The bureaucratized university plays havoc with bright, creative minds. In July of 2006, Diana Winstanley, a 45-year-old professor in the School of Human Resource Management at Kingston University, hanged herself. As at many other universities, a significant number of faculty have been on leave in recent years for occupational stress.American-born Howard Fredrics, a senior lecturer in music at Kingston until his formal dismissal in 2006, has published a well-documented multi-media website on the conflict that led to his ouster and his efforts since then for redress, and on similar conflicts involving other faculty at Kingston. The website is also useful for its critique of British employment law, in particular the easily abused "some other substantial reason" for an employee's dismissal. Of particular interest in Fredrics's own case is the ganging up of eleven colleagues and their filing a collective grievance against him, apparently with the administration's encouragement, following his own formal complaint of administrative ill-treatment.
The mire of legal twists and turns since then is deep, involving charges of witness intimidation, anti-Semitism, and much else.
From: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobnews06.htm#KIN
Howard needs our support and our solidarity. He is facing difficulties that show bias against him by the legal system. His health is suffering, his career more than likely ruined, and the financial cost has been huge.
Please write emails of complaint and support for Howard to Kingston University Press Office: press@kingston.ac.uk
Howard's supportive local MP is Vincent Cable:
Constituency Office:
2a Lion Road, Twickenham TW1 4JQ, England
Phone: 020 8892 0215, 020 8892 0218
Vincent Cable should be encouraged to take the matter further.
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Do nothing and watch from the sidelines as an academic career and life is ruined, or do something however small, for if we all do it then it may have some impact. Please act today.
2 comments:
I would urge any MP who is approached by an academic who believes that they are being bullied to offer support to the academic.
Some of us who use grievance procedures to try to address the bullying believe that the grievance procedure is also used as a weapon of bullying against us. That is what it has felt like to me.
When we go to our union it feels like they are also colluding with the bullies. That's what it feels like to me.
Just think what that must be like....
So we need your support.
Aphra Behn
Having had to issue a formal complaint against several members of staff at the University of Ulster for bullying and harassment I had accusations of bullying levelled against me for highlight the clear inefficiences and inadequacies in the delivery of a final year module on my blog.
I have been instructed by the University that if I do not remove the comments then I will be suspended.
Does this constitute a breach of freedom of expression? I think so!!
Check out my blog:
http://jay-bsccomputerscience.blogspot.com/
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