Academic Parity Newsletter
January & February 2026
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 hope you are finding moments of peace and connection in this disorienting time. We are so honored to be doing this important work alongside you all. As the literature below indicates, we continue to make great progress in bringing attention not only to the fact of bullying and harassment in higher education, but also to the manifold consequences and interventions. We are very excited to announce that we will be hosting the annual APM conference this year on June 15 in Bern, Switzerland (See here for more details).
As always, stay tuned for more information on our latest activities and thank you for your interest in and support for Academic Parity. Thank you to those of you who have kindly sent relevant research and materials our way!
In the Research and Literature
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Erasing critical scholarship: How attacks on academic freedom undermine democracy (Organization, February 2026). In this article, Susanne Täuber examines the emerging pattern of academic freedom being granted to and withheld from scholars at the discretion of university managers, with attacks on academic freedom targeting mainly critical scholarship in the European academic context. Her case studies reveal that academics who challenge, criticize and debate power differentials and inequality practices are increasingly being silenced, deprived of their livelihoods and intellectually erased from public discourse.
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Empowering bystanders: A psychological and institutional model for intervention in academic bullying (Frontiers in Psychology, January 2026) ). This article by Debanjan Borthakur et al. advances the literature in bullying research by examining the role of bystanders as critical actors in either perpetuating or disrupting harmful behaviors and introducing a conceptual model of bystander intervention
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Unpacking social safety: new politics of equality work at Dutch universities (Bristol University Press, December 2025). This article, by Franka Wegkamp and Dounia Bourabain, examines whether and how the “social safety” policy response to the social justice movements of the past decade allows for true anti-racist feminist praxis to achieve equality in academia in the Dutch academic setting
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The physiology of bullying: How bullying hijacks the nervous system and what leaders must do (Life Sized Publishing, December 2025). In this book, Liza K. Collins exposes the hidden toll workplace harm takes on both people and organizations. Drawing on neuroscience, trauma research, and lived experience, the book reveals how chronic stress reshapes the brain, weakens the body, and silently corrodes culture.
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Broken Record: Gendered Abuse in Higher Education (SUNY Press, December 2025). This edited volume by Mary K. Holland et al. brings together narratives of gendered abuse in academia from across disciplines, at every career stage, around the United States and the world. Its contributors describe their harrowing experiences of bullying, mobbing, harassment, and assault–in a range of institutional spaces, including classrooms, offices, library stacks, conferences, interviews, and out on field research–and also theorize its causes and proffer strategies for resistance and healing
In the News and Media
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Higher ed’s bullying problem (The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 2026). In this piece, Adrienne Lu provides an extensive overview of the problem of, and debates surrounding, bullying in higher education. The piece highlights the APM and several members’ research
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Sexual misconduct at Oxford ‘fuelled by emeritus immunity’ (The Times Higher Education, February, 2026). In this piece, Juliette Rowsell, discusses the results of a recent University and College Union (UK) report that found that complex governance arrangements and lack of regulation of emeritus titles at the University of Oxford put female faculty and staff at risk
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‘We’ve been in silence for 12 years’: Women released from former UPEI president’s NDAs (CBC News, January 2026). This piece by Marilee Devries discusses the abuses of NDAs in the specific context of two former staff members at the University of Prince Edward Island who were recently released from their NDAs as a part of a reconciliation process by university administration. One of the women noted: “We’re not interested in talking about the details of what occurred that led to us having an NDA […] we just don’t think that’s the important part of the conversation. The important conversation is what happened afterwards.”
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Why are grievances on the rise in UK universities? (The Times Higher Education, January 2026). This piece by Jack Grove explores the various explanations for a recent rise in the filing of formal complaints in UK universities.
This and That
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This year’s APM conference, STEM the Bullying: The European Dialogue, will take place in Bern Switzerland on Monday, June 15, 2026. See here for more details.
Voices from the Community
Voices from the Community section is a space where members of our community share their stories and experiences of 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 are anonymized but not fact-checked and should be 300 words or less.
I am writing anonymously because what happened illustrates a troubling dynamic in higher education: when the mechanisms designed to protect students against bullying are weaponized to remove faculty. I have worked in higher education as a ceramics and sculpture faculty member since 1999. I have taught at multiple institutions, earned advanced professional credentials, and have been formally recommended for tenure. Like many part-time faculty, I accepted instability and low pay. What I did not anticipate was how a complaint process could be leveraged to eliminate employment.
After COVID, I began teaching at a local community college with what seemed like a promising future. I worked under a dean who was supportive. When he retired, leadership changed. The interim administration signaled a desire to “shake things up.” Soon after, I found myself navigating a disciplinary process triggered by a single student complaint. The complaint centered on an allegedly misfired ceramic piece, a routine occurrence in the studio. Nevertheless, this incident escalated, and I watched as a case was built against me that strung together unrelated past statements and events that apparently culminated in my “intentional” misfiring of a ceramic pot. The most concerning aspect was not the complaint, but the process that followed. Rather than a formal process or fair assessment, my course assignments simply began to disappear. Class caps were adjusted to ensure sections would not run. Courses I had historically taught were reassigned without notification. I learned about all of this indirectly.
Technically, I was never terminated; I remain on the faculty in name only because of the Union Contract. However, practically, I was “erased”. This union contract was blatantly violated with no recourse. What makes this case more troubling is the broader context. The complaint process, intended to protect students from harm, became a tool that required little evidentiary threshold. Due process becomes secondary to institutional insulation. Upward bullying is rarely named in academia. We often speak about protecting students, but speak far less about the vulnerability of adjunct faculty. A single allegation, even one grounded in something as ordinary as a studio mishap, can be amplified. The cost is not merely financial, though in my case, I lost half my income. The deeper cost is more than professional; in the blink of an eye, I lost the years I put into building a program. When complaint systems lack balance, procedure, and transparency, they can be weaponized for personal retribution. It is time to examine not only how we protect students, but also how those protections might be exploited to sidestep fairness, academic freedom, professional dignity, and the right to be a unique individual artist and teacher.
Until the next issue, wishing you well,
Dr. Alison E. Vogelaar
Newsletter Editor