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Anatomy of a Retaliation

Jim Condon, NRAO Astronomer Emeritus (revoked)

I spent most of my career as a radio astronomer working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) headquarters in Charlottesville, VA. The NRAO is a research facility of the National Science Foundation (NSF) receiving over $100 million per year to design, build, and operate state-of-the-art radio observatories such as the Very Large Array (VLA). Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) is the federally funded contractor that operates the NRAO for the NSF, so the 500+ people working at the NRAO are legally AUl employees.

When I retired from the NRAO in March 2021 after four decades of service as a Tenured Astronomer, the AUl Board of Trustees appointed me as Astronomer Emeritus. Since the AUl Board made my Emeritus appointment at the recommendation of the NRAO Director, only the AUl Board could revoke it after the Director reversed his recommendation. They did so on September 23, 2022 in retaliation for my public opposition to systemic discrimination by race and sex at the NRAO. I sued AUl in federal court for retaliation made illegal by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and won.

My hope for this website is that exposure to sunlight will deter future attempts by AUl and the NRAO to discriminate by race and sex, stifle or compel employee speech, or retaliate against whistleblowers who oppose institutional discrimination. I also hope it will encourage others to oppose illegal discrimination by their own employers. See also my video interview "Fighting the DEI Regime in Astronomy" produced by the National Association of Scholars.

Jim Condon, NRAO Astronomer Emeritus (revoked) 2026 Sep 22

Email: condonvaui@gmail.com

URL for this website: jimcondonvsaui.org

1. Pandora's Box

While working at home during the COVID 19 lockdown, I was surprised to receive a large but remarkably light box from FedEx. It contained only the letter below and a mailing label:

From this letter I first learned that the AUI Board of Trustees had revoked my appointment as an NRAO Astronomer Emeritus and permanently banned me from all NRAO facilities and support services. I was terminated without the due process elements of a fair hearing—an unbiased tribunal, notice of the proposed action and the grounds asserted for it, opportunity to present reasons why the proposed action should not be taken, etc. AUl's letter didn't admit why they did this, which was illegal retaliation for an email I sent to NRAO's scientific staff on September 14, 2022 opposing systemic discrimination by race and sex in NRAO's DEI programs.

I was dismayed that my research career would be truncated by losing access to NRAO's observatories, electronics labs, physical and digital libraries, critical computer support, and working with my colleagues. My worst memory from that time was of removing my personal items from the NRAO Headquarters building, saving what would fit into my small car and losing the rest. After I loaded my car, my NRAO "minder" took my office keys. I looked back on the building where I arrived as an enthusiastic young postdoc 50 years before and was now leaving in disgrace at age 77, never to return.

However, unlike the usual depressing reports of suspensions, resignations, terminations, or forced abject apologies from university professors who were canceled for resisting DEI discrimination, this one has a happy ending. I filed a federal lawsuit against AUl for retaliation made unlawful by Title VIl of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It concluded with a final judgment in my favor and against AUI. The court also ordered AUl to pay me $209,171.52 = $130,000 in damages plus $79,171.52 for my litigation costs.

Only about 5% of civil lawsuits end in judgments; most are aborted by private settlements between the plaintiff and the defendant containing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to conceal wrongdoing by the defendants. As a whistleblower, I would not accept an NDA, so that I (or anyone else) can now use PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) court records for federal Case No. 3:24-cv-00063, Condon v. Associated Universities, Inc. in the Western District of Virginia to verify just how AUl and the NRAO retaliated. For example, my lack-of-due-process allegation was confirmed by AUl's response to Plaintiff's Interrogatory 27: "Defendant admits that Dr. Condon did not receive advance notice, an opportunity to respond, or a hearing, as to the revocation of his Emeritus status in the discretion of the Board of Trustees."

This report is divided into eight sections:

Section 1: Pandora's box (this section) outlines how AUI revoked my Astronomer Emeritus appointment and banned me from using NRAO resources.

Section 2 describes the loss of civil rights (e.g., imposition of compelled speech, employment discrimination by race and sex) at the NRAO during its gradual descent from equal rights and merit-based hiring to DEI discrimination and exclusion.

Section 3 summarizes my efforts to restore those civil rights by working within the system to oppose compelled speech and institutional discrimination by AUI/NRAO. Those efforts were suppressed by the administration led by NRAO Director Tony Beasley.

Section 4: When DEl was inserted into the NRAO's formerly apolitical mission statement on September 14, 2022, I sent an email to the whole scientific staff opposing AUI/NRAO's institutional discrimination by race and sex.

Section 5 describes the immediate backlash led by NRAO Director Tony Beasley to discredit my public email, including fabrications alleging its "egregious" violation of NRAO's computer use policy, seeding a fake "grass-roots" petition against it, a baseless allegation that it defamed NRAO's HR head, and a fabricated charge that it falsely accused the NRAO of retaliation.

Section 6 exposes AUl's September 23, 2022 "trial" by which my Astronomer Emeritus status was revoked without due process. The baseless charge presented to the AUI Board of Directors by NRAO Director Tony Beasley was "his {Dr. Condon's] continued abusive and disrespectful behavior towards AD/HR Giles" over a period of years before I retired. It downplayed the real reason—retaliation for my September 14, 2022 email publicly opposing DEI discrimination by AUI and the NRAO. By not questioning Director Beasley's unfair prosecution, the AUI Board of Directors failed its basic duty to oversee NRAO managment and ensure NRAO's compliance with ethical and legal requirements.

Section 7 covers the Condon v. Associated Universities, Inc. federal lawsuit for employer's retaliation made illegal by Title VIl of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The baseless charge for revoking my Emeritus status at AUl's "trial" worked because I wasn't allowed defend myself. For the federal trial, AUl's Affirmative Defense number 5 backtracked to: "Specifically, the sole reason for revoking Plaintiff's Emeritus status (access to systems and facilities) was his September 14, 2022 email to the entire scistaff@nrao.edu listserv." Since I was allowed to defend myself in federal court, the judge eventually found that "Condon stated a prima facie claim for discrimination" and "Condon establishes AUl's reason for terminating him was pretext," and he denied AUl's motion for a summary judgment. In order to avoid its impending trial by jury, AUI made an "offer of judgment," the civil analog of the criminal "no contest" plea, agreeing to a judgment in my favor and offering to pay damages and reimburse my legal costs.

Section 8 lists some lessons learned from this ordeal—how employees should prepare before openly opposing institutional discrimination, the kinds of backlash they should expect if they do, and ways for victims of retaliation to fight back—followed by some conclusions about this whole affair.

2. Paradise Lost

The original NSF contract that created the NRAO in 1956 imposed this non-discrimination policy on AUl: "the Contractor agrees not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, religion, color, or national origin." Its protection was expanded following President Kennedy's 1963 Executive Order EO 10925: "The Contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." That sentence introduced (1) the "without regard to" definition of non-discrimination and (2) the phrase "take affirmative action" to mean "proactively eliminate discrimination," opposite the present abuse of "affirmative action" as a fig leaf to hide deliberate discrimination. These clear and simple non-discrimination policies were later updated to include additional protected characteristics (e.g., age, disability, marital status...) and remained the public face of NRAO's civil rights policies until at least 2010.

However, AUl's 2009 "Action Plan for Broadening Participation" revealed its support of discriminatory "diversity" recruitment to the AUl Board of Trustees: "Whereas maintaining and or increasing the number of women on the Board of Trustees has been a priority for some time, AUl also now considers the presence of underrepresented minorities as a factor in recruiting new Trustees." It also revealed some discriminatory hiring policies and employee benefits at the NRAO. By 2011 AUI announced its commitment to "Broadening Participation" by posting on its public web page "ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC. FULLY ENDORSES the principles of the AAS Pasadena Recommendations for Gender Equality (sic) in Astronomy." and provided a link to the original CSWA (Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy) document that recommended discrimination in hiring.

Systemic discrimination by the NRAO worsened over the years under cover of DEl euphemisms such as "broadening participation,' "diversity," "equity," "inclusion," "affirmative action," etc. NRAO policies incentivized discrimination by managerment. Managers were ordered "Management must, as part of their job requirement, be champions ot diversity," and warned that "Diversity goals and objectives are included in all management performance evaluations."

Nearly all NRAO employees favoring equal rights and opposing institutional discrimination were silenced by fear of politicized AUI and NRAO administrators. (They still are.) For example, when someone asked Director Beasley "are you concerned we seem to be lowering the quality of the summer student program with these diversity students," he "verbally slapped them [sic] down for being so damned ignorant." Lyndele von Schill, the head of NRAO's Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), lamented that "unexemined racist ideas run rampant" and thanked him for his slapdown. After AUl promoted #ShutdownSTEM and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) academic strike in 2020, NRAO Director Beasley used the alllemploy@listmgr.nrao.edu email exploder to send all NRAO employees this warning: "Some staff members believe that efforts like BLM are politically motivated or have more complex agendas, and therefore they cannot and will not support them. I strongly disagree with these views, and I believe this type of thinking has no role in redefining our workplace." Delegitimizing staff members' beliefs shows that NRAO's conception of "diversity" did not include viewpoint diversity.

In 2016 the NRAO introduced its annual series of mandatory on-line training programs making each employee review NRAO's critical policy statements such as their "Equal Employment Opportunity Non-Discrimination, Harassment and Bullying Statement." Each employee was told "I understand that if I have any questions ... I may contact ... my Human Resources Representative." I had a question, so l emailed HR Head Faye Giles asking her to reconcile NRAO's EEO non-discrimination statement with its apparently discriminatory gender and race equity policy. My email and her reply are shown below:

3. My Internal Opposition to Discrimination at the NRAO

I never could reconcile those two stages, so in 2017 and later years I started the trainings but was stopped after the on-line program compelled me to "certify that I have read, understood and will comply with" the "NRAO Non-Discrimination and Harassment policy" in order to receive credit for completing the training. Certifying I understood NRAO's contradictory non-discrimination and DEl policies would be like certifying | understood 2+2 = 5. Rather than affirming their compelled speech, I resolved to follow Alexander Solzhenitsyn's credo:

"Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me."

Consequently, Director Beasley entered my office in 2017, closed the door, and told me that if "you were only a technician in Socorro, I would fire you" because I refused to certify that I understood NRAO's contradictory policies. However, he said he wouldn't fire me for cause since I was a Tenured Astronomer. The NRAO Scientific Staff Policy Manual says of Tenured Astronomers "Termination for cause may be effected only after a hearing before the APRC [Astronomer Performance Review Committee] in which the staff member will appear," and Director Beasley didn't want to hold such a hearing. Page 85 of his October 3, 2025 deposition under oath contains his brief description confirming that he made this threat.

In 2018 I was called into the Director's office and confronted by the Head of HR and the Head of NRAO's Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) about my repeated refusal to certify that I understood NRAO's contradictory DEI policies. That meeting concluded with my offer to write a confidential memo to NRAO Director Tony Beasley documenting the instances of systemic discrimination that I had observed during my four decades at the NRAO, and his acceptance of that offer.

My draft memo "Institutional Discrimination by Race and Sex at AUI/NRAO (confidential draft, 2019 Feb 19)" exposed and explicitly opposed many forms of discrimination by AUl and the NRAO, and it suggested ways to end them. I emailed it only to NRAO Director Beasley on February 19 and naively hoped he would give it the prompt and serious investigation promised on page 26 of the NRAO's HR Policy Manual: "Any reported allegations of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation will be investigated promptly and confidentially." (My 2019 confidential memo included names of several "beneficiaries" of discrimination; they have been redacted in this 2021 update of that memo.)

Director Beasley did not acknowledge receiving my memo, so on April 10 I emailed him to ask if he had received it. He replied on April 19 that he had received and read the memo, and he asked what I thought he should do with it. At 5:01 PM the same day, he emailed me a longer response dismissing my inability to resolve contradictions in NRAO's hiring policies with "F. Scott Fitzgerald once said 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.'" He probably found that in a collection of famous quotations because the following sentence in Fitzgerald's original article "The Crack-Up" is "One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." Thus, Fitzgerald never said that accepting actual contradictions is a test of first-rate intelligence, only that one should try to fix difficult problems. Director Beasley's email terminated our discussion with his sincere-sounding "I consider this issue closed, thank you for your efforts to voice your concerns and thoughts."

I was deceived by his sincere-sounding "thank you." Legal discovery (a pretrial process in which each party to a lawsuit can demand relevant information from the other) in 2025 revealed that, just nine minutes later, Director Beasley forwarded his response to me attached to the following email to the heads of HR and ODI:

Instead of promptly investigating the allegations of discrimination in my memo, he used 'ugh' to express his disgust and tried to suppress them, telling his Head of Scientific Services, his Head of HR, and his Head of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion that "we really need this to die down and go away" lest it excite a cancel mob of DEI supporters into calling for my head. "Glide out of here" was Director Beasley's way of saying "retire and go away."

HR Head Faye Giles also lived in the authoritarian administration's bubble whose occupants neither recognized complaints of discrimination nor feared the legal consequences of displaying retaliatory animus. At 11:15 PM on a Sunday night (!) she felt impelled to send me this unsolicited email:

The second paragraph includes this threat by the Head of HR (who is also an Assistant Director of the NRAO): "If you are unable and unwilling to accept that NRAO is committed to diversity and inclusion and that we stand firmly behind our practices and policies, perhaps you should find employment at an organization that aligns more closely to your values and beliefs." Her threat was followed by the condescending "If you are having trouble understanding the policies, I will have a conversation with your supervisor and ask him to attempt to help you understand them." and by a second threat "If this isn't useful, I will put a note in your HR file stating that you were provided the training and you refused to acknowledge the policy." Her email shut down further communication with the dismissive "I am not interested in continuing this discussion any further."

On August 28, 2020 Director Beasley sent me an email holding my UVa PhD student for ransom: "If you have not completed the [training] course by the end of the week I will instruct our student coordinator to immediately terminate your involvement in the program for this year, and reassign the student to another mentor." My student had nearly completed her PhD thesis working with me on a complex model for the cosmic evolution of star formation, and she had applied for several postdocs. By the time any new mentor could have taken over, her postdoctoral career would have been set back by a year. Although tenure protected me personally, I had to certify NRAO's compelled speech in order to pay her ransom.

I now repudiate my compelled speech, still deny that 2+2=5, and further assert my belief that NRAO's DEl policies are not just contradictory but also hypocritical.

4. My Public Opposition to
Discrimination at the NRAO

On September 14, 2022 the NRAO sent an email to all employees announcing that "Advance broader, equitable, inclusive participation in science and engineering" had been inserted into the NRAO's originally apolitical mission statement, and it linked to a public web page advertising some of NRAO'S prima facie discriminatory DEI programs. For example, the National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) "is a program led by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and Associated Universities Inc., (AUI) in partnership with the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), and a number of minority and majority universities to increase the numbers of students from underrepresented* and underserved groups and those otherwise overlooked by the traditional academic pipeline into STEM or STEM-related careers," where the footnote is: "* We define underrepresented groups to mean all of the following, but not limited to, people of color, women, sexual orientation and gender identity minorities, economically disadvantaged and first-generation college students.

That web page has since been scrubbed because it violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (see SFFA v Harvard), and the July 29, 2025 Department of Justice guidance for recipients of federal funding regarding unlawful discrimination. Note that AUl is a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt nonprofit corporation receiving federal financial assistance, so it is not allowed to discriminate by race or sex in any of its programs, even those partially funded by third parties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the prohibition against discrimination applies to the entire entity once any part of it receives federal aid.

Two of the links were still posted on the NRAO's web page as of August 2026 for the "Women in Engineering" engineering fellowship at https://public.nrao.edu/news/heising-simons-women-engineering-grant/ and at https://public.nrao.edu/news/women-in-engineering-fellowship-cdl/

The first linked page includes this paragraph:

"As part of NRAO's ongoing commitment to women in engineering, the new fellowship program will support outstanding postdoctoral women engineers whose research is related to the organization's mission. These fellows, who will be granted two-year appointments, will spend up to 75 percent of their time on self-directed research while also contributing to the Observatory's development and delivery of radio astronomy techniques, capabilities, or education and public outreach activities. The co-op program will provide six-month laboratory work experiences for graduate and undergraduate women engineering students, giving them the opportunity to contribute to and learn from ongoing research and engineering projects. The CDL team additionally hopes that at least some of the fellows and co-op students from the program will go on to permanent employment with NRAO."

No men need apply. "Inclusion" had expanded to the point of becoming exclusion; "equity" had elbowed out equality. NRAO administrators concluded without justification that they had the right to discriminate using various criteria of their choice. For example, in 2022 the NRAO advertised a learning program "Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum" paying each student a $100 per week stipend (still posted as of August 2026 at https://public.nrao.edu/news/nrao-receives-ardc-ham-radio-grant/) to "ВІРОС and LGBTQIA+" students and claimed it represented "the best practices in equity" despite excluding all straight non-Hispanic white (and possibly white-adjacent, such as Asian American) applicants, male or female. Diversity, equity, and inclusion yielding to the competing demands of multiple intersectional identity groups is inherently divisive; only equal rights for all can yield a stable unity.

Whenever the NRAO promotes its discriminatory programs, it never mentions what happens to their direct victims—human beings who are excluded from training opportunities, hiring, or promotions because they can't check the preferred tribal-identity boxes; conscientious objectors who refuse to lie or otherwise serve in the DEI army; and qualified minority applicants who want to be judged on the basis of their merits, not the color of their skin, and who don't want to be seen as "DEI hires" or suffer from "imposter syndrome."

Adding DEl into the NRAO's mission statement would justify bypassing the pure standards of merit still surviving in NRAO's Scientific Staff Policy Manual (e.g., "All appointments and promotions are based on qualifications and performance without regard to race, gender, age, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, or national origin and culture" and "Promotion and tenure imply selectivity and choice on behalf of the Observatory; they are awarded for scientific and professional merit only") and its HR Policy Manual. Those foundational standards of merit made the NRAO what it is today; weakening them weakens the NRAO as a whole. Having unsuccessfully used AUl's and NRAO's internal options to oppose institutional discrimination, I felt obliged to point out "the emperor has no clothes" by sending the following email to the whole NRAO scientific staff via the scistaff@nrao.edu listserv:

Most of my email simply reproduced public NRAO statements; only in the final paragraph did I express my opinions. Section 5 reports how my email triggered a string of attacks and fabrications led by the NRAO Director, most of which were clearly exposed only via legal discovery three years later.

5. Backlash Led by Director Beasley

t = 0: This timer was started when my email opposing systemic DEI discrimination at the NRAO was distributed to scistaff@nrao.edu at 3:33 PM on September 14, 2022.

t = 8 minutes: Director Beasley emailed his Assistant Directors (ADs) and set up a meeting to discuss my email. He also told them he had already asked IT to halt the scistaff@nrao.edu listserv.

t = 34 minutes: Director Beasley emailed AUI President Adam Cohen to say: "FYI. I guess the announcement today pushed him over the edge, and he's blurted his manifesto," where Director Beasley uses "manifesto" as a name for my confidential 2019 memo "Institutional Discrimination by Race and Sex at AUI/NRAO."

After only 34 minutes, Director Beasley's email had also proposed as one of two retaliatory responses to my email: "I make a request to the Board to remove his emeritus status permanently. Will see what the crew thinks, discuss with you tomorrow pm." That was the option he actually exercised at his first opportunity, during the scheduled AUl Board meeting nine days later. [Note that the EEOC frequently uses temporal proximity of the adverse action by the employer (e.g., termination) shortly after the employee's protected activity (e.g., my email opposing discrimination) to establish a causal link between the two. "Shortly after" is not precisely defined, but courts typically consider it to be within about two months.] Both Director Beasley's proposal at t = 34 minutes and the actual adverse action at the first opportunity at t = 9 days easily qualify as temporal proximity to establish that AUI revoked my Astronomer Emeritus status in retaliation for my protected email opposing employer discrimination.

t = 3 hours, 30 minutes: Director Beasley sent this angry email exclusively to the Heads of HR and ODI revealing his intention to organize and get D&I support from "every damn member of scistaff." Note his item 3: "I am going to suggest to a carefully selected few members of scistaff that they create a petition (outside observatory resources) to state their support for DI, then get every damn member of scistaff to sign it and present to the observatory to show their support. Every. Damn. One." Beasley's email ends with "I really thought I'd got Him (sic) out of the building without this blowing up. Stupid me." Clearly canceling a whistleblower outweighed addressing NRAO'S institutional discrimination or the civil rights of its job applicants and employees.

t = 24 hours, 33 minutes: Director Beasley reopened scistaff@nrao.edu to send the email below as part of his personal effort to publicly condemn me by discrediting both me and the contents of my t=0 email.

His first sentence characterized, without evidence, my use of the scistaff@nrao.edu email listserv/exploder as an "egregious abuse" of NRAO's computer policy. Not until t =14 days (and five days after my Astronomer Emeritus status had been revoked by the AUI Board of Trustees at his recommendation), did he seek evidence for that "egregious abuse" by emailing NRAO's Chief Information Officer with the requests "Please confirm that there is no scistaff exploder systems usage policy or similar usage policies applicable to this matter. If there are, could we get copies?" NRAO's CIO replied "There are no separate computer use policies for users vs Scistaff of computer systems/mailers. Also, Director Beasley's fishing expedition for "similar usage policies applicable to this matter" was apparently unsuccessful because no such policies were mentioned in the CIO's reply or produced by AUl during discovery. Baseless allegation first, failed search for supporting evidence later.

In addition, the first paragraph of Director Beasley's email to scistaff@nrao.edu fabricated the allegation that my t = 0 email "disparaged" other members of the NRAO staff. Later, in its September 29, 2023 Statement of Position to the EEOC, AUI doubled down and explicitly accused Dr. Condon's September 14, 2022 scistaff email of "disparaging the Assistant Director - Human Resources of AUI/NRAO," Faye Giles. In its 2026 response to Plaintiff's Interrogatory 5, AUI asserted: "Plaintiff's direct reference to Ms. Giles in connection with this false and baseless allegation implied—again to third parties outside AUI-that Ms. Giles herself engaged in 'career-ending retaliation' which was disparaging and defamatory." The terms "disparage" and "defame" have legal significance. To establish disparagement, AUI would have to show that my t = 0 email to scistaff@nrao.edu contains an objectively false statement of fact criticizing Ms. Giles. That email actually contains no statement at all about AD-HR Giles, whose name appears only as the author of her own email describing HR hiring policies. During legal discovery, AUI was unable to quote a single word in my t = 0 email that disparaged Ms. Giles. In fact, Director Beasley testified under oath during his October 3, 2025 deposition "I would agree that there is no negative or demeaning language in this email." I am responsible only for what I actually wrote in my email, and only AUl is responsible for what AUI alleged it implied.

Director Beasley's email also criticized my email for "expressing a set of negative highly personal opinions about the Observatory mission or policies." Specifically, in their final Statement of Position to the EEOC on September 29, 2023, AUI claimed "There is no factual basis for this defamatory allegation by Dr. Condon that NRAO engaged in 'career-ending retaliation' against members of its community for voicing discrimination concerns.'" AUl repeated this defamation claim during Discovery in its August 26, 2025 response to Plaintiff's Interrogatory 5. My email never alleged that "NRAO engaged in career-ending retaliation"; that quote was simply fabricated by AUI. My email actually said only "Beware, however, that questioning official discrimination at the NRAO may lead to career-ending retaliation." in order to warn untenured young astronomers about triggering the DEI cancellation mobs prevalent in 2022. Director Beasley was in no position to question my warning after he tried to silence my confidential 2019 anti-discrimination memo with the comment "Don't want to get to the point where our millennial staff and some fraction of our community are calling for his [Dr. Condon's] head." consistent with my warning about DEI cancellation mobs. At the time I sent my public email (September 14, 2022), I was too naïve to suspect that the NRAO would deliberately engage in career-ending retaliation against a member of its community for voicing discrimination concerns although, ironically, the NRAO and AUI did just that to me on September 23, 2022.

t = 24 hours, 49 minutes: NRAO Director Beasley sent an email to AUI President Cohen saying "I have seeded an effort in the scistaff to provide a widespread condemnation of Condon's actions/opinions, and demonstrate a firm D&l support." There were 140 employees with name@nrao.edu addresses on the scistaff@nrao.edu list, not all of whom agreed with Beasley, so getting "Every. Damn. One." to express their condemnation and state their firm D&l support only shows Director Beasley's intent to manufacture the appearance of condemnation and outrage by intimidating or deceiving them. Not only did he not get support from "Every. Damn. One." on the scientific staff, the "seeded" petition (see t = 2 days below) only supported D&I but did not condemn or even mention "Condon's actions/opinions."

t = 25 hours, 1 minute: AUI President Cohen's reply approved Director Beasley's t = 24 hours, 49 minutes email and indicated his firm belief that, even before any hearing took place, the AUI Board of Trustees would approve their proposed removal because Dr. Condon allegedly "violated the workplace conduct policy with his ad hominin (sic) attack on Faye." Verdict based on employer's ad hominem attack on me first, secret

kangaroo trial later.

By that point, NRAO Director Tony Beasley and the AUI President Adam Cohen had agreed to terminate and ostracize me, in violation of AUI’s own official non-retaliation policy. On October 13, 2016 the former AUI President, Ethan Schreier, had sent a letter to allemploy@nrao.edu containing the following very clear and strong non-retaliation promise:

"By this letter, I wish to give each one of you a personal and categoric assurance that you will never be subject to retaliation for reporting any concern that has the objective of helping this organization and its people."

That promise was never withdrawn, just ignored. Adam Cohen might be forgiven for not knowing about it because he did not join AUI until November 2017. On the other hand, Tony Beasley has been the NRAO Director since 2012.

t = 25 hours, 11 minutes: University of Virginia astronomer and DEI representative Edward Murphy sent this email to astro-alldept@virginia.edu just 38 minutes after NRAO Director Beasley sent his t =24 hours, 33 minutes email publicly describing my scistaff email as an “egregious use of the scistaff email/list exploder” to express “a set of negative highly-personal opinions about the Observatory mission or policies, or to disparage other members of the staff.”

Although my scistaff email did not involve any UVa internal email list/exploder, express any highly negative or factually incorrect personal opinions about the UVa mission or policies, or disparage any UVa staff members, DEI representatives of UVa Astronomy Department were the first to cancel me. A week before the AUI Board could meet and cancel me as an Astronomer Emeritus, the UVa Astronomy Department had already deleted me from their visiting faculty web page, where I had appeared for decades while teaching their radio astronomy course ASTR 5340 ten times, writing the textbook Essential Radio Astronomy based on that course, and supervising the PhD theses of two UVa astronomy students. Their "Dear Colleagues" letter above appears to echo the negative language and incorrect opinions in NRAO Director Beasley's t = 24 hours, 33 minutes email.

t = 2 days: On September 16, a respected NRAO tenured astronomer emailed this message seeded by Director Beasley to most of the junior scientific staff:

The first link in the email above still (as of June 28, 2026) shows the actual petition:

The first and third links in the petition go to NRAO DEI web pages that have since been taken down because they violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This “grass-roots effort” was a deception foisted on unsuspecting scientific staff members who were never informed of its astroturf roots in Director Beasley's “Every. Damn. One.” outburst at t = 3 hours, 30 minutes.

6. AUI's Secret "Trial"

t = 9 days: NRAO Director Tony Beasley and AUI President Adam Cohen used their first opportunity, the September 22-23, 2022 AUI Board of Trustees meeting, to recommend that the AUl Board revoke my Astronomer Emeritus appointment. In a special session mimicking a trial, Director Beasley acted as prosecutor and prepared a Powerpoint slide deck (AUI Production pages 782-7) to present his case against me. His main slide (AUI Production page 785) is shown below:

The second bullet point charged me with "continued abusive and disrespectful behavior towards AD/HR Giles." The third bullet point adds the charge of acting disrespectfully in meetings and adds "[He] identified her for special attention in his manifesto [Director Beasley's term for my 2019 confidential report to the Director]: I flatly deny these allegations. My only interactions with AD/HR Giles either personally or in meetings took place two years before I retired, as the final bullet point indicates. At the time, nobody suggested to me that I was disrespectful to AD/HR Giles. Nor did Director Beasley's October 13, 2020 letter to AUI recommending me for Emeritus status mention any disrespectful behavior. These anachronistic allegations seem to have been fabricated after my t = 0 email opposing institutional discrimination by the NRAO to use at the AUl Board trial on September 23, 2022, at which I couldn't defend myself because I had not even been notified.

Director Beasley's final allegation in the third bullet point concerns my September 14, 2022 email opposing systemic discrimination at the NRAO, claiming "[He] now released private emails and attempted to malign her to the scistaff." The only so-called "private emails" released to the scistaff was my question to her in her official capacity as AD/HR about NRAO hiring policies and her official response as the AD/HR supervising NRAO's hiring processes. My email did not contain any personal statements maligning her, so Director Beasley's allegation for the AUI Board is baseless. When Director Beasley was forced to testify about my September 14, 2022 scistaff email under oath during his October 3, 2025 deposition, he recanted by saying "I would agree that there is no negative or demeaning language in this email." (Beasley deposition page 131, lines 7-8).

Bullet point 4 uses the September 15, 2022 meeting of the ADs (Assistant Directors) serving at the pleasure of Director Beasley (see t = 8 minutes) to support his allegation that I had violated NRAO's workplace conduct policy and was creating a hostile work environment for the HR and ODI teams. In Bullet point 5, Director Beasley used criticism of my September 14, 2022 email by UVa's DEI representative (see t = 25 hours, 11 minutes) and his astroturfed NRAO petition (see t = 2 days) as additional justification for his recommendation to ostracize me from the NRAO. Neither of these is evidence of guilt. Claiming that others oppose Dr. Condon is just an astroturfed ad hominem appeal to social alignment (e.g., "it's not just me; everybody is against him") in order to bias the Board.

The AUI Board of Trustees is responsible for oversight of NRAO Director Beasley and for ensuring that the NRAO complies with its ethical and legal requirements. The Board convicted me after hearing only Director Beasley's fabricated accusations but neither my defense nor my allegations of systemic DEI discrimination by the NRAO. By not performing due diligence, the AUI Board failed to protect the NRAO from losing an expensive federal lawsuit for illegal retaliation and missed an opportunity to reconsider and correct NRAO's discriminatory policies and practices. I suspect that DEI ideological capture of the AUI Board by 2009 also contributed to its weak oversight related to discrimination.

7. Condon v. AUI
Case No. 3/24-cv/00063

To sue a private corporation or state university in federal court for illegal retaliation, the plaintiff must first file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within their 180-day filing deadline. The EEOC will investigate but rarely sues on behalf of an individual, so the most a plaintiff should expect is a "Notice of Right to Sue" from the EEOC after their investigation. At least during the Covid 19 epidemic, my EEOC investigation was little more than a one-year speed bump on the road to filing a retaliation complaint in federal court.

However, the EEOC does deserve credit for producing a number of on-line retaliation guidelines (e.g., Retaliation FAQs and a detailed Enforcement Guidance) that are helpful for non-lawyers and lawyers alike. According to the EEOC, federal employment discrimination laws depend on the willingness of employees and applicants to challenge discrimination without fear of punishment. Individual employees rely on laws prohibiting retaliation when they complain to an employer about an alleged equal employment opportunity (EEO) violation, provide information as witnesses in a company or agency investigation, or file a charge with the EEOC. Title VIl of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against their employees. "Retaliation" is a legal term of art for any "materially adverse action" taken by an employer against an employee who engaged in "protected activity" by opposing perceived discrimination or participating in an EEO process. Materially adverse action is defined as "any action that might deter a reasonable person from engaging in protected activity." The statutory purpose of the opposition clause is promoted by protecting all communications about potential EEO violations by the very officials most likely to discover, investigate, and report them; otherwise, there would be a disincentive for them to do so. It is often easier to show retaliation than discrimination. Retaliation can occur even if the plaintiff did not suffer discrimination or only opposed discrimination against other employees.

A plaintiff can prove retaliation by providing evidence that:

The plaintiff engaged in prior protected activity;
The employer took a materially adverse action; and

3. Retaliation caused the employer's action.

Federal lawsuits are carefully choreographed dances designed to bring relevant evidence into the open (interrogatories, admissions, production of documents, oral depositions, motions for dismissal or judgment, etc.). Many of the steps are intended to favor private settlements between plaintiffs and defendants, in order to avoid the court costs of actual jury trials.

Even the evidence to prove something simple as "The plaintiff engaged in prior protected activity" can be debated at length. AUI persistently claimed my September 14, 2022 email was not protected activity since I had retired 18 months before sending it to scistaff@nrao.edu. However, in Robinson v. Shell Oil Co, 519 U.S. 337 (1997) the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that all former employees count as employees protected from retaliation, so the judge ruled against AUl on their claim.

Protected opposition must also be "reasonable." AUl labeled my scistaff email "objectively unreasonable" because it "contained false and disparaging statements," was "disruptive," "went to parties outside the Observatory," and "caused institutional problems for AUl" so the organization "had to shut down the scistaff listserv entirely due to his email." The EEOC recognizes that In many cases, an employer will present a non-retaliatory reason for the challenged action" and defendant corporations often make pretextual excuses for their illegal actions. The "false and disparaging statements" alleged by Director Beasley in his email at t = 24 hours, 33 minutes did not actually appear in my scistaff email. The EEOC considers it is not "unreasonable" to complain of discrimination to third parties, and AUI chose on its own to shut down the scistaff listserv.

Termination almost always qualifies as a "materially adverse action."

To prove that retaliation caused the employer's action, the employee must show that it is "more likely than not" that retaliation has occurred. For claims against private-sector employers and state or local government employers, this causation standard requires only that "but for" a retaliatory motive the employer would not have taken the adverse action; it does not require that retaliation be the "sole cause" of the adverse action.

AUI documents conveniently provided both "but for" and "sole" causes. Page 6 of their September 29, 2023 Statement of Position to the EEOC admitted '... but for Dr. Condon's choice to publish disparaging allegations to third parties using the organization's email distribution list, his Emeritus status would not have been revoked." and "Dr. Condon cannot rebut that he sent false and disparaging allegations to third party partners of the organization using its own proprietary distribution list, and that such conduct alone was the cause of the organization's revocation of his Emeritus appointment." This was echoed in AUl's Affirmative Defense number 5 for the federal court: "Specifically, the sole reason for revoking Plaintiff's Emeritus status (access to systems and facilities) was his September 14, 2022 email to the entire scistaff@nrao.edu listserv. This listserv included not only active employees of AUI, but also former employees and third parties at outside institutions (such as the University of Virginia)."

Shifting justifications for employer's adverse actions are also evidence of pretext. For example, AUI's Affirmative Defense number 5 states "Specifically, the sole reason for revoking Plaintiff's Emeritus status (access to systems and facilities) was his September 14, 2022 email to the entire scistaff.nrao.edu listserv." This contradicts the actual charges presented to the AUI Board of Trustees such as "his continued abusive and disrespectful behavior towards AD/HR Giles" presented to the AUI Board by NRAO Director Beasley in order to justify revoking my emeritus status.

False and misleading statements by the employer are signs of pretext. AUI's Affirmative Defense number 3 argues "Plaintiff's claims are barred, because even if Plaintiff had been an employee of AUI as of September 14, 2022, which he was not, AUI provided multiple mechanisms for staff to bring good faith complaints of discrimination, which Plaintiff failed to utilize." There are indeed multiple mechanisms listed in NRAO and AUI documents. The NRAO's HR Policy Manual provides four ways to report discrimination: "The Observatory encourages reporting of all perceived incidents of discriminations, harassment, or retaliation, regardless of the offender’s identity or position. Individuals who believe that they have been the victim of such conduct should discuss their concerns with their immediate supervisor, any member of the management, the Site Human Resources Manager, or any Ombuds representative." Also, AUI contracted with EthicsPoint, Inc. to receive anonymous reports of discrimination. AUI's assertion "which Plaintiff failed to utilize" implies I utilized none of these, which is not true. I didn't utilize all of them because some are redundant; e.g., I didn't contact an Ombud's representative after having discussed my concerns with my immediate supervisor, members of management including the NRAO Director, and the Site Human Resources Manager. A report to EthicsPoint, Inc. could not remain anonymous because NRAO management could easily recognize that only I could and would have written it. I did discuss my concerns with the NRAO head of HR and the NRAO director, who promptly tried to suppress them.

On December 30, 2025 the Court Judge issued this ORDER denying AUl's motion for summary judgment to avoid a jury trial. The order includes three findings rebutting AUl's case:

"Title VIl protects Condon as a former employee,"
"The Court previously found Condon stated a prima facie claim for discrimination," and
"because Condon establishes AUl's reason for terminating him was pretext, the Court DENIES the motion."

As the February 17-19, 2026 trial date loomed, Defendant AUI made an FRCP Rule 68 "offer of judgment" to avoid the jury trial that it would likely lose. AUI's offer included:

"Defendant Associated Universities, Inc. (“AUI” or the “Defendant”), by counsel, pursuant to Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, hereby offers to allow judgment to be taken against it in favor of the Plaintiff James J. Condon’s (“Dr. Condon” or the “Plaintiff’)"

and

"Judgment shall be entered against AUl in the amount of (a)

One Hundred Thirty Thousand and 00/100 Dollars

($130,000.00) for any and all claims that could be asserted

by Plaintiff in this action including for compensatory,

punitive, or other damages, or back pay, front pay, or other

equitable relief, plus (b) Plaintiff's reasonable attorney's fees

to be determined by the court (acknowledging that Plaintiff's

attorneys' fees were represented by Plaintiff's counsel to

total approximately $50,000.00 as of January 2026);..."

Defendant AUl's "offer of judgment" against AUI is the civil analog of a criminal's "no contest" plea. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 68, it is also a threat. If the plaintiff rejects defendant's offer of judgment, wins judgment at trial, but is awarded less than the amount offered by the defendant, the plaintiff might have to pay the defendant's subsequent legal costs. My lawyer estimated the AUl's trial costs could be "north of $200,000." We decided to accept AUls offer of judgment (1) to avoid that huge financial risk and (2) because it included no nondisclosure agreement to cover up how AUl had retaliated. Plaintiff's attorney's fees were later determined to be $79,171.52, so the court ordered AUI to pay me $209,171.52 in March 2026.

8. Lessons Learned and Conclusions

Employers whose DEI programs discriminate by race or sex have silenced most opposition by threatening to punish employees who speak up. "At will" employees have little recourse and even tenured faculty are vulnerable to cancellation, so most end up losing. Fortunately, Title VIl of the 1964 Civil Rights Act promises broad protection against retaliation for both current and former employees who have opposed discrimination by their employers. As a retired Astronomer Emeritus in 2022, I felt a moral obligation to oppose NRAO's clearly discriminatory DEI programs, even though I personally was not one of their victims. I encourage those of you who can best afford it to speak up to support those who cannot.

When I wrote my September 14, 2022 email to scistaff@nrao.edu publicly opposing discrimination in the name of "diversity," I knew nothing about fighting back against being terminated and canceled by my employer, so I had to learn a lot by experience. In the spirit of "A wise man learns from experience, but a wiser man lets the snake bite the other fellow," I offer some of those lessons:

Learn about Title VIl protection against retaliation before publicly opposing discrimination; it can be a powerful tool but must be used correctly. (see the EEOC Retaliation FAQs and Enforcement Guidance). A number of organizations advise and support whistleblowers fighting DEl at schools and universities (e.g., the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the National Association of Scholars (NAS), the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF), the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Fair for All, the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER), Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA), American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), etc., but more parallel organizations are still needed to help employees at research institutes like the NRAO.
Save all relevant physical and electronic evidence at home before speaking up because your employer may take back your work computer and lock you out of your office on short notice.
Writing is much safer than speaking because it leaves a permanent record to defend when (not if) your employer misquotes you either accidentally or deliberately. Email is even better because it automatically records the exact time each email was sent, and your "all mail" folder saves everything you didn't deliberately delete, for easy sorting by date and time, recipient names, etc.
Don't directly oppose euphemisms like "diversity." Do explicitly oppose discrimination (e.g., say "l oppose race and sex discrimination in the name of diversity.") in order to qualify for legal protection against retaliation. When possible, let those who openly discriminate in the name of DEl convict themselves by quoting their own documents and reproducing their web pages.
Expect administrators to violate their own policies and promises in order to silence you and protect themselves. AUI ignored its long-standing non-retaliation promise. The NRAO offered multiple paths to report discrimination but tried to bar my retaliation claim because I used some, but not all, of them.
Expect to be attacked. In this case, the NRAO Director published fabricated allegations against me and tried to organize internal opposition condemning my opposition to systemic DEI discrimination by the NRAO.
Do not count on due diligence from those who should provide oversight. In my case, the AUI President and Board of Directors approved retaliation against me while having no personal knowledge of the situation, being aware of only what the NRAO Director told them. They should have required due process, questioned the Director's flawed prosecution, and not retaliated without ever hearing from the defendant.
Promptly retain a good lawyer if your employer does retaliate. You must first file a complaint with the EEOC, and their filing deadlines are strictly enforced. Large employers usually have legal liability insurance and can afford expensive "white shoe" law firms to fight you. Civil law is too tricky for amateurs—I hadn't even heard of FRCP Rule 68 until AUl invoked it. Lawyers have much more experience than you in critical processes such as deposing witnesses. A local lawyer also knows who the local judges are and how the local court is run. I found a sympathetic local lawyer by contacting FIRE. You need one who is on your side and whose judgment you can trust when he advises you not to do something you had wanted to do.
Appreciate those who remain loyal throughout your long ordeal. I do, for the unwavering support of my wife Sherry, my sympathetic fellow employees, friends, and colleagues (who must remain anonymous, but you know who you are), and the excellent work of my legal advisors Ben Beliles and Ellen Brandau Clark. I honor my late Chinese colleague Qi Feng Yin, whose stories of courage and sacrifice while suffering under Mao's Cultural Revolution shamed me against remaining silent about forced speech and discrimination in America, where an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.

Finally, was my legal victory worth the ordeal? I was terminated, but the NRAO Director was not. Because I was silenced for years, most NRAO employees still fear retaliation and they still self-censor about DEl discrimination. My main personal loss was the truncation of my research career, which I cannot restart at age 81 after more than three years of inactivity. Even so, I don't regret having opposed DEI discrimination when it was at its worst, and now I can no longer be silenced. Documenting and widely exposing illegal and unethical employer actions may be the best way for me to discourage future attempts at using DEI to justify compelled speech, viewpoint discrimination, discriminatory hiring and promotion, or retaliation against the legally protected speech of those who oppose discrimination.

Jim Condon