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It seems clear that Marcy has been "condemned by a government-like body" (with or without due process -- I don't know). At any rate, this isn't simple freedom of association.

And according to the article, the blacklist doesn't only affect Marcy, it affects people who continue to work with him. I would say that's going too far.

Finally, I'm not sure what we gain by systematically excluding Marcy from astronomy research. Maybe a 5 year ban would be enough or perhaps we could go with a restorative justice approach here.

> those people don't want papers authored, co-authored, or believed to be authored, by Geoff in their conference. That seems reasonable

No, it doesn't.

A scientific conference is not your backyard BBQ. The reasonable thing to do is to judge submissions on their scientific merit and relevance.

Your proposed norm is ripe for abuse by brilliant jerks. Just keep producing meritorious work and all incidents of you abusing people in your personal life will be excused.

(Your proposed norm is how things used to be, and still are to a large extent. This is bad and a failure of society, not a success.)

A paper does not exist in a vacuum. If a field is filled with papers authored and co-authored by known sexual harassers, do you think many women will want to enter that field?

Letting shitty people gain prevalence in your field will have a negative effect on the future of your field, just like hiring shitty managers will have a detrimental effect on your company's turnover rate. It makes sense to want to limit the influence of shitty people.

> If I think my neighbor's a dick, I don't need to hold a trial by jury to decide if I'm allowed to disinvite him

In this case you are exempt from that principle because following it will cost you disproportionally more than the possible damage done if you're wrong. Not because universal justice principles somehow become inapplicable outside of courtroom.

> (Disclaimer: there's some other bad stuff mentioned, like harassment of the author and some shitty assumptions that her own work was secretly Geoffs, and that's to be condemned, but that's separate from the main thrust of this post.)

Do these guilt-by-association injustices against the author of the article give you any pause when it comes to the same people passing judgement against this Geoff? I, like you, have no real knowledge of this case. It maybe be the case that Geoff is guilty of all of it, or was bullied into a false confession; I don't know. My gut says that he's a slimeball but I see injustice against the author of the article and I don't think the two are as independent as you suggest. If the mob is using guilt by association in one case,that gives me some doubt as to the mob's ability to fairly pass judgement in the related case.

> or government-like body

It sounds like you're advocating that the results of the scientific process should have no effect on policy-making, because otherwise then "social condemnation" of the kind that you're describing becomes part of the government policy-making process.

I don't like that idea. I like having climate-change science feed into policymaking.

>It's not a basic human right to be free from all judgement by your peers without due process.

True, but libel is also a civil tort.

Lets be realistic about this, if Marcy tried to bring a suit over this, he would not prevail. A lot of people have a very reasonable belief that he's a sex-criminal of some description, including his former employers and a number of former co-workers.

>If I think my neighbor's a dick, I don't need to hold a trial by jury to decide if I'm allowed to disinvite him from my BBQ.

A moral defense of social practices shouldn't rely on a dubious analogy between a major scientific conference and someone's backyard soirée. Human affairs do not separate cleanly into "governance" and "private".

>there's some other bad stuff mentioned, like harassment of the author and some shitty assumptions that her own work was secretly Geoffs, and that's to be condemned, but that's separate from the main thrust of this post.

I don't think it's at all fair to the author to reduce harassment directed at her to a parenthetical in a post discussing her experience in research. It is very important and speaks to the prevailing cultural norms.