Advisor took off my name from a paper that I was a co-author

[moon_cat]

Hi all,

So, long story short, I recently had a "break up" with my current advisor because he was not a great person to work with. I'm going to transfer to another school and start my phD with another advisor. Anyway, I found out today that one of the paper that I was a co-author  (3rd author - I helped with some revision and addressed the comments, prepared the response letter, and made changes to the final submission) got accepted to a journal BUT my advisor took my name off the paper when he published it on Research Gate and Arvix.org. I still found my name under the paper when logging into my account with the journal portal. I've never met such an advisor like this person and I just want to hear some advise on how to approach this. I am going to claim authorship of this paper, regardless. I think this is very unethical of him and I wonder where should I begin? Email my advisor? Email my chair? Email my dean? 

[fuzzylogician]

First thing's first. Are you admitted to a new program, or still dependent on his letter of recommendation for other things? You say that your name is still on the paper when you log into your account with the journal -- does that mean it's on the accepted version of the manuscript? If so, there's a sad but real calculation that has to go into how much it's worth fighting to have your name on the unofficial version of the paper, since it's a third-authorship and since the official version is all that really counts. For starters, though, I would not put anything official in writing and I wouldn't email anyone before I had a better sense of the politics behind this move. I'd reach out to the ombudsperson for advice, since they are bound to confidentiality and might have a broader perspective and some experience with cases like this. And if you want to take this a step further, the appropriate venue is most likely the Research Integrity Officer at your school (or in some cases, the Dean of Students), who can take care of complaints to do with misappropriation of research and retaliation related to authorship. Either way, I'd start with a confidential meeting to get a sense of how these people think of this case. If there is someone you trust, you might take a representative along with you to the meeting, to make sure someone has your back and is taking notes. Starting now, you should document everything that happens concerning this paper. Make sure you have copies of emails and other correspondence, especially if some of it is hard-copies and controlled by your advisor. You need to be able to prove that you were promised authorship and did authorship-worthy work, before this all went awry. Good luck! 

[moon_cat]

Thanks for your advise. I got accepted to another program already so I don't care if I burn bridges with this guy. I change my field of study as well so I don't have a problem with blowing this off his face.

Anyway, I had an email confirmation when we submitted our final version for the paper that has my name on it as a co-author. I have proof that my name was on the latest 2 revisions, which the 2nd revision got accepted. Should I talk to my grad advisor and maybe bring this to the Dean of students? I really cannot stand this guy anymore and I am willing to pursue this thoroughly until justice is served. 

[fuzzylogician]

Okay, so you're in pretty good shape to actually pursue this. I'd still start with either the ombudsperson or the office or research integrity. Those are both unbiased bodies that are unrelated to your department. You should know that lodging a complaint against your advisor with the research integrity officer that claims he's essentially appropriated your work and stealing your credit/sabotaging your career is a serious allegation, and one that could get him into trouble. Maybe that's what you want and maybe it's deserving, but you should know this is a very serious thing to do, and an investigation could be a lengthy process. A lot will also depend on whether or not he's tenured (less can be done if he is). 

It's hard to know what to say about talking to your advisor directly, because you might well imagine that this was not an accident, and you'd be alerting him to the fact that you're onto him and pursuing this. One thing you might try is pretend this is all a mistake and just write him an email saying something like "hey, I noticed my name is missing on your recent arxiv upload of our paper, do you know what happened?" or some such. See how he reacts. But again, I think deciding on a game plan with someone who is impartial and has some experience is important, hence my suggestion to speak with the ombudsperson. The Dean of Students would be an alternative venue at some universities, it depends a little on the particulars of your university, so you'd need to figure that out. It's a question of confidentiality and who knows who, because you need to remember that there is a lot of politics involved here, and you need to do this right.  

[moon_cat]

Thank you for your reply. He is a junior faculty and not tenured yet (assistant professor in his 3rd year with the program). He has done some very unethical things to me and I wanted to end our relationship in peace. However, now I want to seriously pursue this matter because it is not acceptable to just erase my name out of a paper that I worked on and contributed on. Anyway, I'll start researching on the Research integrity office and make an appointment tomorrow to see if I can speak with someone. This is my limit and I am preparing myself to do anything to bring him down to hell. 

[moon_cat]

Also, my graduate advisor is not my a-hole advisor. Grad advisor in my program oversees all grad students. I spoke to him about the break up with my current advisor already and I think I probably will at least tell him that this a-hole advisor is doing some serious unethical actions towards me. 

[fuzzylogician]

11 minutes ago, moon_cat said:

 Anyway, I'll start researching on the Research integrity office and make an appointment tomorrow to see if I can speak with someone. This is my limit and I am preparing myself to do anything to bring him down to hell. 

If I may suggest, I am sure that this is stirring up a lot of emotion, and justifiably so. But to be taken maximally seriously, you need to remain very professional when you talk to other people about this, and not say things like you wrote above. Your goals should be to right the wrong that was done to you, which probably means having him remove the versions of the paper that don't have your name on them and uploading corrected ones (also citing the paper correctly in any public venue, like a lab website or online CV, if relevant). Any additional sanctions from there on are up to the university. 

[fuzzylogician]

5 minutes ago, moon_cat said:

Also, my graduate advisor is not my a-hole advisor. Grad advisor in my program oversees all grad students. I spoke to him about the break up with my current advisor already and I think I probably will at least tell him that this a-hole advisor is doing some serious unethical actions towards me. 

Ah, I see. Well, you know him and are the best judge of whether it's a good idea to involve him in this. 

[moon_cat]

Yes thank you. We have a Research Integrity Office at my university and I'll email them to ask what I should do. I really just want everything to be fair and square. That's all. 

[XYZ1234]

I don't understand why he would take your name off the researchgate or the Arvix papers? Does he think that no one's going to notice the difference in co-authorship between the papers? This just makes himself look bad. Also this may be against journal policy. 

[moon_cat]

For me, this is like a personal attack. He didn't know that I got accepted to another school yet. He only knew that I'd switch advisor at my current school. All of sudden after unsuccessfully convincing me to stay in the lab for next semester, he's doing all these petty things to me. I checked the pdf version on arxiv and saw that he edited out my name and my profile. I emailed the chief editor of the journal asking for confirmation that my name is on the accepted final version and the guy emailed me back telling me my name is still there. I really don't understand why my advisor thought that it's appropriate to just take out my name and edit out my profile when he posted it on arxiv. 

I already emailed the VP of research at my school. I'm waiting for him to reply. I talked to the Director of RIO office and she noted that this is a serious matter. I'll see how my school handle this issue. 

[HTM18]

Please update us on this issue if possible..I really hope things worked out and he put your name back.

[Adelaide9216]

Wow. I don't have advice, but I'm appalled because it seems like horror stories like these are a common thing in Academia. Am I wrong? I'm so sorry you have to go through this, this is really unethical..

[Faith786]

On 7/26/2018 at 12:07 PM, Adelaide9216 said:

Wow. I don't have advice, but I'm appalled because it seems like horror stories like these are a common thing in Academia. Am I wrong? I'm so sorry you have to go through this, this is really unethical..

Yes, horror stories in academia are very common, and the reason is because there are many strong personalities in privileged positions of power and they love their power and want to keep it and their positions. I had the same thing happen to me with my ex-supervisor and deep down I had a hunch they were plagiarizing my work. Thankfully I got rid of them and published everything early on so that I had documented evidence that my work was indeed my own.