along the lines of, “wow, that really sucks for you.” 13/n
But nobody did anything. Why would they? It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, right. I
wasn’t raped or anything. 14/n
But they should have seen the signs. Progress on my dissertation completely stopped. I stopped
going to conferences. I stopped coming into the department. I took a job as a visitor in another
state. I disappeared. 15/n
If impostor syndrome is the unrealistically low assessment of one’s own talents, adding sexual
harassment to the mix provides specific, tangible confirmatory evidence that the low assessment
isn’t unrealistic after all--that the stereotypes are true. That you don't belong. 16/n
This is why workplace sexual harassment can be so dangerous for its victims. When bystanders
fail to understand the way that a *mere* inappropriate remark can derail an entire career, they
also amplify the impostor message in the victim's mind. 17/n
What happened to me—quid pro quo harassment—was a clear violation of #TitleIX. But
harassment does not need to rise to this level to have devastating consequences for women. The
obvious remedy, of course, is to stop harassing women. 18/n
However, there seems to me to be little appetite, even in this #metoo moment, to oust harassers
from their tenured perches. Mine is still editing a major journal, etc. Because of this, we also
need to direct our attention toward developing effective bystanders.19/n
I don’t believe for a moment that the men on my committee wanted me to fail. I have to believe
that they didn’t see the impact this would have on me. We need to fix that. We need to talk
openly about impostor syndrome, and particularly its relationship with harassment. 20/n
This conversation needs to happen across genders, and men need to take responsibility for
improving our discipline’s
culture. #polisci @APSAtweets @MPSAnet@TheNewWestblog #harassment #academia #wome
ninacademia #mentorship#MeTooWhatNext #DoBetter 21/21
 Appendix D

August 16, 2002 Email from Bill Jacoby to Rebecca Wood (Gill)
 Appendix E

Paper Presented by Rebecca Wood (Gill) at the 2001 SPSA Meeting

 USING THE LABEL WISELY:

A FRESH TAKE ON POLITICAL SOPHISTICATION AND PARTISAN CUES

Rebecca D. Wood
Michigan State University
Department of Political Science
303 South Kedzie Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
(517) 355-3406 phone
(517) 432-1091 fax
rebecca@msu.edu

Prepared for the Southern Political Science Association Meeing

Atlanta, GA, November 6 –9, 2001

I would like to thank Darren Davis, Charles Franklin, and Sarah Corp for their help on this manuscript.
Any errors or omissions are the fault of the author.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1539888

 USING THE LABEL WISELY:

A FRESH TAKE ON POLITICAL SOPHISTICATION AND PARTISAN CUES

REBECCA D. WOOD
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Much of the political sophistication literature in

political science assumes that the use of party cues in the
voting booth is the hallmark of a distinctly
unsophisticated voter (Converse 1964, Luskin 1987). The
present piece seeks to examine another possibility: namely
that the use of party cues may not preclude a voter from
inclusion in the realm of the sophisticated voter. This
paper borrows heavily from the psychology literature on
scientific decision making, attempting to suggest an
alternative way to distinguish voters along the
“scientific-ness” of their decision making process. This
paper uses NES 1994* post-election survey data to create
logit models. These models indicate that voters that use
party cues may at least look a lot like the sophisticated
voter in many interesting ways.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1539888

Introduction*

There is a good deal of debate in the literature about

what makes for a sophisticated voter. Some researchers

have argued that simply having an ideology and being able

to translate ideological sentiments into decisions is

enough to be considered a political sophisticate (Norrander

1989, Knight 1985). Others require that ideological

judgments be coupled with issue judgments and economic

assessments in order to reach the level of sophisticate

(Kahn and Kenney 1997). Still others do not require

ideology explicitly, and instead rely on things like

knowledge of and interest in the political system and

players (Lodge and Hamill 1986, Rahn et. al 1994, Carmines

and Stimson 1980, Abramson et. al 1992). Many researchers

build on operationalizations of definitions based on

Converse (1976) and Campbell et. al (1960), including issue

congruence and ideology (see Luskin 1987). What is clear,

however, is that there is not a consensus as to what

political sophistication is, what it should be, and how it

should be measured (Luskin 1987).

*
The data for this paper are the National Election Study’s 1994 Post-
election Survey. These data were originally collected by the Center
for Political Studies of the University of Michigan and were made
available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social
Research. I would like to thank Charles Franklin, Darren Davis, and
Sarah Corp for their help with this paper. Any mistakes are the
responsibility of the author.

2
 One assumption held in common by most of the

researchers in the field is that reliance on party cues in

the voting booth is the mark of a distinctly

unsophisticated voter (Campbell et .al 1960, Carmines and

Stimson 1980, Kahn et. al 1997). The current paper makes

use of related literature in psychology to suggest a new

way to think about the relationship between party cues and

sophisticated political decision-making. The “scientific

decision-making” literature in psychology speaks to the

dilemma of the sophisticated partisan.

By integrating these two literatures, we can find a

place for the voter who chooses his party intelligently,

monitors his identification with new information, and uses

this affiliation to simplify the voting process. Here,

this person is termed the “scientific voter” after the

theoretical thread in the psychology literature. This

scientific voter is given the flexibility to use the

efficient method of party cues in his decision making

process.

The Sophisticated Voter

One way to think about political sophistication is to

follow the lead of Campbell et. al in Chapter 10 of The

American Voter (1960). They develop a system for

3
evaluating the level of conceptualization at which

individuals understand and integrate bits of political

knowledge. This system has four categories, from a low

group with a complete absence of issue content in their

political information structure, to a high group that

relies on an overarching ideology to organize political

information. Converse (1976) examines the extent to which

individuals use their overarching beliefs in order to

constrain their attitudes on particular issues. While

there is much debate about Converse’s assumptions about and

measurements of belief constraint (Peffley and Hurwitz

1985), the underlying idea that sophisticated individuals

use a general theory about the world to structure

particular opinions is closely tied to Campbell et. al’s

(1960) levels of conceptualization. This definition of

sophistication centers on the ability of an individual to

use broad-spectrum theories in order to shape specific

decisions.

Partisanship has often been associated with low levels

of political sophistication (Kahn et. al 1997, Carmines and

Stimson 1980). In this view, the reliance on party cues is

a simplistic way to make decisions about politics.

Campbell et. al (1960) argue that reliance solely on party

cues makes it impossible to keep abreast of any change in

4
party stance that might bring the party farther from the

individual’s particular ideology. In this sense, the person

blindly using party cues is not using his own general

ideology or theory to monitor the appropriateness of the

party affiliation shortcut.

Party identification can be used as a cue, however,

without giving up use of a monitoring system. Such a

system allows the voter to evaluate the congruence between

the party affiliation and a more general theory or

ideology. Partisanship used in the context of a monitoring

system necessarily has maintenance costs (Martinez, 1990),

while a more simplistic use of party identification may

not. By periodically holding the party choice against

newly collected information, the voter can make sure that

his party identification still accurately reflects his

ideological preferences.

It has been argued that uninformed voters use party

cues in order to vote “correctly” (McKelvey and Ordershook

1986, Lau and Redlawsk 1997), although it is not clear how

much monitoring is used, if any. A correct vote is one

that is in accordance with a voter’s actual preferences.

Some researchers have argued that voters with higher levels

of political knowledge also have higher levels of

partisanship (Palfrey and Poole 1987). If this additional

5
knowledge is used to collect and analyze information, this

could effectively constitute a monitor of party

identification. Consequently, it is very possible that

partisanship can be the tool of the sophisticated and the

unsophisticated alike. With this background in place, it

is quite difficult to discern whether party cues belong

typically to the less sophisticated or the more

sophisticated.

Sophistication and Partisanship

The relationship between sophistication and

partisanship is at the center of the sophistication debate.

Zaller (1991) argues that a high level of political

awareness is associated with greater partisanship (Palfrey

and Poole 1987). Parties can act as a heuristic for people

with all different levels of political knowledge and

interest, and can play an important role in the processing

of political information (Rahn 1993). According to Converse

(1964), increasing the economy of the decision making

process exists hand-in-hand with sophistication. Party

identification may be thought of as “a relatively cheap

cognitive cue, but its maintenance costs are not nil”

(Martinez 1990, 824). In other words, people with high

levels of partisanship may eliminate all further

6
information gathering and processing tasks, although they

do not have to necessarily.

Previous research suggests that citizens are

responsive to new information in their overall assessments

of candidates, even those citizens with party attachments

(Lodge et. al 1995). In addition, party affiliation does

not necessarily stay constant in the face of new

information about the parties (Franklin and Jackson 1983;

but see Gerber and Greene 1998). This suggests that voters

with partisan identifications may change their party

affiliation when presented with certain new information.

This possibility for change, even if it is not probable

during any given updating session, is necessary for an

effective monitoring system, because it allows the voter to

maintain the balance between his own ideology and party

identification. Because well-informed voters (Mutz 1993)

and voters with higher levels of information are better

able to integrate new information from their personal

experiences into their political preferences (Neuman 1981),

such people can use party cues with the stipulation that

they continue to be congruent with their own general

ideological theory.

Carmines and Stimson (1980) argue that political

sophistication demands examination of the pros and cons of

7
each issue before coming to a position. They posit that

reliance on partisan cues alone represents an overly

simplistic decision strategy when taking positions on

issues. It is possible, though, that the examining of pros

and cons can apply to the party affiliation decision, as

well as to subordinate issue decisions. In other words,

people could make “sophisticated” decisions about party

identification, and use that decision as a heuristic for

other political decisions.

Scientific vs. Non-scientific Decisions

If we consider that both sophisticated and non-

sophisticated people may indeed use partisanship as a

heuristic for other political decisions (DeSart 1995), it

becomes difficult to observe a difference between

sophisticated and non-sophisticated voters in terms of the

use political party cues. Since many researchers have

thought reliance on partisanship to be indicative of a non-

sophisticated voter, recognizing that the sophisticated

voter may also use party cues blurs the line between the

two groups. Perhaps this point helps to explain the

disagreement in the literature as to whether party-

switchers and ticket-splitters are the sophisticated or the

8
unsophisticated (Palmer 2000, Campbell et. al 1960,

Lazerfeld et. al 1944).

It may be helpful to consider, however, the nature of

the partisanship that voters rely upon. Gant and Davis

(1984) argue that voter ignorance can also be seen as voter

efficiency. Since new appraisals are not necessary for

each new decision, this statement seems relatively logical.

However, total ignorance precludes the opportunity to

correctly and accurately maintain even the most general

partisan cues. Party affiliation decisions that are

followed by ignorance provide an accurate decision for only

a snapshot in time, and any new information that follows is

then necessarily held out of the decision. It becomes

necessary to determine whether or not the learning process

is continuing past the original decision and the partisan

cues are being supplemented by new information.

Party identifications can be understood as theories

about the world. Scientists, lay people, and even children

use such theories in order to predict and interpret their

surroundings (Gopnik and Meltzoff 1997). The difference

between the theories of the child and the scientist,

however, are marked. Intelligent (Harvey and Harvey 1970)

and experienced people use more information in developing

and maintaining their theories, and this information tends

9
to be more diverse (Braily et. al 2001). Scientists,

because of their expertise, can better integrate the

information they are presented with, and can more easily

seek out other appropriate information in order to maintain

their theories accurately.

While all people tend to surround themselves with

congruent (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1987) and theory-

confirming evidence (Jones and Sugden 2001), scientists are

trained to seek out disconfirming data (Evans and Over

1996, Klayman and Ha 1987). Experts are more easily able

to remember disconfirmatory evidence, and to use this

information to make judgments about their theories (Braily

et. al 2001). Non-scientists are likely to accept evidence

that supports their beliefs much more easily than they will

accept disconfirming evidence (Kuhn 1997). While

scientists sometimes set a more stringent acceptance

criterion for contrary evidence than for consistent

evidence (Koehler 1993), they still take note of the

evidence and provide record of it in their research (Evans

and Over 1996).

These differences between scientists and

nonscientists, including both their knowledge and their

commitment to disconfirming evidence, may lead to

substantial differences in the decision making practices of

10
the two groups (Markman and Gentner 2001). Understanding

and weighing multiple attributes is important in making

wise decisions (Edwards and Fasolo 2001), and people who

consider both an alternative and a null hypothesis are

better able to make correct decisions (Rossi et. al 2001).

This leaves the non-scientific decision makers at a

striking disadvantage. Those who rely on non-scientific

decision methods may be more likely to suffer from a strong

confirmatory bias (Klayman and Ha, 1987)

Identifying Scientific Voters

A person that uses a scientific decision process to

choose and maintain their partisan cues can be thought of

as a “scientific voter."1 This scientific voter is

theoretically distinct from the sophisticated voter found

in most of the political science literature. This voter is

making a scientific choice about his party affiliation, and

then using that choice to simplify his decision making

process for each of the many particular political decisions

he makes in the future. By keeping his economical shortcut

up to date, he can reap the resource-saving benefits of

1
A more precise title for such a person might be a Scientific Party
Chooser, but for aesthetic reasons, this person will be dubbed a
‘Scientific Voter.’

11
using party identification cues without sacrificing too

much accuracy in his decision process.

This is a creature much different from the

sophisticated voter as conceived by researchers following

the American Voter tradition (Campbell et. al 1960).

Campbell et. al paint the sophisticated voter as an

ideologue who possesses the ability to understand politics

in a sophisticated way. The ideologue is characterized by

his conceptualization of political positions as part of an

ideological continuum. In The American Voter, people are

placed in this sophisticated category based on their

answers to the question: “Is there anything in particular

that you like about the ___ party?”(224). People whose

answers demonstrate an understanding of an ideological

continuum are categorized as ideologues. This conception

of the ideologue is the basis for much of the research on

political sophistication since the 1960’s (Luskin 1987).

The basis for this classification is cognitive in nature.

The sophisticated voter understands the political world in

terms of a more general political belief system, or an

overarching theory used to interpret political surroundings

(Converse, 1964).

Returning to the scientific voter, it may now become

more apparent that the scientific voter also uses a general

12
political belief system to make sense of the political

world. The accuracy of this political belief system is

maintained by the integration of information from different

sources. At this point, it becomes rather difficult to

sustain the position that party identification cannot serve

as a political belief system as much of the political

sophistication literature (Luskin 1987) requires.

Building upon the body of research in psychology

discussed above, we can see that the scientific decision

maker must make use of a monitoring system. This system

involves the periodic collection and integration of

relevant political information. It must not rely on just

any information, but on information from a diverse number

of sources and perspectives. The key here is to

acknowledge that the necessary information must be both

confirmatory and non-confirmatory in relation to the

individual’s political ideology. This is not dissimilar to

the idea that political sophisticates should be able to

place numerous current figures, concepts, and issues on an

ideological scale. In fact, this exercise is often used as

a way to identify sophisticated voters (Luskin 1987).

There is one difference that is quite clear. The

scientific voter may or may not rely on party cues. The

ideologue, or the sophisticated voter as he is most

13
commonly understood, does not rely on economical partisan

cues. In addition, the political sophisticate is not

required to seek out and process disconfirming information.

In the classification schemes outlined by Luskin (1987) in

his commendably comprehensive review of the field, none of

the information needed by the sophisticated voter must be

disconfirming, or contrary to the respondent’s ideological

leanings. Instead, a respondent with positive ideological

analysis of one party and negative ideological analysis of

the other would be classified in this most ideal category

of ideologue (Campbell et al. 1960, 222). This is not to

say that the sophisticated voter is any less sophisticated

than the scientific voter, but only that the scientific

voter is defined in terms of his party choice, and the

sophisticated voter is defined in terms of higher

conceptualization abilities in a more abstract sense.

The idea that a person like the scientific voter

described here could be considered a political sophisticate

is a departure from the bulk of the literature on political

sophistication. The sophisticated voter is usually

prohibited from relying on party cues in his creation of

attitudes on particular issues and votes in particular

elections. In contrast, the scientific voter may well use

party cues in these instances, but these party cues are

14
derived from a scientific choice. As long as the choice of

party affiliation is appropriately made and scientifically

monitored, the use of the resulting political cues will be

accurate and allow the voter to vote “correctly.”

By using the scientific standard in place of the

political sophisticate standard, we can account for the

level of awareness and conceptualization of a voter without

precluding the use of party cues in individual elections or

issue areas. If scientific voters are to be worthy of the

title “political sophisticate,” however, it is only

reasonable to expect that they share many explanatory

traits in common with the sophisticated voters of political

science fame.

Researchers on the topic of political sophistication

have found significant relationships between sophistication

and such things as high levels of political knowledge (Rath

et. al 1994, Lodge and Hamill 1986, Mutz 1993, Martinez

1990) political interest, and participation in political

activities (Rahn et. al 1994). Other characteristics of

sophisticated voters include high levels of education

(Campbell et. al 1960, Neuman 1981, Martinez 1990, Gordon

and Segura 1997), identification with the Democratic Party

(Harvey and Harvey 1970, Neuman 1981) and age (Campbell et.

al 1960, Luskin 1987). To get a preliminary idea of how

15
the scientific voter might look as compared to the

sophisticated voter, a model predicting scientific voters

can be constructed. If the performance of the explanatory

variables is consistent with the expectations based on the

political sophistication literature, it may be possible to

bring party identification back into the realm of the

sophisticated.

Data

This analysis relies on the National Election Study

(NES) conducted in 1994. This survey is carried out by the

Center for Political Studies (CPS) of the Institute for

Social Research at the University of Michigan and includes

a sample of citizens of voting age, living in private

households. The 1994 sample used in the present analysis

has 1,795 respondents. The sample is representative of the

four major regions of the contiguous United States as

defined by the Census Bureau.2 The response rate for this

sample is 72.1%.

2
For a description of the sampling procedures, please see Leslie Kish,
SURVEY SAMPLING (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964). For further
discussion of the data please see Warren E. Miller and Santa A.
Traugott, AMERICAN NATIONAL ELECTION STUDIES DATA SOURCEBOOK, 1952-1986
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989) and John P. Robinson,
Jerrold G. Rusk, and Kendra B. Head, MEASURES OF POLITICAL ATTITUDES
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research,
196.

16
Scientific Voters

The 1994 NES data includes a series of questions that

ask respondents to list likes and dislikes about the two

national parties (see Appendix A). Campbell et. al (1960)

use this measure as the basis for their classification of

individual voters by their levels of conceptualization.

Instead of analyzing the content of these questions, in the

present analysis the concern is with the even distribution

of these answers.

For the purposes of the current analysis, the range of

possible scientific voters will be limited to scientific

partisans. In order to determine whether reliance on a

scientifically produced party identification is

“sophisticated,” only non-independents will be classified

as “scientific” for the analysis. Independents, while they

may very well arrive at their (lack of) identification

using a scientific manner, it does not typically provide

the kind of economical cue that a scientific partisan

enjoys.

Because the scientific decision maker must have a

diversity of information and be able to process the pros

and cons (Markman and Gentner 2001), such a person must

display some recognition of good and bad aspects of each

decision. If the person is able to recall both positive

17
and negative aspects of the parties, we can assume that

this diverse information was both collected and processed

by that respondent. A voter that can identify good things

(or bad things) about both parties are classified as

scientific voters because their information is diverse.

By this definition, a person who sees only good things

about one party and only bad things about another is not

classified as a scientific partisan. This is because the

decision maker has only confirmatory evidence informing

their decision. On the lowest rung of scientific

partisans, we would expect to find a partisan who can name

no positive nor negative aspects of either political party

would be classified as non-scientific. Joining this

completely uniformed partisan might be a partisan that can

say something good about his own party, but has nothing

else to say regarding his perceptions of the parties.

In this analysis, the top-rung scientific partisans

will be the main focus. They will be compared against a

model used to predict those partisans residing on the

bottom rung. In each analysis, the model will seek to

predict the occurrence of a scientific partisan (or

distinctly non scientific partisan in the case of Model 2)

based on a set of explanatory variables. These variables

18
have been chosen because of their place in the

sophistication literature.

Important Explanatory Concepts

The literature suggests that a number of variables

should be important in explaining political sophistication.3

The sophisticated voter can be expected to have high levels

of knowledge about politics (Rahn et. al 1994, Lodge and

Hamill 1986, Mutz 1993, Martinez 1990). This concept is

very important, as the expert in politics is more likely to

store in memory information about personal theories (Harvey

and Harvey 1970). This advantage of the expert over the

non-expert is especially notable in the case of

disconfirming evidence (Braily et. al 2001, Markman and

Guntner 2001). In the present analysis, an additive index

is used to measure political knowledge. This index is

similar to the one recommended by the work of Delli Carpini

and Keeter (1993) (see Appendix A). If the scientific

partisans perform like the political sophisticates, the

political knowledge variable should be significant and

positive in the first model (and negative and significant

in the second model).

3
For operationalization information about these variables, please see
Appendix A.

19
 Another variable suggested by the literature is

education (Campbell et. al 1960, Neuman 1981, Martinez

1990, Gordon and Segura 1997). The education variable in

this analysis is a measure of the level of education

attained by the respondent. The expected direction of the

relationship between education and scientific partisanship

is positive, with higher levels of education associated

with the scientific voter. For the second model, the

expected direction of the relationship is the opposite.

Interest in political matters is another potentially

important variable (Harvey and Harvey 1970, Lodge and

Hamill 1986, Rahn et. al 1994). In this analysis, a

measure of self-perceived interest in politics is used.

Political interest is found in the literature to be

positively related to sophistication, or is used as a

measure of sophistication (Rahn et. al 1994). Similarly,

interest in politics is expected to have a positive

relationship with the incidence of scientific partisanship,

as a more interested person would be more likely to gather

the necessary information.

An additional indicator of political interest is

included in this analysis in the form of a self-reported

measure of participation in political discussion. Again,

the expected direction of the relationship with scientific

20
partisanship is positive. The opposite is expected for the

model of distinctly non-scientific partisans.

Finally, the literature suggests that political party

identification is related to political sophistication

(Harvey and Harvey 1970, Neuman 1981). In particular, much

of the research suggests that Democrats will score higher

on sophistication measures than Republicans. The seven-

point scale of party identification is used in the present

analysis. Placement on this seven-point scale is expected

to have a positive relationship with the incidence of

scientific partisanship. There is no literature that would

predict that Republicans might be distinctly non-

scientific, although they may be less likely to be

scientific. The expected direction in the second model is

positive (Republicans are more likely to be distinctly non-

scientific) or null.

A number of demographic variables are also included in

the analysis. Measures of gender, social class, age, and

race are included to control for the effects these may have

on the dependent variable.

Results

Scientific partisans, as defined in this analysis,

make up approximately 21% of the sample. A difference of

21
means test shows that the scientific partisan differs

significantly from the rest of the sample on a number of

the substantive as well as demographic variables.

[Table 1 about here]

The first logit model uses the scientific partisan as

the dependent variable. This model shows support for a

number of the hypothesized relationships between the

scientific partisan and the explanatory variables.

Specifically, the respondent with greater knowledge, higher

education level, Democratic party identification, and a

high social class status is more likely to exhibit signs of

being a scientific partisan than the opposite respondent.

Specifically, as a respondent’s score on the knowledge

index increases by one standard deviation, the predicted

probability that he will be in the scientific partisan

group increases by 4%, all else held constant at the mean

(and gender and race held at white male). Similarly, a one

standard-deviation increase in self-reported political

discussion increases the probability of scientific

partisanship by 5%, and the same increase in education

produces an increase of 4% (again with the above conditions

in effect). In this way, the scientific voter measure

appears to be in line with the expected characteristics of

the sophisticated voter.

22
 Another way to get an idea of how the scientific

partisan measure relates to the sophisticated voter is to

examine what the scientific partisan is not. The

distinctly non-scientific partisan as defined above has

some very particular characteristics, as well. As the

preceding section indicates, the expectation is that the

distinctly non-scientific partisans will be in line with

the political non-sophisticate.

[Table 2 about here]

The second logit model bears out these hypotheses, for

the most part. The relationship between distinctly non-

scientific partisans and knowledge, education, political

interest and political discussion are all significant and

negative. For example, a change from the least interested

to the most interested is associated with a full 23%

decrease in the probability that a respondent will be a

distinctly non-scientific partisan, holding all other

variables at their means (again, with gender and race held

to white male). Similarly, a one standard deviation

increase in political knowledge and in education each yield

a 5% decrease in the probability that one would be a

distinctly non-scientific partisan.

In this model, increases age and social class status

are associated with decreased probability of inclusion in

23
the distinctly non-scientific partisan group. The party

identification variable, however, is insignificant. This

supports the idea that, for our measures, youth is

important in determining the non-scientific partisan group,

while party identification is important in determining the

scientific partisan group.

Conclusion

The idea that political sophisticates do not use

partisan cues in their decision making processes is a long-

standing one. By building upon the psychology literature

on scientific decision making, this paper has developed a

new way of thinking about political decision making.

Because it is inefficient to collect detailed information

about each and every candidate and issue (Gant and Davis

1984), excluding the party cue option from the

sophisticated voter should be done with great care. This

party-affiliation-based measure produces group members that

look suspiciously like political sophisticates. While the

implications for this finding are ambiguous at this point,

it certainly indicates that the use of party cues by voters

may not preclude them from acting like the sophisticated

voters defined in much of the political science literature.

This paper falls very short of defining a new measure of

the sophisticated voter. Instead, it merely shows the

24
possibility that the exclusion of the party cue option may

not be necessary in defining the sophisticated voter.

Conversely, assuming that all sophisticated voters are

willing to endure an inefficient information gathering

process may color the type of respondents classified as

such in unexpected ways.

The scientific voter idea is one way to step around

this problem. By allowing people to make sophisticated

decisions about the cues they rely upon, this concept

allows the voter to be both efficient and sophisticated.

The key ingredient in the information gathering process for

the scientific voter is not the in diversity of issue

areas, but in the diversity of perspectives the information

comes from. As long as voters are actively updating their

party identification with new information of both a

confirmatory and non-confirmatory nature, they are able to

make decisions that will reflect their general ideological

theory without being inefficient.

This research is by no means the end of the story.

Much more research needs to be done to compare the two

classifications side by side. Firstly, further study may

be able to clarify the concept of the sophisticated

partisan in a more testable way. The preliminary

distinction made between the scientific partisans and the

25
distinctly non-scientific partisans is a crude one, and it

leaves a large group of respondents in the middle. A more

appropriate scale might be found, given the availability of

data resources appropriate for this purpose. Additionally,

the concept of the scientific voter more generally ought to

be parsed out from the scientific partisan in this

analysis. This may be a much more difficult task than its

face may suggest, because it involves recognizing the

process by which a respondent comes to a scientific

decision to eschew party cues. Finally, this concept must

find its seating within the greater context of the

political sophistication literature in order for it to have

any claim of usefulness. At this point it is just an

alternative story, if a somewhat interesting one.

Even with all of these caveats, it appears that the

scientific voter concept may provide a new way to think

about the relationship between the political sophistication

and partisan cues. In effect, it transfers the

sophistication of the sophisticated voter from the voting

booth stage to the party choice stage. By removing itself

this one level, the group of political sophisticates may be

able to find itself some new members, and new freedom to

use party cues in the voting booth.

26
 Tables and Figures

Table 1 - Difference of Means Tests

Scientific All Others T-Statistic.

Political 5.95 4.88 8.17 **
Knowledge (1.73) (2.16)
Level of 4.69 3.81 8.69 **
Education (1.71) (1.59)
Political 3.56 2.95 6.83 **
Interest (1.38) (1.45)
Political 0.92 0.74 7.31 **
Discussion (0.27) (0.44)
Party 3.00 2.78 1.61
Identification (2.14) (2.19)
Gender (Male=1) 0.56 0.45 3.66 **
(0.50) (0.50)
Social Class 3.51 2.88 5.79 **
Self-Report (1.73) (1.75)
Respondent Age 46.90 46.13 0.70
(17.88) (16.53)
Race 0.87 0.83 1.42
(Caucasian=1) (0.34) (0.37)
N= 315 1480
Standard Deviations are in parentheses. **p # .01
†
This variable is coded one for strong Democrat, strong Republican, Democrat, and
Republican. It is coded zero for weak Democrat and weak Republican.

27
Table 2 – Logit Model of the Scientific Voter
N = 1677 Wald Stat. = 134.77 ** Pseudo R2 = 0.10

Independent Coefficient Robust Z score Sign. Marginal

Variables Std Err Effect
Political 0.145 .044 3.36 .001 ** .0210
Knowledge
Level of 0.183 .050 3.68 .001 ** .0259
Education
Political 0.106 .054 1.95 .051 .0150
Interest
Political 0.824 .236 3.50 .000 ** .1167
Discussion
Party -0.106 .033 -3.19 .001 ** -.0150
Identification
Gender (Male=1) 0.324 .137 2.36 .018 * .0459
Social Class 0.100 .044 2.29 .022 * .0141
Self-Report
Respondent Age 0.002 .004 0.59 .554 .0003
Race 0.177 .206 0.86 .392 .0250
(Caucasian=1)
Constant -4.613 .379 -12.19 .000 ** ---

Note: Please see Appendix A for coding information. **p # .01; *p # .05. The marginal
effect is calculated for white male (average respondent) with all other variables set at
their means.

28
Table 3 – Logit Model of the Un-Scientific Voter
N = 1677 Wald Stat. = 266.18 ** Pseudo R2 = 0.15

Independent Coefficient Robust Z score Sign. Marginal

Variables Std Err Effect
Political -0.122 .031 -3.95 .000 ** -.0232
Knowledge
Level of -0.159 .046 -3.45 .001 * -.0302
Education
Political -0.302 .046 -6.51 .000 ** -.0574
Interest
Political -0.721 .144 -5.01 .000 ** -.1366
Discussion
Party 0.011 .029 0.38 .702 .0021
Identification
Gender (Male=1) -0.132 .122 -1.09 .278 -.0251
Social Class -0.138 .089 -3.57 .000 ** -.0261
Self-Report
Respondent Age -0.013 .004 -3.68 .000 ** -.0025
Race -0.031 .168 -0.18 .855 -.0058
(Caucasian=1)
Constant 2.815 .291 9.68 .000 ** ---

Note: **p # .01; *p # .05. The marginal effect is calculated for white male (average
respondent) with all other variables set at their means.

29
 Appendix A

Independent Variable - Like and Dislike Questions

B1-B4. “I’d like to ask you what you think are the good
and bad points about the two national parties. Is there
anything in particular that you …”

“… like about the Democratic Party?”

“… don’t like about the Democratic Party?”
“… like about the Republican Party?”
“… dislike about the Republican Party?”

The ‘Scientific’ variable is coded as 1 as indicated in the

table below, provided that the respondent is not an
independent (PID=3):

Scientist Like Dem Dislike Like Rep Dislike

Dem Rep
YES(1) 1 1 1 1
YES(1) 1 0 1 0
YES(1) 0 1 0 1
NO (0) All other combinations.

The Gender Variable

This variable is coded as one for a male, and zero for a
female.

The Social Class Variable

This is also a self-report variable, answering the
following question:
Y42. “There’s been some talk these days about different
social classes. Most people say they belong either to the
middle class or the working class. Do you ever think of
yourself as belonging in one of these classes?”
The codes are as follows:
0 = Lower Class
1 = Average Working Class
2 = Working Class
3 = Upper Working Class
4 = Average Middle Class
5 = Middle Class
6 = Upper Middle Class
7 = Upper Class

30
The Race Variable
This variable is a self-reported ethnic identity variable.
It is coded as follows:
1 = White
0 = Non-white (minority)

The Knowledge Index

L4. “Now we have a set of questions concerning various
public figures. We want to see how much information about
them gets out to the public from television, newspapers and
the like. The first name is Al Gore. What job or
political office does he now hold?
a. Al Gore
b. William Rehnquist
c. Boris Yeltsin
d. Tom Foley
L5. “Who has the final responsibility to decide if a law is
constitutional or not … is it the President, the Congress,
or the Supreme Court, or don’t you know?”
L6. “And whose responsibility is it to nominate judges to
the Federal Courts … the President, the Congress, or the
Supreme Court, or don’t you know?”

The knowledge index variable is an additive index of the

above questions, with each correct answer counting as one
point toward the cumulative score.

31
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pp. 5-22. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer

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American Journal of Sociology, 86(6):1236-1268.

Newell A, and H.A. Simon. 1972. Human Problem Solving.

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Relationship between Information, Ideology, and

Voting Behavior.” American Journal of Political

Science, 31(3):511-530.

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Palmer, Harvey, D. 2000. “Are Ticket Splitters Fools?

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delivery at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American

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august 31- September 3, 2000.

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“Economic Conditions and Party Competence: Processes

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40
 Appendix F

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 Appendix G

Paper Presented by Rebecca Wood (Gill) at the 2002 SPSA Meeting

 Dimensions of Decision Making:
1
Determining the Complexity of Politics on the High Court of Australia

Rebecca Wood
Department of Political Science
Michigan State University
303 South Kedzie Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
rebecca@msu.edu
http://www.msu.edu/~rebecca

October 29, 2002

Version 2.0

Abstract

While we know a great deal about the ideological divides that explain the
behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices, we know very little about their
counterparts in other countries. The liberal-conservative dimension captures a
great deal of the variance around the behavior of justices on the Supreme Court,
but little is known about the generalizability of this one-dimensional explanation
to other national high courts. This paper attempts to determine the nature and
complexity of agreement and disagreement among Justices on the High Court of
Australia. Using data from High Court decisions from 1985-2000, I employ a
multidimensional scaling technique to determine the number of cross-cutting
issues dividing Justices in ideological space. I conclude that, unlike the U.S.
Supreme Court, at least two dimensions are needed to accurately describe
decision-making on the High Court.

1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political
Science Association, at the Marriott Riverfront Hotel in Savannah, GA, November 7-9, 2002.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1539886

Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Jurimetrics2 and the High Court

While many comparative judicial scholars lament the lack of attention to

courts outside the United States (Tate 1996), it may be unfair to conclude that

the Australian High Court has been neglected completely. Very quickly following

the behavioral revolution the study of American courts, inspired by Glendon

Schubert’s The Judicial Mind (1965), like-minded researchers abroad began to

apply similar techniques to the Australian High Court. Schubert himself

contributed much to the early jurimetrics work in Australia, publishing two articles

on the topic during the late 1960’s (Schubert 1968; 1969). This work by

Schubert, largely conducted in an attempt to verify the findings of his work on the

U.S. Supreme Court, was closely followed by researchers in Australia who very

quickly adopted this perspective (e.g., Blackshield 1972; 1978; Douglas 1969).

By the end of the 1970’s, nearly 40 year’s worth of High Court data had

been analyzed for decision-making patterns (Blackshield 2002). The result of

these studies had some findings in common – mainly that at least two distinct

dimensions of decision-making existed in the High Court during the years in

question. One of these dimensions, according to Blackshield (1972), roughly

corresponds with the familiar left-right dimension of policy preferences. The

second dimension corresponds with differences in attitudes about the distribution

of legal control of the institutions of government.

Clearly, the systematic study of the Australian High Court was not limited

2
For the purposes of this paper, I will adopt Blackshield’s broad definition of jurimetrics: “… any
law-related use of statistical analysis or symbolic logic.” Blackshield, Tony. 2002. Jurimetrics. In
The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G.
Williams. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1539886

Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

to Schubertian endeavors. A parallel line of jurimetrics research, inspired by the

work of Fred Kort (1957; 1963) developed in Australia. This research applied

mathematical methods in an attempt to create models of judicial votes, thus

predicting future court outcomes. Prediction-minded researchers like Alan Tyree

(1977; 1981) have analyzed the Australian High Court in this way (Blackshield

2002). In addition to this, Sheldon (1967) included the Australian High Court in

his assessment of national high court responsiveness to public opinion.3

In the 1970’s and 1980’s, as interest in comparing courts waned among

American scholars (Tate 2002), a similar trend formed in Australia. The limits of

the factor analysis techniques had largely been reached, especially at a time

where computing power was sparse. Australian researchers turned away from

this type of research for a number of reasons. These reasons were both

practical and theoretical, and included both a general lack of statistical training

among legal scholars and doubts in the ability of the methods to add significantly

to the existing knowledge (Blackshield 2002).

Part of this doubt in the method may be due to the ‘legalist’ culture among

Australian scholars and High Court observers at the time. From the legalist

perspective, judges are constrained in large part by legal precedent, and outside

influences are irrelevant to the decision-making process. Legalism does not

deny the political nature of the questions before the Court, nor does it eschew the

policy implications of the Court’s decisions (Gageler 2002). Instead, it simply

denies the use of such non-legal factors in the decision-making process.

3
Interestingly, his findings indicate that, among the courts included in his analysis, only the
Australian High Court was unresponsive to public opinion.

3
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Members of the High Court have been known to perpetuate the idea that its

decisions are made exactly this way (Galligan 1987), and that creating law is

simply beyond the scope of the High Court’s role (Gageler 2002). The Court has

traditionally held fast to the legalist framework as its sole method for interpreting

common law, statutory law, and the constitution (Thompson 1982).

The legalist culture has begun to wither among Australian legal scholars

and casual Court observers alike. Experts have begun once again to speculate

that some set of extra-legal factors influence the policy output of the court (e.g.,

Galligan 1987; Haultain 1997). Some of this opposition to the traditional view

likely comes from cues given off by the Court itself. More specifically, the High

Court under Chief Justice Mason moved down a path of innovation and activism

during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Some of the Justices began to embrace

their roles as policy-makers, and they tipped their hand by showing willingness to

undertake sharp departures from the status quo. Many of the Justices on the

Mason Court were taught by legal realists. Some even acknowledged the work

of jurimetrics scholars directly – and took seriously the patterns of social attitudes

in judicial decisions that these scholars had uncovered (Murphy 1980).

In the context of this legal realism, the return to systematic evaluation of

judicial decision-making on the High Court follows naturally. As scholars and

Justices alike begin to accept that there is more to the process than the law itself,

the quest to identify the extra-legal factors can begin again. By analyzing

patterns of voting behavior on the High Court, this paper hopes to provide a

preliminary picture of the dimensions of decision-making that unite and divide

4
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

members of the Justices on the modern High Court of Australia.

The Mason Court

Many Australian scholars agree that some of the greatest innovations on

the High Court happened between 1987 and 1995. During this time, under the

leadership of Chief Justice Anthony Mason, some members of the Court began

to more openly embrace their roles as policy-makers. At the beginning of his

career as a puisne4 Justice on the High Court, Justice Mason had a distinctly

restrained approach to constitutional interpretation (Walker 2002b). During the

course of his long term, however, Mason began to actively embrace the Court’s

policy-making role, and became more willing to instigate changes by overruling

precedent instead of waiting for Parliament to act (Dillon and Doyle 2002).

Originally appointed by Liberal-Coalition Prime Minister Whitlam, he was

elevated to Chief Justice by Labour Party Prime Minister Hawke in 1987.

Many institutional changes occurred within a short period of time, helping

to effect a break with the past and launch the Court into a new era. Perhaps the

most obvious change to the casual observer of the court is the change from

traditional courtroom attire (including wigs and ornate robes) to more simple

apparel. This cosmetic change reflected some of the more substantial

institutional changes taking place during the 1980’s – changes that greatly

influenced the direction of the High Court under Chief Justice Mason.

One such institutional change is the abolition of appeals to the Privy

4
A puisne Justice, pronounced ‘puny,’ is a term referring to all High Court Justices with the
exception of the Chief. This is similar to the designation of Associate Justice in the U.S. Supreme
Court. The use of the term ‘Associate’ in the Australian context refers instead to what Americans
typically call ‘law clerks.’

5
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Council in England. While the High Court had a de facto policy restricting such

appeals to near zero, the formal break with the Privy Council allowed the Justices

freedom to look to other common law countries for precedent – including the

United States and Canada (ibid.). As a result, the Court began to more actively

‘discover’ implied rights within the text of the Australian Constitution – one

without a Bill of Rights.

Another important institutional change has to do with the physical location

of the High Court itself. Since its inception in 1903, the High Court operated on a

circuit system, traveling from state to state to perform its judicial business. While

the Justices were not relegated to traveling on horseback, the long trips to

outlying cities were arduous, often undertaken by train or steamship (Villar and

Simpson 2002). The High Court moved to Canberra, the national capitol, upon

completion of its own building in 1980. In 1988, the addition of a video-link

system allowed counsel to argue live from the capitol of their home state (Jones

and Popple 2002). The move to the heart of the rest of the Australian

government, helped the High Court to establish a more permanent and

prestigious place in government.

In addition, the High Court’s jurisdiction was transformed by the Judiciary

Amendment Act (No 2) 1984 (Cth) from largely non-discretionary to almost

completely discretionary. After 1984, appeal to the High Court was guaranteed

from no State Supreme Court, nor from most Federal appellate courts.5 This

5
The exceptions to this are 1) from the Family Court, where the Full Bench of the Family Court
can issue a certificate of leave when an important issue is involved, and 2) from the High Court’s
original jurisdiction, where leave can be granted by the High Court Justice or Justices in the
original trial. For further discussion of the change in the High Court’s control over the docket, see

6
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

granted the Justices almost complete control over the cases hear by the Court.

This freedom allowed the Justices to select cases based both on the importance

of the questions and their desire to answer them.

Finally, the Mason Court enjoyed a great deal of stability in terms of its

membership (See Figure 1). There was only one change in the Mason Court –

the retirement of Justice Wilson and the appointment of his replacement, Justice

McHugh. The other members of the Mason Court, Justices Brennan, Deane,

Dawson, Toohey and Gaudron, remained constant throughout Mason’s term as

Chief Justice.

Justice Wilson, appointed by Liberal-Coalition Prime Minister Fraser, was

a frequent dissenter in the Mason Court on cases expanding the scope of the

Commonwealth’s legislative power (Durack 2002). His replacement, another

Liberal-Coalition appointee, shared Wilson’s caution in terms of exercising

judicial power. McHugh also becomes one of the Court’s committed defenders of

individual rights (Guilfoyle 2002). Dawson, a fellow Liberal-Coalition appointee,

was also quite reluctant to engage in judicial activism. Often seen as one of the

most conservative members of the Mason Court, Dawson was the lone dissenter

in the ground-breaking Mabo (1992) case. 6

Justice Brennan, first appointed to the Court by Liberal Coalition Prime

Minister Fraser, was slightly less restrictive in terms of overruling the status quo.

Jackson, David. 2002b. Leave to Appeal. In The Oxford Companion to the High Court of
Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G. Williams. South Melbourne: Oxford
University Press..
6
In Mabo (1992), the High Court recognized the native title of Australia’s indigenous inhabitants.
This decision overturned the previous assumption of terra nullis, which meant that Australians
assumed that the Australian continent was uninhabited by humans before the arrival of the British
colonists.

7
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

While stipulating that the practice should be limited to instances where

precedents had proven unworkable, Brennan was generally supportive of efforts

to increase legislative power of the commonwealth government at the expense of

state’s rights concerns (Baker and Gageler 2002). Justice Deane, another

Liberal Coalition appointee, proved to be even less timid about the application of

judicial power. Another strong supporter of the power of the Commonwealth

government, Deane often joined Justices Mason and Brennan in constitutional

cases (Atherton et al. 2002) .

Justice Toohey, an appointee of Labour Prime Minister Hawke, was also

seen as a judicial activist, and was a strong supporter of civil rights and the rights

of criminal defendents (Edelman and Gray 2002). Keenly aware of the policy-

making role of the Court, Toohey embraced it as an opportunity to extend

compassion to the citizens of Australia. Justice Gaudron, a fellow Hawke

appointee, shared Toohey’s focus on the rights of criminal defendants. Unlike

Toohey, however, Gaudron downplayed the activist role of the High Court

Justice, while still recognizing the implied rights included in the Australian

constitution. This is especially evident in her decisions involving equal treatment

under the law.

The Brennan Court

Following the mandatory retirement of Justice Mason,7 Justice Brennan

was elevated to Chief Justice by Labour Party Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Unlike the Mason Court, the Brennan Court was very fluid, gaining three new

7
In Australia, High Court Justices are appointed for a life term, with mandatory retirement at age
70.

8
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Justices in as many years. This caused a great deal of administrative chaos,

with reserved judgments involving departing Justices being rushed to delivery,

and with the scheduling nightmares associated with changes in membership

amplified threefold (Jackson 2002a).

In addition to this, the Brennan Court bore the brunt of swelling popular

criticism that began in response to decidedly activist behavior exhibited during

the Mason Court. The High Court under Brennan, as many observers had

anticipated, slowed the pace of judicial activism that had picked up incredible

speed under Mason. With so many new faces appearing in such rapid

succession, it is difficult to characterize the Brennan Court in terms of anything

other than its transitional nature.

The first addition to the Court was Mason’s replacement, Justice

Gummow. Appointed by Keating, Gummow was seen as far less likely than his

predecessor to engage in activist behavior on the bench (Lehane 2002). His

deference to precedent and his historical approach to law both heavily colored

his interpretation of the constitution. Shortly after Gummow’s appointment,

Justice Deane retired early – and somewhat unexpectedly – in order to become

Governor-General of Australia. His replacement, Justice Kirby, was the last

appointee of Prime Minister Keating.

Kirby proved to be quite radical, fiercely pursuing anti-discrimination

policies and the greater human rights agenda – this passion largely fueled by his

own painful experience with discrimination related to his homosexuality (Sheller

2002). Kirby differed greatly from his colleagues on the bench, being far more

9
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

amenable to considerations of policy implications and international standards

than most of his contemporaries.

Shortly after Kirby’s appointment, two more Justices retired early in quick

succession: first Justice Dawson and then Justice Toohey. Dawson’s

replacement, Justice Hayne, was appointed by Liberal-Coalition Prime Minister

John Howard. Hayne, like McHugh, maintained a cautious approach to the

exercise of judicial power. In addition, Hayne exhibited a preference for joint

judgments where possible, thereby making the ratio decidendi of the case as

clear as possible (Hill 2002).8 Justice Toohey’s replacement, Justice Callinan,

was appointed by Howard little more than two months before the end of Chief

Justice Brennan’s term. Callinan, seen as a conservative and a critic of Mabo,

did not begin active participation in the Court until after Brennan’s retirement.

The Gleeson Court

Chief Justice Gleeson was appointed to the High Court by Howard as

Brennan’s replacement. The addition of Gleeson, alongside the other recent

Howard appointees, has served to further reign in the judicial activism of the

Mason Court (Zines 2002). Unlike the Brennan Court, the Gleeson Court has

remained unchanged since Gleeson’s appointment. Like Hayne, Gleeson tends

to avoid dissenting when possible. In fact, the occurrence of joint decisions has

increased dramatically under Gleeson’s leadership, and the rugged individualism

of previous Courts seems to have subsided substantially (Walker 2002a).

8
The Australian High Court, unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, has a norm of handing down
seriatim opinions, or individual opinions. Majority opinions are not required for precedent to be
binding.

10
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Relating Each Justice to the Others

The data used in this analysis were collected as part of a comparative

high courts database project (Tate et al. 1999-2001). This database currently

has case-level data for all cases reported by the Australian High Court between

1985 and 1999. During this time period, there have been four different Chief

Justices on the Court: Gibbs, Mason, Brennan and Gleeson. Membership on

the High Court Bench is described in Figure 1, where each Justice’s tenure is

presented graphically. During the tenure of each of these four Chief Justices, the

composition of the Bench has changed as Justices leave and enter the bench.

Each period of time where the Justices on the Court remains constant – or each

natural court – represents a chance to evaluate the interactions between each of

the Justices with the others.

There are many ways that justices can interact with each other. One of

the few interactions that is readily observable to the outside world is the choice

whether or not to vote together. Each pair of Justices on a natural court will have

many opportunities to rule on a case together – sometimes agreeing and

sometimes disagreeing. Pairs of justices that tend to agree with each other can

be conceived as being ‘close’ to each other in terms of some set of decision-

making criteria. Those that tend not to agree with each other are ‘far’ from each

other in the same sense. By observing the patterns of such interactions for each

pair of justices, we can create a spatial representation of the distances between

them.

11
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

To create this spatial representation, I employ a multidimensional scaling

technique. The first step in this process is to create a set of dissimilarities

matrices. The resulting analysis will creates a set of illustrations of the spatial

relationships among the Justices. For this reason, it is helpful to include in each

illustration only those judges that have heard cases together. This can be

accomplished quite easily by analyzing natural courts. In this way, every pair of

Justices will have had interactions.

A second consideration is the nature of the dissimilarity measurement

itself. In a general sense, pairs of Justices will be closer to each other when they

vote together frequently. Certainly, Justices that are quite distant from each

other on some set of criteria may still find themselves voting together. Even the

pair of justices most distant from each other will always vote together in a certain

set of circumstances – namely, in unanimous decisions. Far more interesting is

the set of cases in which the Justices do not unanimously agree on the outcome

(Schubert 1969). For this reason, I consider only non-unanimous cases when

calculating the dissimilarity scores.

Using information from each non-unanimous case, I create a

dissimilarities matrix for four natural courts between 1987 and 1999.9 The entries

in this matrix represent interactions between justices sitting together on the court.

More specifically, the element pij represents the proportion of cases heard by

9
The first and third natural Brennan courts had very few non-unanimous decisions: nb1=7 and n
b3=12, respectively. The MDS technique used in this paper is inappropriate for dissimilarities data
gained from so few observations, as the reliability of the result would be greatly compromised.
For the remainder of the natural courts, the volume of non-unanimous cases is as follows: n
m1=50, n m2=109, n b2=39, and n g1=41.

12
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

both justice i and justice j in which the justices did not vote together. Because

these matrices are by nature symmetrical, with the list of justices forming both

the row and the column entries, they are amenable to multidimensional scaling

analysis (see Davison 1983, 52-54). Unlike many similar analyses of the United

States Supreme Court, I analyze cases regardless of issue area. As long as the

case is reported in the Commonwealth Law Reports and has an outcome, cases

are included. It is also important to note that, unlike the United States Supreme

Court, the Australian High Court hears cases en banc only on rare occasions.

For this reason, the number of interactions between the pairs of judges varies

slightly.10

Visions in Multidimensional Space11

The MDS calculations reported in this paper were made using the

ALSCAL procedure in SPSS 11.0, and very similar results were obtained using

SAS 8.2. For the purposes of this analysis, the values of the dissimilarities

matrix are conceptualized as distances in Euclidean space. This assumption

makes it possible to proceed with a metric MDS. The calculations are made

with the goal of creating spatial representations of the relative positions of

justices for each natural court. In order to determine which representation is

most helpful in organizing the justices in space, we must first decide which level

of dimensionality is necessary.

10
The minimum number of interactions used to calculate the dissimilarity measure is 19, between
Justices Gaudron and Gleeson in the Gleeson Court.
11
I do not attempt to provide a detailed explanation of the MDS procedure here. For an
introduction to the method, see Davison, Mark L. 1983. Multidimensional Scaling, Wiley series in
probability and mathematical statistics. Applied probability and statistics,. New York: Wiley.

13
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Typically, three separate considerations come to bear on this

determination: fit, interpretability, and reproducibility (Davison 1983). One way to

determine fit is to look at scree plots – or plots of eigenvalues against the

dimensions in order of extraction. If the model conforms perfectly in k

dimensions, we should see an “elbow” in the plot at k-1 dimensions. In most

situations, however, a single and distinct elbow can be very difficult to discern.

The scree plots for the four natural courts in this analysis are no exception (see

Figures 2-5). Another way to determine fit is to evaluate fit measures and

measures of variance explained by the model. In Table 1, the squared

correlation between the raw dissimilarities data and the model’s predictions are

presented (labeled RSQTable 1). A STRESS value, or badness-of-fit measure,

is also reported.

A second consideration when determining the proper dimensionality of the

data is the interpretability of the solution. Certainly it is difficult to interpret

solutions in high-dimensional space, but even two- and three-dimensional

solutions can sometimes be difficult to interpret in terms of underlying theory. If a

solution yields clusters of theoretically related points, this may be an indication

that the placement of points in this model corresponds to some real and

observable set of dimensions. In nearly every circumstance, MDS techniques

can provide upwards of 95% variance explained with the addition of enough

dimensions. An over-specified model, however, may serve to mask the types of

dimensions in which we are substantively interested. Such an over-specification

provides dimensional structure to what social scientists understand as the

14
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

properly un-modeled variability surrounding human behavior.

Finally, the reproducibility of dimensional structure between related

models can signal that a desirable dimensionality has been found. For our

purposes, we might expect that the level of dimensionality will remain constant

over the span of the four natural courts in this analysis. The addition of new

cross-cutting issues may change the dimensionality of decision-making on the

High Court over time, but such new criteria would only show up in additional

dimensionality if the new issue did not replace or mimic an existing cleavage

among justices. Due to the short time span of these natural courts, this type of

structural change is unlikely.

Evaluating the dimensionality of our models in light of the above

considerations, the one-dimensional solution appears to be an over-simplified

model. While none of the scree plots are entirely helpful, Table 1 indicates that

the one-dimensional solution performs only moderately well in the Mason Courts

and the Gleeson Court – and quite abysmally in the Brennan Court. In addition,

the continua found in the one-dimensional plots of stimulus configuration yield no

easily interpretable clusters of stimuli (Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9 and Figure

10). Justices in the minority on the bench (in terms of the political party of the

appointing Prime Minister) tend to be clustered together on these graphs, but

they do not appear on the ends. This indicates that another substantively

interesting dimension – one related to the political party of the appointing Prime

Minister – is being collapsed onto this single dimension.

15
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

The three-dimensional solutions can also be dismissed for our purposes.

Each of these solutions explains upwards of 90% of the variance – clearly overly

structured for our social-science purposes. In addition, the graphs of these

solutions yield confusing clusters of points.12 While the fit of the model is

reproducible between the natural courts, it is still a universally high level of

variance explained. These models do not lend themselves to be decoded using

the available base of theory – mainly because the theories we do have cannot

purport to explain nearly all of the distance between justices.

Despite all of this, the choice of the two-dimensional model is not simply

by default. For each of the natural courts, the two-dimensional solution explains

an admirable amount of variance in each without explaining all of the variance in

any. In this way, the two-dimensional solution is preferable to the alternatives in

terms of fit and reproducibility. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the

collection of substantively important clusters of points in the derived configuration

graphs for this model (Figures 10-13). In the one-dimensional pictures,

appointees of the party with the fewest representatives on the court were

relegated to non-descript positions somewhere in the center of the dimension. In

the two-dimensional solution, however, we see these clusters beginning to

appear near the ends of the dimensions. This is evidence that this second

dimension helps us to capture information related to the effects of the appointing

12
These graphs are not reported here because of their complexity and the limited ability of three-
dimensional space to be suitably rendered in two-dimensions.

16
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

prime minister’s party.13

Decision-making Patterns on the High Court

Perhaps this process has raised more questions than it has answered. It

does appear that patterns of decision-making on the High Court from 1987-99

can be meaningfully characterized in two dimensions. In other words, there are

two sets of cross-cutting issues that arrange justices in ideological space relative

to each other. This finding, in and of itself, may be instructive. By determining

the dimensionality of space needed to appropriately characterize psychological

distances among the Justices, we can say something about the nature of the

decision-making process.

Some research argues that unidimensionality can be the result of

sophisticated coalitional and vote trading behavior (Glazer and Grofman 1989).

Researchers have found evidence suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court

operates in much this way, possibly because of this sophisticated behavior and

the leadership of experienced Chief Justices (Grofman and Brazill 2000).14 If this

is the case, the existence of a two-dimensional arrangement of Justices on the

High Court may indicate that such strategic behavior is underdeveloped or

unnecessary in this particular institutional setting.

13
It is important to remember that the configurations shown in Figures Figure 10 through Figure
13 describe only the relative locations of the Justices, and do not represent fixed ideal points
across natural courts. The values along the dimensions are assigned arbitrarily by the MDS
procedures, but the resulting configuration yields interpretable distances between each pair of
justices.
14
Because Grofman and Brazill’s (2000) analysis is done in a very similar fashion to the current
one – including cases across issue areas and utilizing a similar MDS technique – this evidence is
a good point of comparison for the purposes of this paper. It is not clear, however, that Grofman
and Brazil excluded unanimous decisions from their database. If they did not, the inclusion of
non-contested cases may have diluted their results dramatically, possibly overstating the
explanatory power of the single dimensional solution.

17
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

It is reasonable to believe that the institutional and procedural differences

between the two courts may alter the incentives in such a way as to encourage

such behavior in one context while not in another. The need for a majority

opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, may encourage Justices to

bargain with each other (Maltzman, Spriggs, and Wahlbeck 2000), projecting the

terms of conflict onto a single dimension. Because a majority opinion is

unnecessary in the Australian High Court, there may be little motivation to

negotiate. The recent decline of individual decision writing on the Gleeson Court,

however, may prove to be an interesting development.

Because the data in the present analysis is not broken down by issue

area, it is difficult to interpret the dimensions in specific terms. Certainly more

research is needed in order to appropriately label the dimensions, and to test

their continuity over time. On the surface, it appears in most cases that one of

these dimensions corresponds to the party of the appointing Prime Minister.

With the general exception of Justice McHugh, the Justices appear to cluster with

those appointed by the same party. Justices that tended to share other similar

philosophies – most notably regarding judicial activism – also tended to cluster

together.

The actual psychological constructs that define this space, however,

remain largely a mystery at this point. For example, the general understanding of

Toohey’s activism and Wilson’s restraint are certainly not captured in Figure 10,

although the Justices seem to be arranged on the second dimension based

loosely on the party of their appointing Prime Minister. The configuration of

18
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Justices on the Second Mason yield almost no identifiable pattern in terms of the

party of the appointing Prime Minister, but the Justices do seem to be arranged

along the first dimension based on their willingness to engage in judicial activism

(See Figure 11).

The Brennan Court model shows a discernable pattern of appointing

Prime Minister’s party along the second dimension. Kirby and McHugh –

generally seen as polar opposites in terms of judicial activism – are positioned at

opposite ends of the first dimension (See Figure 12). The Gleeson Court model

shows a similar arrangement – with the newly appointed Justices (credited with

reigning in judicial activism) appearing together along the first dimension and

opposite of the very activist Justice Kirby (See Figure 13). With the exception of

Justice McHugh, the Justices also seem to be grouped by Prime Minister’s party

along the second dimension.

From this analysis, we do not gain a comprehensive understanding of the

ideological concepts that divide Justices on the High Court of Australia. What we

do gain, however, is a structure that relates each Justice to all of his or her

colleagues. The shape of this structure, and the location of the various Justices

within it, provides some evidence that the Justices tend to be psychologically

closer to others appointed by the same political party. In addition, we have

preliminary evidence that the High Court engages in decision-making behavior

that is complex – this complexity perhaps the result of the lack of institutional

incentives to simplify the process.

19
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Figure 2 Figure 3
First Natural Mason Court: 1987-1988 Second Natural Mason Court: 1989-1994

Scree Plot Scree Plot

30

25

20

2 15

10

.5
Eigenvalue

Eigenvalue
0 00
1 2 3 5 6 7 1 2 3 5 6 7

Component Number Component Number

Figure 4 Figure 5
Second Natural Brennan Court: 1996-1997 First Natural Gleeson Court: 1998-2000

Scree Plot Scree Plot

3.0 5

2.5

2.0

3
1.5

1.0
2

.5

1
Eigenvalue
Eigenvalue

0.0

-.5 0
1 2 3 5 6 7 1 2 3 5 6 7

Component Number Component Number

21
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Table 1

Fit Measures for MDS Models

One- Two- Three-

Dimensional Dimensional Dimensional
Mason 1
16
Stress .319 .198 .079
17
RSQ .706 .780 .940
Mason 2
Stress .310 .130 .048
RSQ .677 .869 .972
Brennan 2
Stress .410 .225 .098
RSQ .433 .704 .913
Gleeson 1
Stress .383 .219 .054
RSQ .703 .826 .977

16
Stress value is Kruskal’s Stress formula 1:

S1 = j S(i, j) (?? ij - ? ij)2 k 1/2

l S(i, j) ? 2ij m
17
RSQ value is the proportion of variance of the scaled data which is accounted for in the model.

22
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Figure 6 Figure 7

First Natural Mason Court: 1987-89 Second Natural Mason Court: 1989-1994
One-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration One-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

deane wilson deane

toohey brennan mason mchugh
toohey
W e e W W W W W
e e W W e W

gaudron mason dawson

gaudron brennan
dawson

Figure 8 Figure 9

Second Natural Brennan Court: 1996-97 First Natural Gleeson Court: 1997-2000
One-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration One-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

mchugh

kirby gleeson hayne

brennan
kirby gummow dawson
e e W
We e e
e e ee W e W

mchugh gaudron callinan gummow

toohey gaudron

23
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Figure 10

First Natural Mason Court: 1987-89

Two-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

1.0000 e
toohey Party of Appointing Prime Minister
e Labour Party
e W
wilson W Liberal Party
gaudron

0.5000
Second Dimension

W
mason
0.0000

W
dawson

-0.5000

W
-1.0000 deane

W
brennan

-2.0000 -1.0000 0.0000 1.0000

First Dimension

Figure 11

Second Natural Mason Court: 1989-1994

Two-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

W
dawson Party of Appointing Prime Minister
1.0000 e Labour Party
W Liberal Party

e
toohey

W
0.5000 brennan
Second Dimension

e
gaudron
0.0000

W
mason

-0.5000

-1.0000 e
W mchugh
deane

-1.0000 0.0000 1.0000

First Dimension

24
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

Figure 12

Second Natural Brennan Court: 1996-97

Two-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

e
toohey Party of Appointing Prime Minister
e Labour Party
1.0000
e
mchugh W Liberal Party

e
gaudron
Second Dimension

e
e gummow
0.0000 kirby

W
dawson
-1.0000

W
brennan

-2.0000 -1.0000 0.0000 1.0000

First Dimension

Figure 13

Second Natural Gleeson Court: 1997-2000

Two-Dimensional Derived Justice Configuration

1.0000 e
gaudron Party of Appointing Prime Minister
e Labour Party
W Liberal Party

hayne
e
e
0.5000 gummow
Second Dimension

e
kirby

0.0000

W
gleeson

-0.5000

mchugh
-1.0000 e
W
cal inan

-2.0000 -1.0000 0.0000 1.0000

First Dimension

25
Dimensions of Decision-making Rebecca Wood

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Coper and G. Williams. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Douglas, Roger. 1969. Judges and Policy on the Latham Court. Politics 4:20.
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of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G. Williams. South
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Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
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though Voters are Not. Public Choice 61:29-39.
Grofman, Bernard, and Timothy J. Brazill. 2000. How Many Dimensions Has the
Supreme Court? Analysis of "Natural Courts" 1953-1991.
Guilfoyle, Kate. 2002. M. H. McHugh. In The Oxford Companion to the High
Court of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G. Williams.
South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Haultain, Lynne. 1997. The Changing of the Guard on the High Court. In The
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Hill, Graeme. 2002. K.M. Hayne. In The Oxford Companion to the High Court of
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Jackson, David. 2002a. The Brennan Court. In The Oxford Companion to the
High Court of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G.
Williams. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, David. 2002b. Leave to Appeal. In The Oxford Companion to the High
Court of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G. Williams.
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Court of Australia, edited by T. Blackshield, M. Coper and G. Williams.
South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Maltzman, Forrest, James F. Spriggs, II, and Paul J. Wahlbeck. 2000. Crafting
Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game. Cambridge: Cambridge
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Labor Movement, edited by G. Evans. Melbourn: Legal Service Bulletin in
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Schubert, Glendon. 1968. Political Ideology on the High Court. Politics 3:21.
Schubert, Glendon. 1969. Judicial Attitudes and Policy-Making in the Dixon
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Schubert, Glendon A. 1965. The judicial mind : the attitudes and ideologies of
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Sheldon, Charles H. 1967. Public Opinion and Hgigh Courts: Communist Party
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Multi-Country Data Base and Program of Research.

Thompson, J. 1982. Principles and Theories of Constitutional Interpretation and
Adjudication: Some Preliminary Notes. Melbourne University Law Review
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Tyree, Alan. 1977. The Geometry of Case Law. Victoria University of Wellington
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28
 Appendix H

Dissertation Submitted by Rebecca Wood (Gill) to MSU (Relevant Sections)

gender/race/class/etc. Perhaps this is not realistic, but I hope there is some way to help us all
use the same language and address similar issues in similar ways.

All the best,

Rebecca Gill <rebecca.gill@unlv.edu> Jan 5, 2018, 9:38 AM

Thank you so much for this,

I would love to explore some ideas like that. It seems like an idea worth pursuing. At the very
least, it could inspire all of us to treat each other with a little more compassion, and I can’t
imagine that would be a bad thing.

If you think it would be useful for me to be involved in moving forward with something like this,
please don’t hesitate to keep me in the loop. I know I might not be the most popular person at
the moment, but my sense is that this will fade in time.

My best,
Rebecca
 Appendix J

August 2, 2018 Washington Post Piece about Evidence of Sexual Harassment

Style Perspective

‘He never harassed me’

isn’t evidence. It’s
misdirection.

Enough with the ‘he’s a good guy’ testimonies. (iStock/Washington Post illustration)

By Monica HesseColumnistAugust 2 at 1:50 PMEmail the author

I once interviewed the Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis in anticipation of a new

movie. At the end of the allotted hour we’d gotten through only half my questions, so I
was thrilled when he invited me to come back to his hotel later to finish up — celebrity
profiles are usually a root canal.

That evening we talked for several more hours at the hotel bar. He offered drinks, which
I declined, and asked if I wanted to stay longer, which I declined, and I left thinking he
was the nicest famous person I’d ever interviewed, and then earlier this year four
women accused him of sexual misconduct. Two of them said it was rape. Haggis denied
the charges.

But as the news circulated, I spent a few weeks repeating my anecdote to friends —
benevolent mogul helps young reporter — before I realized I didn’t know what the point
of telling it was. Was I just trying to convey shock? Or convey that, in three to four hours
of conversation, he seemed like a really kind guy?

The women who accused him were roughly the age I’d been for the interview, and
eventually I realized what I’d been doing was making sense of the fact that I’d (allegedly)
dodged a land mine.

In the current harassment minefield, as brave women come forward with tales of being
wounded, it’s also become common for unharmed women to have parallel discussions
about the fact that they’ve got all their limbs intact.

“I’m left thinking: what kind of duplicity was he engaged in?” emailed one friend, upon
learning her longtime mentor had just resigned after accusations of misconduct. “Did he
just change dramatically over the years? Did he say inappropriate things that I was too
dense to even recognize? Did I send out ‘be respectful of me’ signals?”

I asked myself the same questions a few months ago, when an author I’d met at a book
festival was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Not long before that, he’d
emailed to say he’d be near my office to record a podcast; I said to let me know if he
wanted to grab coffee. But he never did, and after three more friendly email exchanges,
according to my Gmail folder, we never spoke again.

I’m not sure whether telling these anecdotes is useful.

I’m not sure whether they provide context or misdirection.

Sexual harassment seems to be one of the few misdeeds for which we accept testimonies
from non-victims as evidence of innocence. Serial killers manage to not murder
everyone they meet. Burglars don’t rob every house they pass. We don’t call the owners
of un-robbed houses to the witness stand and ask them to add their statements to the
public record: He couldn’t be a thief, your honor — he once visited my home, and yet I
still have my flat-screen.

But when authority figures are accused of sexual harassment, we often look to the land
mine dodgers. We ask them to testify. We ask, did he ever try to lift up your skirt?
Steal your television? “Tom treated each of us with fairness and respect,” wrote 65
women in the media industry, in defense of Tom Brokaw.

Earlier this week, following a rash of accusations against CBS chief Les Moonves, the
Atlantic writer Megan Garber called this the Familiarity Fallacy. “There’s saying ‘I know
him,’ and then there’s assuming that the knowing itself is an exoneration,” Garber
wrote. “People are complex and variable and, as a rule, containing of multitudes.”

She cited the litany of women who have come forward on Moonves’s behalf, who stated
that he’d been good to them and was therefore good in general. Garber pointed out how
absurd this was. Serial harassers victimize some women and not others. They’re kind to
some women and not others.

“One of the hardest parts has been picking over everything,” an acquaintance told me a
couple months ago, after her friend — the author I’d met — was accused of harassment.
“He made a point of talking about feminism. It’s clear now that was overcompensation.”

“I don’t know if it’s clear,” I told her. Maybe he had multiple facets to his personality.

“Maybe,” she said.

And then we went back to the beginning. Rehashed the whole story again. What should
we have seen, or noticed, or intuited?

Questioned ourselves some more. Re-rehashed the story. Talked about how weird it was
that we were currently engaged in more reflection and self-doubt than some of the men
who did the bad things.

monica.hesse@washpost.com

Monica Hesse is a columnist writing about gender and its impact on society. For more,
visit wapo.st/hesse.
 Appendix K

April 17, 2018 Email from Rebecca Gill to Title IX Officers RE: Respondent’s AJPS Post

Rebecca Gill <rebecca.gill@unlv.edu> Apr Share

17 this
email

to bcc: Ana, bcc: Elisabeth, bcc: Elizabeth, bcc: Kenya, bcc: Kathryn, bcc: Debra

Dear all,

I am forwarding this official message from William Jacoby. It is printed on the

official American Journal of Political Science website: www.ajps.org. I thought it
might be relevant to the ongoing (or recently closed) investigations into
harassment and retaliation claims against him. Keep in mind that this is among
the very top peer reviewed journals in the discipline, and this official statement
from the editor appears on the front page of that website.

My best,
Rebecca

From the Editor:

It is apparently widely known that allegations related to sexual harassment have been made against me.
The allegations are untrue. I never engaged in the behaviors described in the allegations. And, the
supposed response from me that was posted on the political science rumors blog is a fake. That message
is not from me, and I have no idea who created it or posted it to the blog.

I reported the initial allegation immediately to the proper individuals and offices at Michigan State
University, the University of Michigan, and the Midwest Political Science Association. There is an ongoing
investigation being conducted by a national firm on behalf of Michigan State University. I understand that
the University of Michigan is conducting an investigation, although I have not yet been contacted about it.
The Midwest Political Science Association also conducted an investigation which I believe has been
completed. Theirs is internal and I have been told that no report will be issued.

To be clear, I completely support these investigations and am cooperating fully. I believe they are the only
way I can clear my name. However I have no idea how long the MSU and UM investigations will take or
when they will be completed. So, despite their false nature, the allegations are not going away. I am
concerned that the longer the allegations linger, the greater their potential for bringing serious damage to
the American Journal of Political Science. Therefore, I have decided to step down as AJPSEditor, effective at
the end of this calendar year, December 31, 2018.

I am taking this action with regard to the best interests of the American Journal of Political Science, the
Midwest Political Science Association, the political science discipline, and the social science community.
In addition, I believe this decision is in my own best interest as well. I do not want any questions about me
as an individual (rather than as a scholar or editor) – unfounded as these questions are – to have any
detrimental impact on he incredible, great things that have been accomplished at the Journal so far.
Please understand that this is my decision. I feel compelled by circumstances. But, I have not been
compelled to do this by any individuals, groups, or institutions. Again, I truly believe this is the best course
of action for me to take at this time.

William G. Jacoby
Editor, American Journal of Political Science