On April 12, 2019, Boston College after all fired David Marchant for sexually harassing Willenbring. (The college stated it would now not corroborate her claims of bodily and mental abuse.) Marchant launched a observation, which the magazine Science quoted as vowing that he had “by no means” sexually careworn any person, “now not in 1998 or 1999 in Antarctica or at any time since.” However on account of Willenbring, the phrase was once out.Reeling within the wake of this scandal, the Nationwide Science Basis commissioned an out of doors find out about on sexual attack and sexual harassment on the Antarctic analysis amenities. The long file, made public in August 2022, had surprising allegations of attack, stalking, and harassment. Britt Barquist, the previous gasoline foreman, was once on contract at McMurdo with an organization now known as Amentum. She oversaw a staff of about 20 who did the damaging paintings of dealing with and cleansing diesel and gas gasoline tanks. In the future in past due November 2017, she tells me, she was once sitting at a desk along a person who held a senior place at Leidos, the corporate managing the Antarctic analysis stations. He’d been operating a briefing for the workforce when he groped her in undeniable view.When she mentioned it together with her manager, he stated he’d witnessed probably the most incident himself. His boss reported it to the human assets division at Amentum. “I advised HR that I don’t wish to be anyplace round him ever once more. I’m petrified of this individual,” Barquist says, “They usually stated, ‘OK.’”However in 2020, all over any other stint operating with the McMurdo contractor, she was once advised she’d be attending weekly digital conferences with that very same senior reputable. Barquist, who wanted the activity, downplayed it to herself. “It was once simply disgusting and terrible to have to have a look at his face and pay attention to him communicate,” she says, “simply to look him handled as an ordinary man, when in my head I’m like, ‘This man is a predator. Why is everybody simply appearing like he’s some commonplace individual?’”The following yr, towards the top of just about 3 weeks of Covid quarantine with a staff in New Zealand, she’d scanned the manifest for an upcoming flight to Antarctica and noticed the senior reputable’s identify on it. When she known as her HR division over a spotty connection to whinge, she says she was once met with obstinance via two officers, considered one of whom have been offered as a sufferer’s suggest.“I stated I nonetheless don’t wish to be round this man,” she tells me, “however they stated, ‘So how do you recommend we maintain this?’” Barquist will get emotional as she remembers her dialog with the 2 ladies from her employer. “I believed they have been going to be on my facet,” she says. As an alternative, they stored urgent her as to how afraid she felt to be round him.“I after all was once like, ‘Sure,’” she says, “‘I think unsafe being on my own in a room with him!’” Then the sign dropped, she says, and she or he by no means controlled to reconnect with them. Barquist flew again to Antarctica, the place she attempted to steer clear of the senior reputable. However as her workforce’s protection relied on her speaking with him on a just about day-to-day foundation, she in the end relented.
