Greetings allies and members. This issue of our newsletter includes a selection of the latest research, media and activities related to the issue of academic bullying and harassment. We are gearing up for our upcoming conference “STEM the Bullying: Stakeholder Insights,” hosted by Wake Forest University in Charlotte, NC on March 29, 2024. There is still an opportunity to attend in person and, if attending in person isn’t feasible, we are offering virtual attendance as an exclusive option for APM members. For details on becoming a member of APM, please visit: https://paritymovement.org/
As always, stay tuned for more information on our latest activities and thank you for your interest in and support for Academic Parity. A special thank you to those of you who have kindly sent relevant research and articles our way!
“Halls of shame: Protecting yourself and others against academic bullying” (Target’s Tip, 2024). In this book, Drs Robert P. Dolan and Morteza Mahmoudi survey the landscape of, and answer common questions about, academic bullying in order to help readers recognize it when they see it, know what to do about it, and understand how to protect themselves and others.
“Four basic postulates concerning women and workplace bullying in the United States” (FIU Law Review, 2023, v17). In this essay, David C. Yamada expands upon Kerri Lynn Stone’s book “Panes of the Glass Ceiling,” exploring the pervasive issue of workplace bullying and its nuanced impact on women in professional settings and emphasizing the disproportionate targeting of women, the role of male perpetrators, the complexities surrounding female perpetrators, and the potential of anti-bullying laws.
“Stop scamming PhD graduate students” (Nature, Correspondence, December 2023). This correspondence piece by Drs Asadi and Bassiri-Gharb draw attention to an emergent “free labor scam ” being perpetrated by research faculty that uses the promise of a potential future employment to lure applicants into performing free research. The authors encourage graduate students and early career researchers to be wary of such “applications” and to seek advisors who are explicit about compensation and whose primary goals are not to exploit free labor but rather to educate, mentor and guide.
“MD Anderson tried – and failed – to resolve research credit dispute between two scientists, new documents show” (STAT, February 2024). In this article, Angus Chen details a recent legal dispute around scientific credit and alleged bullying at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. The dispute – between a junior scientist and one of the center’s most powerful researchers – centers on authorship, credit, and charges of bullying. The resulting lawsuit has shown a spotlight on endemic issues that academic/research institutions typically handle behind closed doors and has offered a glimpse of how the center has dealt with the conflict. Chen importantly reminds the reader that these disputes may have significant consequences on the public by stalling key medical discoveries, which were funded by public dollars.
“Dying to be heard?” (Inside Higher Education, January 2024). Workplace bullying researcher and academic administrator, Dr. Leah Hollis, addresses the recent tragic death of Antoinette Candia-Bailey, Vice President of Student Affairs at Lincoln University, who died by suicide. In emails sent before she died, she accused the president of Lincoln, a historically Black university, of bullying and harassment. In this piece, Hollis underscores the chronic problem of bullying in the academic workplace and the unique experiences of bullying and harassment faced by black women.
“Activist who led ouster of Harvard president linked to ‘scientific racism’ journal” (The Guardian, January 2024). In this piece, Jason Wilson details rightwing activist Christopher Rufo’s links to a self-styled “sociobiology magazine”, Aporia, that is focused on the supposed relationships between race, intelligence and criminality, and which experts have characterized as an outlet for scientific racism. Rufo played a key role in the ouster of former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who is Black.
“Silence is expensive: How workplace bullying is draining your bottom line” (Nasdaq, January 2024). This article by Kim Williams and Dr. Allessandria Polizzi details the negative consequences of bullying on companies’ financial health arguing that more than simply draining talent, toxic cultures are being etched into balance sheets through hefty legal settlements and reputational harm and asserting that addressing bullying isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s a smart financial investment.
We would like to draw your attention to the resources available on the End Workplace Abuse webpage. End Workplace Abuse is an organization that has recently sponsored a bill in Massachusetts called “The Workplace Psychological Safety Act” that has passed to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
See here for information about the Center for Institutional Courage’s 2024 Institutional Courage Research Grant. The goal of this grant program is to fund research on institutional courage and institutional betrayal, with a particular interest in funding previously unstudied institutions and/or marginalized populations.
Join us for the Academic Parity Movement’s 4th Annual Conference: “STEM the Bullying: Stakeholder Insights” in person or online on Friday, March 29 2024 at Wake Forest University. Registration details can be found here.
FemIDEAS and The 1752 Group announce the online event, “Silencing sexual misconduct in academia: Naming perpetrators, speaking out” to take place on Tuesday, March 5 from 13:00-15:00 CET. The event is the first part of North- South Feminist Dialogue 2024. Reserve tickets here.
Voices from the Community is a space where members of our community share their stories and experiences around academic bullying. Please let us know if you have an experience you would like to share by contacting our newsletter editor at avogelaar@paritymovement.org. Contributions should be 250 words or less.
“There is a general misconception that mobbing happens in a vacuum – especially in the academic world. To be honest, even I was kind of naive in the early-mid phase of my PhD that academic mobbing is some kind of an illusion, as academics are generally rational-thinking people. Only in the final phase of my PhD did I come to see that I was dealing with a full-blown (experienced) psychopathic supervisor at a (hypocritical) reputed university with bystanders, witnesses and ignoramuses.
On a few occasions I was heard and got little support from a couple of people at the university – even as I was repeatedly gaslighted by people at different levels. Because I was surrounded by my supervisor’s direct and indirect enablers, naysayers and avid fans of toxic positivity, I eventually had to isolate myself to get a clear picture of what happened and what was happening and to heal from the burnout.
Once my toxic supervisor figured out that I was getting some support at the university and that I was both aware of the toxic environment and would not tolerate his abuses of power, the abuse got worse and he and his enablers proudly took part in the mobbing and retaliation phase.The goal of the toxic supervisor was quite simple: cover up his very low self-worth and incompetence, maintain his facade and more importantly to break me down at all levels under the guise of “professional“ PhD supervision.
In the end, when it became a do-or-die situation, my only choice was to become a whistleblower by providing evidence of his abuses and making it clear to my supervisor and the university that I was up for fighting for not only my rights, but also for the rights of (vulnerable) PhD candidates. Even though the toxic supervisor threatened me with defamation lawsuits (a typical tactic against those who speak out), the university ultimately understood the cost of allowing/supporting mobbing and helped me finish my doctoral degree.
In hindsight, the whole story would have taken a different dimension if I, as a person of colour, would have named it – right from the start or at some point – as racism instead of just misconduct / mobbing. To be honest, it was covert and overt individual, interpersonal and institutional racism!”
Until the next issue, wishing you well,
Dr. Alison E. Vogelaar
Newsletter Editor