Professor censured for lying about tweet

Board finds message about fat people not research-oriented

The University of New Mexico is censuring a professor who tweeted in June about fat people not being able to complete their dissertations, the school announced Tuesday.

Associate professor of psychology Geoffrey Miller is being censured for lying about the purpose of the tweet, which he claimed was research-oriented.

Now he has to say he’s sorry, undergo diversity training, meet with a mentor and be monitored by the department chairman.

MILLER: Will undergo sensitivity training

MILLER: Will undergo sensitivity training

But he will continue teaching, with an offering of a class in human sexuality this fall, according to UNM spokeswoman Karen Wentworth.

On June 2, Miller tweeted “Dear obese PhD (sic) applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation.”

At first, Miller, a tenured psychology professor, told UNM the tweet was sent as part of a research project he was doing.

Later, he apologized and discontinued his Twitter account. A UNM institutional review board unanimously determined in the end of June that the tweet was not research-oriented in nature as Miller claimed. New York University, where Miller, on leave from UNM, was teaching at the time of the tweet, arrived at the same conclusion.

The censure, posted on UNM’s website Tuesday, requires that Miller:

• Refrain from serving on a committee that involves graduate school admissions in his department for the rest of his time at UNM;

Wentworth said she did not know whether the apology would be oral or written, or what would make up the diversity training. “That has not been worked out yet,” she said Tuesday.

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