PhD student refuses to let her Oklahoma University professor claim and publish her research, then puts up a yard sign calling him out as he keeps walking by to glare: ‘My PhD advisor was a nightmare, he kept moving my graduation goalposts’

From my experience, academic life is supposed to be nerds (me) arguing over footnotes, not professors circling grad students like side hustles, but apparently, job titles don't prevent people from acting opportunistic.

This advisor strings a student along for cheap labor, keeps shifting the finish line, and calls her work not even good enough for a master's. Then, the second she bails with a consolation degree, he suddenly decides that the same project is worthy of publication, just with him steering. When she reads the policies, she says Actually, no, that is mine, and blocks the paper. He reacts like she stole from him, not the other way around. He even reports her to the ethics people, who try to bluff about rules until she pulls the actual text and shuts it down.  

After that, he goes full neighborhood menace. Instead of letting it go, he starts doing slow rage walks past her house to glare, like a very low-budget ghost of academia. So she spends five dollars at Walmart and puts up a sign with his name and a simple message about stealing grad student research, directly in view of a daily school pickup line. He loses it. Takes photos. Brings his wife. Yells in the street. Tries to rope in the department and the cops to make the sign disappear, only to discover that embarrassment is not illegal. 

Author image for Etai Eshet Etai Eshet
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