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| Guilty as charged? Luis Jaime Castillo Butters |
Last June, I was contacted by members of a women's collective based in Peru and the United States concerning allegations of sexual harassment and related abuses by archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo Butters of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) in Lima. The allegations, which went back many years, concerned behavior that is typical of way too many men (and a few women) who reach positions of power in academia. Castillo, who had been vice-minister of culture for many years and was briefly the minister, is--or was--probably the most powerful archaeologist in Peru. The women's collective included colleagues who said they had been victims of his abuses.
Based on a number of interviews with survivors of Castillo's alleged abuses, I published a report on the matter last June 29, as part of a larger look at abuses in Andean archaeology. Even before the report was published, Castillo moved to attack both me and the survivors. He enlisted some of his allies in this intimidation campaign, while others, typical of sycophants everywhere, did not need to be prompted before they leapt to Castillo's defense. A major social media campaign erupted, which included mocking the survivors and accusing me, the reporter, of unethical conduct.
Castillo himself enlisted an attorney to threaten me and colleagues in Peru who had supported the survivors with legal action (his letter is included in the original report.) In addition, either Castillo himself, or a colleague, created a Twitter account in his name for the purpose of publicizing the legal threats against me:
In the face of the threats and the mocking, some of the survivors, in July 2020, bravely issued a detailed open letter to Castillo, countering his excuses and calling out his lies and those of his allies. I later had reason to call out the lies about me and my reporting, which were numerous.
(Castillo's reputation in Peru took another beating when I reported that he had allegedly tried to extort an honorary PhD from Yale University in connection with negotiations to return artifacts from Machu Picchu to Peru.)
As I continued my reporting and the survivors did their best to defend themselves from virulent attacks, PUCP began moving on a parallel, but confidential, track. Shortly after I published my first report last June, the university appointed a special commission on sexual harassment to look into the allegations. Over several months, the commissioners carried out a number of interviews (including with me), collected witness statements, interviewed Castillo, reviewed recordings of statements Castillo had made in his classes, and reviewed the relevant university regulations. On November 23 of last year, the commission issued its final report, which, in essence, found the allegations highly credible and noted contradictions in Castillo's versions of events; however, the commission also found that it did not have the power to recommend disciplinary action against Castillo, because the alleged abuses took place between 2007 and 2013, before the university adopted the appropriate anti-harassment guidelines in March 2016.
The report had remained confidential up until this month. Reportedly, the news that the university planned to return Castillo to teaching during the term beginning in March prompted some colleagues to begin circulating it, and it has now, inevitably, become public.
I am in possession of an authenticated pdf of the entire report, and I hope to be able to publish a version of it soon, once certain issues of protecting the survivors and other witnesses are resolved. In the meantime, however, a colleague has put screenshots of it on Twitter, and given that it is now public in that format, I would refer readers to that Twitter thread.
UPDATE MARCH 2, 2021: Here is a link to the original Spanish language version of the commission's report. This version strips out metadata that could identify vulnerable individuals, and is also redacted for that purpose. I hope to have an English translation of it available soon.
I should comment that the commission, which based much of its investigation on my original reporting, was able to confirm a great deal of what I published, despite legal and other threats from Castillo and his allies. This is obviously an ongoing story, one that many had hoped would be buried, along with the silencing of the survivors. Thanks to their bravery, and the determination of colleagues in Peru who want to study archaeology and other subjects free of harassment and abuse, Castillo and other abusers may still face their days of reckoning.
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“the commission also found that it did not have the power to recommend disciplinary action against Castillo, because the alleged abuses took place between 2007 and 2013, before the university adopted the appropriate anti-harassment guidelines in March 2016”.
This reminds me of the legal battle between the Peruvian government and Yale surrounding the repatriation of the Machu Picchu artifacts. There, the Peruvian fought extremely hard to prove that the later regulations were also applicable at the time of the alleged delinquency. I guess some Inca aryballos are more important to fight for than people.
HT on Twitter
#PUCPEncubreACastillo #PUCPDeAgresores
https://departamento.pucp.edu.pe/humanidades/arqueologia/profesores/principales/
Un testimonio a favor del acosador LJC es de una profesora de arqueología PUCP.
Porque no se pronuncian los profesxres de arqueología PUCP? – si se pronuncian, a favor de los acosadores.
J. De La Puente (decano de Humanidades), F. Fernández (jefe de departamento) y F. Fernandini (coordinadora de arqueologia) tienen en sus manos el PODER de proteger a las víctimas y que hacen? usan su poder para proteger a los acosadores sexuales.
Como asi? Ellos deciden que profesores dictan, y ponen a dictar a acosadores. Complicidad es violencia. Estamos hartxs del amiguismo y de la impunidad #PUCPdeAgresores #PucpEncubreACastillo
Jamás volverán a tener la comodidad de nuestro silencio
May everybody know: PUCP’s classes are plagued by professors who harass and abuse their students. Know that authorities allow it and by doing so they become complicit.
J. De La Puente (Humanities Dean), F. Fernandez (Department Chair) and F. Fernandini (Archaeology Coordinator) have the POWER in their hands to protect victims and what do they do? They use their power to protect sexual harassers.
How so? They decide which professors teach and assign harassers to teach. Complicity is violence.
We are tired of friendships and impunity #PUCPdeAgresores #PucpEncubreACastillo
They’ll never have the comfort of our silence
#PUCPdeAgresores
#PUCPEncubridores
#PUCPEncubreACastillo
https://es-la.facebook.com/fepuc/videos/264963778544229/
Very similar culture of complicity to this Andean case.
Castillo is indeed an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and some colleagues have been looking into the possibility of making a complaint against him. Anyone can do that, you don’t have to be a member of the Academy; and I think the fact that the sexual harassment commission found evidence for sexual harassment is official enough to have a case against him.
Just another example of the vindictive and petty nature of Castillo is this “praise” and feigned outrage he wrote for La Republica over Walter Alva’s unceremonious forced retirement due to age: https://larepublica.pe/cultural/2021/07/05/walter-alva-deja-de-ser-director-del-museo-del-senor-de-sipan/ Castillo’s letter starts with “ Feliz Cumpleaños, Walter Alva.” Many in Peruvian archaeology know about the tense relationship Alva and Castillo have, so this letter was a way of “twisting the knife” into Alva. Note the unnecessary level of detail Castillo goes into about the humiliating circumstances. Castillo had removed Alva’s son from his directorship of an important archaeological site with the false charges of nepotism. Alva and his son had codirected and when senior Alva moved on, the junior Alva stayed on, which is hardly a case of nepotism. I just hope that the world wakes up to Castillo and his tactics, and will be more savvy concerning his flying monkeys.
Stanish himself is a NAS member and has a lot of influence in the field.
http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20022355.html
To really get at the root of the problem, perhaps it’s time professional organizations focus their attention on the enablers instead of just the abusers?
“In May and June, NAS ousted astronomer Geoffrey Marcy, formerly of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, formerly of UC Irvine.”
“Castillo Butters, an expert on the Moche culture who holds a doctorate from UC Los Angeles”
Now, dear students, who can tell us what is the common denominator in all these cases?
(Hint: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93p8x1wh)
The Cotsen Institute needs to update this 2019 news brief
https://ioa.ucla.edu/content/luis-jaime-castillo-butters-phd-2012-elected-national-academy-sciences
On top of all that other shady stuff we were informed about in the last year…
Poor Lloyd must be spinning and vomiting in his grave.
A description of NAS process, with a timely update for the chupamedias.
It's a safe bet that most people commenting here have professions as researchers: try doing some research.
And no, I'm not the person you were exchanging with above. Just an onlooker who is disgusted by the disingenuous and performative way Castillo's enablers and allies are behaving.
https://arquetipa.com/?page_id=1274
Alo Peru? PUCP? Red-Mujeres en Arqueologia Peruana?
Solo silencio?
After the NAS rescinded Castillo’s membership due to sexual harassment, PUCP-Archaeology not only allows him to teach 2 courses like nothing happened, but now bows to his allies, the only 2 academics who officially signed letters of support for Castillo:
Close friend and supporter, Harvard’s archaeologist J. Quilter.
https://es-la.facebook.com/eventosarqueologicos.pucp/photos/a.1396091200720404/2956659974663511/?type=3&theater
Long-term friend and fierce defender, PUCP’s bioarchaeologist E. Tomasto.
https://es-la.facebook.com/coloquiodearqueologia/photos/pb.1082557321760072.-2207520000../5040222979326800/?type=3&theater
PUCP-Archaeology faculty not only has kept convenient silence about Castillo during all this time, but openly and publicly supports Castillo’s return to the classroom, and even invites and pay tribute to his allies. Will they keep saying they have no idea? Will they keep playing the victim’s facade (while mocking the real victims’ pain?)?
Castillo’s enablers fall under every one of these categories; some fall under more than one. The malicious ones have been especially harmful, spreading lies about the survivors and casting themselves as the “real” victims. They gaslit several Latin American feminist organizations against the survivors. Unfortunately, despite LJC getting kicked out of the NAS, almost no Andeanist archaeologist, either North American or South American, have voiced any support. The bamboozled feminist organizations in Latin America, some of whom even withdrew their letters of support for the survivors in June and July 2020 have not made amends for picking the wrong side, the side of the “feminist” enablers of Castillo, who continue to do harm.
Siguen las represalias por la conducta delictiva de LJC. Para mas impunidad la Universidad de Harvard, invita a este delincuente y su amante a sus seminarios, ver facebook de PUCP. Es cierto que Jefrey Quilter de Harvard, es un complice de este sujeto al invitarle a la honorable Universidad de Harvard, que debe pronunciarse urgentemente, o llevara encima la injusta medida contra los estudiantes de PUCP que estan en peligro de ser desaforados!!
PUCP should be ashamed of themselves. From the beginning they had been trying to misrepresent the commission’s report by using wording that makes it sound like Castillo was exonerated. In this article, Ana Neyra says that they couldn’t sanction Castillo because there was no proof, only Balter’s reporting and anonymous testimonies associated with his reporting. The actual report said that the commission had indeed found evidence of sexual harassment in their independent investigations, beyond what Balter had reported, but could not open any disciplinary proceedings because they had happened outside the statute of limitations. Very different than what has been presented by PUCP administration. Castillo, on the other hand, initiated a complaint against student leaders for defamation and without any investigation and in contradiction with their own report, just rolls over and agrees with him. PUCP also calls the police to beat up student protesters. https://mobile.twitter.com/aea_pucp/status/1497001731573620739
Shame on PUCP.
https://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/event/early-monumentality-and-climate-change-developing-social-complexity-preceramic?delta=0
Also, is Student L still in charge of organizing those talks? That might answer the question of why Castillo was allowed to register and attend.
Female students and faculty CAN be enablers too, and so many times they are. Women are NOT just helpless victims, they have agency and they use it to their convenience. To think ALL WOMEN ARE VICTIMS is just a flawless argument, similar as to think that all women are feminists just because they are women. I’ve seen first-hand women putting down other women and mistreating them just because it is convenient for them. So please educate yourself and do not come here with your essentialist, paternalistic, outdated arguments.
Btw, those associated with Castillo are now in their 40s, so no innocent children here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwOkDiLgOA
min 9’40
#8M
First and most importantly, as the last commenter pointed out, Castillo is suing Marcela Poirier, who was involved in his ejection from the National Academy of Sciences. I will be blogging later today about that and related efforts by Castillo and PUCP to threaten students who tell the truth about his abuses. When I do that, will members of the archaeology and anthropology communities come to Marcela’s aid, publicly, rather than just post anonymously on this blog? I don’t mean to be harsh but unless they do, Marcela and perhaps others could end up in a Peruvian jail for simply telling the truth.
Re the aptly named “Student L” — I don’t know whether or not she should be considered a “victim” of Castillo or not, but what I do know is that she is a liar, among other liars. By lying about a reporter who has tried to report the truth about Castillo, she is enabling him to stay in power and even to attack truth-tellers like Marcela. That is the damage that is being done here.
Here is the earlier blog post where I discussed the lies of Student L and others:
https://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2020/09/there-are-also-three-direct-allegations.html
The one thing I can promise is that as long as Castillo is at PUCP, I will be reporting on him. He threatened to sue me too, as some may recall, but never did it. If he would drop the lawsuit against Marcela, I would be happy to accept the jurisdiction of the Peruvian courts and let him do it. But perhaps Castillo is too much of a coward to go up against a journalist who beat an $18 million defamation suit from another Andean archaeologist just last year.
If I sound angry, six years of reporting on these abuses and absurdities, and the lies and cowardice of some “colleagues” in archaeology, has made me that way, and a lot of others too.
The NASW complaint was orchestrated by Kate Clancy, who was in discussions for several months with Kurin’s team about testifying against me. Among the “witnesses” were Holly Dunsworth, Hilary Leathem, and Akshay; all of their claims are demonstrably false based on documents I possess. I have already published about Kate Clancy; I have a long planned post in preparation concerning the claims of Dunsworth, Leathem, and Sarathi. When I do that, I will put online the Facebook messenger correspondence between me and Akshay, which went on for more than a year and shows exactly what Akshay was trying to do.
The NASW should have realized that when the complaint came from a small group of anthropologists, it was likely to be the work of colleagues who opposed my outing of abusers in that field (although their rationalizations were couched differently, of course.)
Watch for Part III of “The (Mis)Adventures of a #MeToo Reporter” for all the details. Hope to get to it soon, but have been too busy with actual investigations and lawsuits.
MB
Esto es lo último sobre el estado del caso del Depredador Sexual Luis Jaime Castillo. Lamentablemente y como indica Balter, es posible que Poirier sea condenada, porque hay mucho temor de los estudiantes y victimas de este sujeto, que para colmo tiene poder en la PUCP, donde es respaldado por sus "colegas", el directorio y alumnos serviles. Es clave, que la amante que tiene ahora de profesora, demuestre su valentia, termine su "relación" y los denuncie por el bien de las otras victimas, porque ella es una "victima silenciosa" o una "victima por interes". Esta mujer es la clave para traer abajo a LJC, o posiblemente su esposa si la enteran bien y con pruebas.