Survivor Case study: A decade of bullying in high education. The failure of anti-bullying structures

This article presents a case study of an immigrant female, a survivor of bullying in two different international academic institutions. The bullying started at her Ph.D. studies endured during her Postdoctoral studies. A long-term academic case of mobbing perpetrated with impunity...

Cases of bullying in high education are underreported because moral harassment is normalized, accepted and positively associated with higher standards of academic productivity and success. Based on the normalization of this behavior, victims do not dare to report their situation. They fear of dismissal, bad reference letters or authorship usurpation, as examples...

Targets can be persons in inferior positions but also newcomers, existing a potential bias towards immigrants and women, despite their ethnicity, gender or personal background what all the targets seem to share is the fact of commonly being ethical workers. So, academic bullies´ ultimate goal may withhold potential fear on being overshadowed by a more accomplished and ethical coworker (Gorlewski et al. 2014), obscuring their own weaknesses and incompetence by eradicating the target (Khoo 2010). Bullies can be employers at different levels at the academic institutional hierarchy. However, around 72% of the incidents involved harassers from higher ranks (Cassell 2011; Anonymous 2018) abusing of their power.

...Bullying generates economic consequences for targets, academic institutions, and public health systems. For example, around 30% of the victims experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (Wajngurt 2014), and about 70% of them leave the organization (Gravois 2006). Consequences on victims are also common, being removed from their positions, their academic lives terminated through retirement, but also suicide, mental breakdown, cardiovascular diseases due to the high level of stress have been registered (Westhues 2006). Bullies can display active, subtle or inactive conducts (Cassell 2011), from subtle isolated unconscious or conscious events, micro-aggressions, to flagrant intimidations (Farrington 2010). 

...The first years of bullying shows the profile of an inactive bully maybe empowered by his untouchable self-perception and the lack of effective anti-harassment policies within the European Union. The second period represent a case of academic mobbing still under investigation. Years of inactivity, incompressible delays, misinterpretation, manipulations, alteration of events, persons, blames, badmouthing, sabotages, authorship usurpation or gaslighting have been a common issues Dr. L suffered for a decade, jeopardizing her research and professionality. 

Competitive and success in academia is associated with publishing results, but the process behind a published article is never considered. Competition to get funds it is exceptionally high, and the supervision of ethics in research is low. Victims of academic mobbing who dare to fill a grievance would have to wait for eternal processes of investigations, where the target of the inquiry would be commonly the victim. Opacity and secrecy usually surround the processes of investigation of reported cases, affecting the mental health of the victims, jeopardizing job opportunities and retaliation.

...The process of hiring in academia is hugely dependent on “old-boy networking” based on good references. If falling into the wrong mentor hands, the only mechanism available for targets is being submissive and quiet. A more in-depth investigation of harassment in high educations is needed. Universities and colleges need to develop a better mechanism for the prevention of misconducts and implement mechanism to approach and reconduct this type of behaviors.

"Survivor Case study: A decade of bullying in high education. The failure of

anti-bullying structures" DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16970.82887