On Feb. 1, as President Joe Biden was preparing to fire up the Cancer Moonshot, Eric Lander was the scientist in charge of mission control.
Six days later, Lander would resign following press reports of an internal White House investigation finding that he had treated “multiple women” in a “demeaning or abrasive way in front of other staff.”
Now, insiders in cancer research worry that the Lander scandal will cause the Biden moonshot and plans for a DARPA-like health agency to burn up on the launching pad. With Lander on the way out and NIH under interim directorship, presidentially-appointed NCI Director Ned Sharpless becomes the highest-ranking federal official with the expertise to carry out a national cancer agenda.
“I want to be sure to emphasize, especially in light of events earlier this week, that at the NCI we are unequivocally committed to ensuring civility, kindness, and mutual respect at our workplace. These are core values at the NCI and at the NIH,” Sharpless said at a meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board Feb. 10. “We believe this is how people do their best work. The NCI is not a place where we tolerate bullying or harassment of any kind.”
Members of the press who were invited to a Feb. 1 call the evening before the White House moonshot launch saw nothing that might suggest that Lander’s star would soon fall. Under Lander’s direction, senior White House officials created an atmosphere of anticipation for Biden’s announcement the next day.
Similarly, no signals of an impending disaster could be detected the following day, on Feb. 2, as Biden stepped up to the podium in the White House East Room and looked over his right shoulder at Lander, who sat among the dignitaries on stage.
“The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, led by senior scientist and advisor Dr. Eric Lander—sitting on the end—will chart the path for the Cancer Moonshot for 2022 and beyond,” Biden said Wednesday at the White House event, as oncology leaders and Washington operatives looked on (The Cancer Letter, Feb. 4, 2022).
By Monday, Lander’s flight path took a downward trajectory. A Politico investigation published that morning reported that Lander “bullied and demeaned” his subordinates, a finding supported by a two-month internal White House investigation into Lander’s conduct. The Politico story said at least 14 former and current staffers had described a toxic work environment at Lander’s office. The story quoted from a leaked recording of a January briefing by Christian Peele, the White House’s deputy director of management and administration for personnel.
In the recording, Peele reveals the existence of “credible evidence of disrespectful interactions with staff by Dr. Lander and OSTP leadership.” Peele said Lander had spoken “harshly and disrespectfully to colleagues in front of other colleagues,” and that “the investigation found credible evidence of instances of multiple women having complained to other staff about negative interactions with Dr. Lander, where he spoke to them in a demeaning or abrasive way in front of other staff.”
What followed the Politico report was a case study in suboptimal crisis communications: the White House appeared remarkably unprepared for a scandal that led to Lander’s resignation, and that left the scientific community without a central advocate in the executive branch at a critical juncture in the fight for federal funding for biomedical research.
Speaking to The Cancer Letter, insiders in oncology and research advocacy who have worked with Lander expressed a wide range of reactions, from shocked to unsurprised. Some said Lander was always professional in demeanor; others said the White House investigation is confirmation of an open secret.
Sources said the leaked recording was unusual because it is reminiscent of the Trump presidency—which demanded loyalty to no avail—and may demonstrate a lack of trust in senior Biden officials’ ability to hold Lander accountable.
Lander has a reputation for being an effective convener with a controversial personality, but Biden, clearly, believed that Lander had the right stuff, elevating him to become the first OSTP director in U.S. history to serve in the President’s Cabinet. Lander was appointed science advisor to the president in January 2021. The Senate confirmed Lander as 11th OSTP director May 28, 2021.
“I am writing to submit my resignation, to be effective no later than February 18 in order to permit an orderly transfer,” Lander wrote in his resignation letter to Biden the evening of Feb. 7. “It is clear that things I said, and the way I said them, crossed the line at times into being disrespectful and demeaning, to both men and women. That was never my intention.
“Nonetheless, it is my fault and my responsibility. I will take this lesson forward,” Lander said. “I believe it is not possible to continue effectively in my role, and the work of this office is far too important to be hindered.”
Lander was scheduled to appear as a witness at a Feb. 8 hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy & Commerce in the House of Representatives—the day after the Politico report. His mission was to sell the White House’s $6.5 billion proposal for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, which would have a strong focus on funding innovative cancer research.
“Echoing many elements of the DARPA model, ARPA-H will embrace urgency, nimbleness, and innovation, while also ensuring discipline. To do that, ARPA-H’s culture will be key to its success,” Lander said in the written version of the testimony that was never delivered. “We look forward to working with the Congress on how best to design ARPA-H, because I know we all want to get it right.”
Before news of his resignation broke, Lander was removed from the hearing lineup. Around the same time, the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a scathing statement and dropped Lander from the roster of speakers at the organization’s 2022 annual meeting Feb. 17-20.
“AAAS is disappointed to learn about a White House investigation that reportedly found Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander is not conducting himself in a manner befitting a scientist or scientific leader—much less a cabinet-level leader in the administration,” AAAS leaders said in the statement. “Unfortunately, toxic behavioral issues still make their way into the STEM community, where they stifle participation and innovation. OSTP should be a model for a respectful and positive workplace for the scientific community—not one that further exacerbates these issues.”
Upon taking office, Biden instituted a zero-tolerance policy for disrespectful behavior in his administration—the Executive Office of the President’s Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy, which White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said triggered the Lander investigation.
“If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I will fire you on the spot. No ifs, ands, or buts,” Biden said to a group of appointees on Inauguration Day.
Initial White House statements to the press indicate that senior Biden officials originally intended to keep Lander as OSTP director with a plan for “corrective action” and “compliance.” In the wake of Lander’s resignation, some of these “concrete steps to promote a better workplace” appear to remain in place.
“OSTP is working to ensure all staff understand our Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy and how to report any conduct of concern,” a White House spokesperson said to The Cancer Letter.
Leaders must demonstrate accountability, said Shea Holman, director of law and policy at The Purple Campaign, a nonprofit focused on ending misconduct and sexual harassment in the workplace.
“The White House really needs to send a clear message that no one person is more important than another in the administration, and that the values of zero tolerance that President Biden, for example, has espoused for bullying behaviors will be upheld and enforced,” Holman said to The Cancer Letter.
Over the past several years, The Cancer Letter has conducted surveys and investigations of misconduct and harassment in academic medicine—finding that the vast majority of individuals who are mistreated have no confidence in their institutions’ commitment to accountability. Powerful, accomplished, often male perpetrators, continue to retain leadership positions and mentorship roles despite multiple reprimands, and federal agencies may be constrained from investigating misconduct (The Cancer Letter, Oct. 2, 2020; May 28, June 4, Sept 24, Dec. 31, 2021).
“A workplace that tolerates bullying becomes very unattractive to employees,” Holman said. “So, that leads to higher absenteeism rates, decreased morale, lower individual performance, and a toxic work culture makes it really costly to find and retain quality employees.”
What, or who, is next?
Whether he willingly resigned or was pushed out, Lander lost his usefulness as Biden’s representative and advisor once he could no longer speak publicly, sources say, especially as budget negotiations for FY2022 are underway and as appropriations deadlines loom.
The House passed Feb. 8 a third FY22 continuing resolution through March 11, and there is momentum on Capitol Hill to reach an agreement on total federal spending by this week, and to complete appropriations over the next three weeks.
This means that Congress would have to finalize budget increases for NIH and other health agencies—anticipated at 9% for domestic spending and 6% for defense spending—and make decisions on funding Biden’s requests for ARPA-H and White House priorities on climate change, or the reignited Cancer Moonshot, for that matter.
Writing these bills within this compressed time frame was already considered a heavy lift, sources say. Now, the White House has jettisoned Lander, the administration’s primary science negotiator, by Feb. 18, and Congress and the scientific community need to know whom to do business with.
Who can fill Lander’s shoes in the interim, without waiting for another lengthy Senate confirmation process?
“In terms of an acting director for OSTP, that person has not been named yet,” a White House spokesperson said to The Cancer Letter.
Lander’s successor, acting or permanent, would need to bring world-class political clout, business acumen, and scientific gravitas to the OSTP directorship—a rare triple threat—as well as experience working in and with the federal bureaucracy.
Oncology insiders say the White House should consider asking former NIH Director Francis Collins to step in as acting director, because of his bipartisan appeal, commanding presence, track record of working across federal agencies, and deep understanding of ARPA-H and Cancer Moonshot 1.0 (The Cancer Letter, Nov. 13, 2020).
Other names have been put forward for the OSTP directorship:
- According to Nature, suggested replacements include: Jill Hruby, undersecretary for nuclear security at the U.S. Department of Energy; Frances Arnold, a biochemical engineer and Nobel laureate who co-chairs Biden’s PCAST; and Jo Handelsman, a microbiologist who was associate director of OSTP under Obama.
- Emily Pinckney, executive director of 500 Women Scientists, an organization that opposed Lander’s appointment, has recommended Alondra Nelson, OSTP deputy director for science and society, and Jane Lubchenco, OSTP deputy director for climate and environment.
The OSTP’s point person for the Cancer Moonshot is Danielle Carnival, senior advisor to Lander.
“The Cancer Moonshot announcement included creating the title of White House Cancer Moonshot Coordinator and named Dr. Danielle Carnival to the position,” the White House spokesperson said. “She came on in July of last year as a senior advisor at OSTP and had been building the initiative the president was able to announce Feb. 2.”
Carnival, who has a PhD in neuroscience, served as chief of staff and senior policy director for the 2016-2017 White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. Subsequently, she served as vice president for the Biden Cancer Initiative. Lander, who has a PhD in mathematics, taught economics at Harvard Business School before founding the genome center at Whitehead Institute and, later, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Within oncology, NCI’s Sharpless is expected to play a leading role in Biden’s soon-to-be-formed Cancer Cabinet. NCI has been tasked with spearheading the research arm of the moonshot, mobilizing federal agencies to study multicancer detection rates, and organizing academic cancer centers and affiliated networks to mitigate the drop in cancer screenings due to COVID-19.
“I think the White House has been very clear that this initiative is bigger than any one person, and there are a tremendous number of talented and terrific scientists across government, outside of government that are available to help with this,” Sharpless said at the Feb. 10 NCAB meeting, responding to a question from NCAB Chair John Carpten about the impact of Lander’s resignation on moonshot 2.0.
“So, I think we’ll be fine. We’re just kind of in the starting phase, and I think there is no shortage of great ideas in the White House on how to develop the new moonshot,” Sharpless said. “Of course, we were saddened to hear about the behavior that led to Dr. Lander’s resignation, and as I said, this is not how we expect to do business in the federal government and definitely not how we expect to do business at the NCI.
“But we will recover from this, I think, without much of a hiccup, and we’ll be fine.”
From apology to resignation
The first signs of trouble at OSTP surfaced at dinnertime on Feb. 4—a Friday evening, a classic time slot for burying a damaging news story—when Lander sent an apologetic email to his OSTP staff. That email, which many perceived to be a preemptive measure, was leaked to Politico.
“It’s my responsibility to set a respectful tone for our community. It’s clear that I have not lived up to this responsibility,” Lander wrote in the Feb. 4 email, three days before Politico’s exposé. “This is not only wrong, but also inconsistent with our Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy. It is never acceptable for me to speak that way. I am deeply sorry for my conduct. I especially want to apologize to those of you who I treated poorly or were present at the time.
Although bullying or abuse conduct might not be tied to a protected characteristic and not legally actionable in a lot of states, it really is contrary to the core values of a healthy, safe, inclusive workplace
Shea Holman
“I understand that some of you have been asked about this, and I thought it was important to write directly to you,” he wrote. “I also realize that my conduct reflects poorly on this Administration, and interferes with our work. I deeply regret that.”
There was no indication in the email that Lander would be stepping down.
“We will take concrete steps to promote a better workplace,” he wrote. “We will schedule regular forums to check in with staff on how we are doing in creating and upholding a safe and respectful workplace. We will also ensure that every employee knows how to report conduct that concerns them.”
Washington isn’t Boston, insiders say, and Lander’s reputed leadership style for strong-arming his way through projects—with deep pocketed donors and obsequious subordinates—may have made him ill-suited for D.C. politicking.
The White House OSTP plays a largely advisory role in the executive branch, which means that Lander has limited influence and authority over career civil service employees, who instead owe their allegiance to heads of their agencies.
Sources say Lander may not be accustomed to the environment of government fiefdoms, which allows bureaucrats to frustrate any efforts to accelerate Biden’s scientific agenda.
After the Politico story broke before sunrise on Monday, journalists clamored for answers at the daily White House press briefing.
“Does the fact that Dr. Lander has a job, still, cheapen the president’s promise to fire anyone who treats colleagues with disrespect on the spot?” a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
“Dr. Lander—obviously, his behavior was inappropriate, and corrective actions needed to be taken, and that was clearly conveyed through this process,” Psaki said. “And he will be held to account for delivering on that.”
Psaki explained, at least five times during the briefing, that the White House expects Lander to stay and comply with a corrective action plan.
“Following the conclusion of the thorough investigation into these actions, senior White House officials conveyed directly to Dr. Lander that his behavior was inappropriate and the corrective actions that were needed, which were—which the White House will monitor for compliance moving forward,” Psaki said.
Sources say the “senior White House officials” involved likely included Chief of Staff Ronald A. Klain and Deputy Chiefs of Staff Jennifer B. Dillon and Bruce N. Reed.
Initial OSTP communications to the press toed the line, stating that Lander’s apology speaks for itself.
By Monday night, Lander had resigned, after a pile-up of sordid headlines and as organizations distanced themselves from him.
The White House needs to communicate how it handled Lander’s investigation, said Pringl Miller, founder and executive director of Physician Just Equity, a nonprofit that provides peer support for physicians who experience harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
“I think what needs more transparency in this process is how long complaints were being received, what the time period was between the initial complaint and the initiation of the investigation, and how long the investigation has been going on for,” Miller said to The Cancer Letter.
“Unfortunately, in many cases, the first complaint is dismissed as a one-off, and it often takes many to initiate an investigation. It shouldn’t take many to initiate an investigation into unprofessional and abusive behavior,” Miller said. “These investigations should be handled seriously, thoroughly, and swiftly.
“What we’ve learned from the Covington report to the [Oregon Health & Science University Board of Directors] is that in the case of OHSU anyway, HR investigators may have little formal training and misidentify discrimination and harassment complaints. This raises the question of whether HR in general has the resources and the expertise to handle complaints.”
Another recording—from Monday morning—was leaked to Politico, this time of a White House meeting led by OSTP Chief of Staff Marc Aidinoff.
“How does the president square this? That’s not an answer I can give,” Aidinoff said in the Feb. 7 recording. “It’s an answer that I would presume Jen Psaki will have to give later today.
“One of our first orders of business is protecting the president.”
Biden wasn’t aware of the internal White House investigation until it was completed in late January, Psaki said the next morning at the Feb. 8 press briefing.
“He was made aware in advance of the—after the conclusion of the investigation. But beyond that, I don’t have any updates on the timeline,” Psaki said.
Biden wasn’t involved in seeking Lander’s resignation, and the White House followed standard HR and privacy protocols for personnel issues, Psaki said.
“He did not. [Lander] made that decision himself,” she said. “It was made clear to [Lander]—through the course of the day yesterday, I suppose—that he could no longer lead OSTP effectively. And he conveyed that in his letter. The president accepted his resignation.”
“Superstar harasser”
Career success and abusive workplace behavior often go hand-in-hand, Holman, of The Purple Campaign, said to The Cancer Letter.
Lander, who rose to stardom for his role in speeding up the completion of the Human Genome Project, was behaving in a way that evokes a term coined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—“superstar harasser”—Holman said.
“Essentially, it’s someone like the high-earning trader at an investment bank or the law firm partner who brings in really lucrative clients,” Holman said. “These high-level individuals, as with any employee, may be likely to engage in harassment of others. However, because they have this privileged position, whether it be a higher income or better accommodation or different expectations, that privilege can lead to this self-view that they are in some way above the rules. That can actually foster mistreatment further.
“Psychologists actually have detailed how this power can make an individual feel uninhibited, and, as a result, more likely to engage in inappropriate behaviors. On the flip side of this, other than the superstar harasser or bully feeling that they are in some way untouchable, three out of 10 employees think that these high performers are rarely or never held accountable when they harass someone.”
It gives me a little bit of hope that the #MeToo movement, and the movement of people recently speaking up about abusive behavior, will send a message to the community that this behavior has to stop and that if you’re a perpetrator you can no longer expect immunity and the protection of ‘the good old boys club’ and/or your institutional leadership.
Pringl Miller
While Lander’s behavior violated the Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy, there were no direct findings of sexual harassment or sex-based discrimination. Lander said in his resignation letter that his behavior was not gendered.
However, based on reports from six current and former OSTP staffers, Lander appeared to “take delight in embarrassing” women in front of others, leaving “numerous” women in tears.
“When work situations are stressful or when emotions are high, this is when our implicit biases are most likely to come into play,” Holman said. “So, he may not necessarily realize that he was lashing out only at women.
“Just because he may feel he was disrespectful and demeaning to both men and women, which is obviously not a healthy work environment, he thinks he’s not discriminating against anyone in particular. But, because of implicit bias, this is likely not an accurate characterization.”
Because the Lander investigation didn’t result in a finding of sex-based discrimination, it falls into murky legal territory, Holman said—language prohibiting bullying and abusive conduct in the workplace is not codified into federal law.
“Although bullying or abuse conduct might not be tied to a protected characteristic and not legally actionable in a lot of states, it really is contrary to the core values of a healthy, safe, inclusive workplace,” Holman said.
Some states, including California, Utah, and Tennessee, have adopted anti-bullying laws that address generally abusive workplace behaviors.
“Even in the absence of specific legal protections—because people can say, ‘Well, bullying, you might not like it, but it’s not legally protected’—but employers should still take independent actions against workplace abuses, because creating stated anti-bullying values and policies or educating employees about bullying and abusive conduct through training programs and holding perpetrators account are all essential steps in building and maintaining a healthy, safe workplace, whether that be in the private sector, at the state level, or in the White House,” Holman said.
Miller said Lander’s case differs from other instances of abusive workplace behavior, because he accepted some level of responsibility for his actions.
“I’m not condoning anything that he’s done, but it is refreshing that he seems to be taking ownership for his behavior, based on published quotes,” Miller said. “So many people in leadership positions like his deny everything and never apologize.
“They fight back against accusations, and the institutions that have supported them in these leadership positions join in on the denial and refute the accusations in solidarity,” Miller said. “That’s what’s so damaging—survivors of abuse can’t report what’s happened to them safely, because if they do, they’re not believed, and are often retaliated against. The perpetrators of harms are protected and the targets are punished.”
Miller said she hopes Lander’s resignation represents a paradigm shift in how workplace harassment is handled.
“It gives me a little bit of hope that the #MeToo movement, and the movement of people recently speaking up about abusive behavior, will send a message to the community that this behavior has to stop and that if you’re a perpetrator you can no longer expect immunity and the protection of ‘the good ole boys club’ and/or your institutional leadership,” Miller said.
But Lander’s resignation isn’t enough, Miller said. A critical next step is restorative justice for his victims in the workplace.
“There’s trauma in being humiliated, belittled, and demeaned in the course of doing your job,” Miller said. “This isn’t just about punishing him. This is also about restoring trust with the people who have been violated in their workplace.”
