Powerless at the bottom of the pile...

Recently submitted post:

'I have just recently heard that my grievance is going to the committee stage... they have been unable to deny the grievance or push it aside... to dismiss it...

...the silence around my faculty is deafening... those with power avoid me... like I might contaminate them..

...someone today - let's call him - Andrew - we studied together for out MA - we struggled - but Andrew has been very successful in the university - I have hinted to him about the issues within the university... he is a radical... a critical thinker... passionate about education and learning... but today he couldn't look me in the eye... he has betrayed me... he has betrayed himself...

...as a while middle class woman I am learning through this experience what it is to be powerless at the bottom of the pile...

...I am learning that you have to keep picking yourself up... to have faith in what you believe in...

...because the lies about you are so juicy...

...the role of academics is to raise questions... to take risks... to argue...

...just as long as they don't do it about the academy...'

Aphra Behn

Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), status of new researchers and how not to complain about it - UK

Sometimes the management redistributes research to academics who are already established. Potential grants by new researchers are handed over to those established academics. The outcome is similar to snowballing: what is already a big ball takes everything in its path with the new researchers left struggling to find a way to stand on their own feets. - Posted by Anonymous to Bullying of Academics in Higher Education

So, off we went to the RAE web site to find out the following:

We clicked on 'Site Index' (bottom of web site), and then clicked on 'Complaints', followed by a click on 'Allegations concerning Higher Education institutions and the 2008 RAE', to read the following:

'Allegations of financial irregularity or impropriety, mismanagement, waste or fraud (public interest disclosures) about the higher education institutions (HEIs) that are funded by each of the higher education funding bodies (HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL) are handled by different procedures in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. Public interest disclosures concerning HEIs and the 2008 RAE will be handled through these same procedures.' Followed by a single line: 'The procedures to follow if you wish to make an allegation concerning an HEI and the 2008 RAE are described.'

So we clicked on 'procedures to follow', to read the following:

'Procedures for making allegations concerning higher education institutions and the 2008 RAE. The 2008 RAE is managed on behalf of the higher education funding bodies for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL) by a project team based at HEFCE.

Different procedures are in place for making and investigating allegations of financial irregularity or impropriety, mismanagement, waste or fraud (public interest disclosures) about the higher education institutions (HEIs) funded by each funding body. Disclosures concerning HEIs and the RAE will be handled through these same procedures. [So far this part is a repeat.]

If you wish to make such an allegation concerning an HEI and the 2008 RAE, either about its preparations for the RAE or its submissions, then you should follow the procedure that applies in the relevant country.

• For allegations concerning an English HEI funded by HEFCE, please follow HEFCE's procedure.
• For allegations concerning a Scottish HEI funded by SFC, please follow the procedure described in paragraph 23 of Guide for members of governing bodies of Scottish higher education institutions and good practice benchmarks' (SHEFC, HE/05/99)
• You can also refer to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
• For allegations concerning a Welsh HEI funded by HEFCW, please follow HEFCW's procedure
• For allegations concerning a Northern Ireland HEI funded by DEL, please follow DEL's procedure

The RAE team will handle allegations of perceived irregularity within RAE submissions that it receives from chairs or members of RAE panels during the assessment process through the RAE data verification procedures.'

Wow... In other words, there is no option for individual research active academics that have a problem with their RAE submission - or the lack of it/them - to take up the matter with the RAE - There is no such option! Full-stop.

The Betrayal of the Bystanders

Why do we feel so wronged by the people who believe a narcissist's lies about us? There are a number of reasons, but here is one of the biggest. It's because their credulity isn't innocent. If a stranger believes some outrageous lie about us, we aren't surprised, and we don't feel wronged by them. But if someone who knows us believes that same lie, we feel betrayed. Guess why? It's because they have betrayed us by believing that lie about us.

For example, if someone has known you for ten years, they see your track record of conduct for the last ten years. In other words, they have seen how you conduct yourself along this way of life we're bound upon. No, they don't see everything you've said and done. But they have seen a lot. They have seen you react to many various stimuli.

That track record of yours sketches your character in their eyes. This representation of what kind of person you are is based on your CONDUCT (your words and deeds), not on mere hearsay about you. So no one should be able to come along and tell them JUST ANYTHING about you.

For example, if you are a gentle person, in ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting gently to things that most others would react more harshly to. So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are violent. Likewise if you are honest. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting honestly to things that most others would hedge the truth about. So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are a liar.

Likewise if you are sensible. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting sensibly to things that most others would show poor judgment about. So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are crazy and imagining things.

To believe these things about you they have to unknow everything they know about you. That is, they have to unknow you. They have to revise history. They have to erase that track record of yours. And that track record is your life. They have to wipe it out. That takes your life. Which is why they call it "character assassination." Your whole life goes up in smoke. And a figment of the imagination is substituted for it...

The narcissit's lie is always ironic. For the narcissist is out to smear one of your outstanding GOOD QUALITIES with the semblance of one of his own VICES. So, the allegation is always preposterous. No one who knows you should be fooled by it. Because it isn't believable. They should know better. But they willfully don't. Because the lie is juicy.

And so, there's nothing like a narc attack to show you who your real friends are.

By Kathy Krajco from What Makes Narcissists Tick

When the bully is the boss

..."Good employers purge workplace bullies," Olson says. "Bad employers promote them." Targets (she prefers this term to "victims") tend to be "empathetic, just and fair people." The bully "will watch and seek the opportunity to pick on someone who they see as vulnerable and threatening," says Barb Becker of Elroy, who says she lost a higher education job because of bullying. "It's hard to recognize when it's happening," she says, because incidents may appear petty to others. Today she works with sexually violent people and "I find that less stressful."

The affected employee's first reaction, Olson says, is that "if you're getting targeted, you must have done something wrong." Advice to "grow a thicker skin" or "don't take things so seriously" are typical, but Namie says bullying is "way beyond a personality conflict - it's not involving personality at all," but a power imbalance that is repeated and consistent. He thinks "bullies know they're bullies, but have rationalized their actions."

Consider the boss who ignores or rolls his eyes at a worker's question, the co-worker who intimidates and isolates through body language, voice level or gossip. An employee may be treated differently than peers: excluded from department socializing, or his work accomplishments may be minimized...

"There's no case law for this, and in the vast majority of cases, there is no legal recourse," Namie says. Eleven states have introduced 25 bills to address bullying, and Joanna Thoms of Menasha, in litigation with Berbee Information Networks Corp. because of alleged bullying, is trying to get legislation introduced in Wisconsin.

Australia, Quebec and several European nations recognize "mobbing in the workplace" and for years have had laws in place to control it. "Until evil is named, it cannot be addressed," Marquette University ethicist Daniel Maguire has said, in support of a book about this topic. Olson says being a tough boss, or an employee who challenges authority, is different than bullying. Bullying, she says, is deliberate, hurtful and repeated. It is mistreatment "driven by the bully's desire to control the target."

"The stress, as a consequence, is like post-traumatic stress syndrome," says Olson. She and Namie also draw parallels to domestic violence, in which the target sometimes blames herself for the situation. "It falls on the abused to stop" the behavior," Namie says. There is denigration, a tendency to "blame them for their plight and force them to resolve it."

Stress can be compounded by the reactions of co-workers. "Other people around the target tend to keep their head down; we can't cope with the illogic of it, so there is this problem with people jumping on board" by ignoring, isolating or ganging up on the person being bullied, Olson says.

Sweden in 1994 enacted the first legislation to confront bullying. Quebec legislation, enacted 10 years later, has since resulted in the filing of 4,000 complaints - but "people are fairly discouraged," Namie says, because only one has made it through the legal labyrinth.

Olson believes there is a growing amount of bullying at work, in part because "hierarchy was more established in the past - you knew your place, you got and followed your orders." Having a more egalitarian society changes those dynamics, says Olson, who conducts workshops on bullying for college students, employment lawyers, labor unions and others.

"Bullying may be difficult to detect, but it is far more common than harassment or workplace violence and can be equally as devastating...

What are the solutions? "You need to support the target," Olson says, and "use mission statements to hold feet to the fire." Building a respectful workplace, she says, means modeling the behavior that you'd like to see in others. It can be less abrasive to inquire about "what's working around here?" and "how do we want to be treated?" instead of pointing fingers of blame to improve the work environment.

...A challenge often is "to break the denial about the source of their problem," Namie says. There is a tendency to fear a problem executive, or people in power "have liked them so long" that dismissal seems preposterous. "Friendships and relationships trump productivity and fairness," he says.

"There is a huge joint interest in solving this problem," Olson says, who notes that "most employees start a job enthusiastic, but we suck the life out of people instead of nourishing" them.

Bullying rife in RAE run-up - UK

The research assessment exercise is a major cause of the bullying taking place at universities, a survey on bullying by The Times Higher suggests. One in ten university staff who responded to the survey said the RAE was directly linked to bullying in the academic workplace, an analysis of the written feedback in the survey has revealed.

Many respondents alluded to big academic names or "RAE stars" brought in to boost the finances of departments and universities. Such stars seemed to be allowed to operate outside normal workplace rules, particularly when they brought large research grants with them, the survey found.

"The university is well aware of his behaviour but because he brings in significant grant income, will not act," one respondent said of a bullying academic.

Petra Boynton, the University College London psychologist who led the research, said that the data illustrated how far academics feel the RAE is to blame for bullying in higher education. "Respondents said managers had threatened their careers by not returning them in the RAE or making them go in directions they didn't want to, so they did badly in the exercise. A lot of it's about bad management and people in senior positions who are under a lot of pressure."

Nearly 700 academics said that they had been bullied in some way, an online survey carried out by The Times Higher in June and July found. The bullying ranged from being shouted and sworn at in front of others to having promotion blocked and being isolated from colleagues. Analysis of the written responses found that the RAE is perceived as putting increased pressure on university managers, which can lead to aggressive behaviour that filters down to departments.

Sue Harrington, a researcher on workplace bullying at the School of Psychology at Leicester University, said: "High pressure, high targets and competitive environments can lead to organisational bullying. Managers become much more task focused and autocratic and use behaviours that people perceive as bullying."

Many universities are more "aggressively focused" and competitive in the run-up to the 2008 RAE than during previous exercises, said Gillian Howie, a member of the Association of University Teachers' national executive. She said: "There's an explicit bullying that comes with aggressive management and then an implicit effect where people are responding to the environment and are feeling the pressure of it."

The AUT is pushing for universities to implement and publicise the equality code of practice for academics outlined in the funding councils' guidelines to universities on submissions. The final assessment criteria for the 2008 RAE are due to be published in January 2006.

'I was told I was a 1* and a no-counter...and made to feel worthless'

The upcoming research assessment exercise has exacerbated departmental pressures in one Russell Group university. "There is a very insidious vapour that sits on top of the department and limits your ability to act freely as an academic," said Alex (not her real name).

To boost the department's performance, the dean outlined a number of areas in which academics must conduct their research or face being ostracised. Alex was strongly advised to drop her research, which had been funded by smaller grants, because it did not fit comfortably with the school's themes. "I was told in no uncertain terms that if it doesn't count towards the RAE, then don't bother with these little lots of money." She was also, she says, "encouraged" to publish in big-name journals such as The Lancet.

Academics waste precious time trying to recalibrate work to fit the school's chosen areas of research so it appears to be valuable, she says. Alex has been passed over for promotion. "It feels as if I'm being marginalised in my department - like a child in a playground who is not wearing the right clothes."

Her university recently held a mock RAE to gauge departmental standards but it turned into an individualised exercise and led to name-calling. "I was told I was a 1* and a no-counter. It lowers your self-esteem and you are made to feel worthless." The university is trying to drag up its overall RAE score and "walking on bodies to get there", Alex says. Star researchers who were parachuted in to boost the overall RAE score are also problematic.

"They're brought in because of their research income but they do nothing to invest in future researchers. Sometimes they are so worked up and stressed that their behaviour is reprehensible. There's a hierarchy because of the RAE - counters, no-counters and stars and the power that goes with them. "Some of us are looking to leave and they make it feel like good riddance."

Published: 21 October 2005, Times Higher Education Supplement

One and a half years ago, one and a half years later...

Court of Appeal rules on meaning of qualifying disclosure - UK

The Court of Appeal has overturned part of the much criticised decision in Kraus v. Penna and has decided that it is enough for an employee reasonably to believe that a criminal offence or legal obligation exists when making a "qualifying disclosure" under the whistleblowing legislation.

Under the whistleblowing provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996, a qualifying disclosure is one which "in the reasonable belief of the person making the disclosure, tends to show", amongst other things, that a criminal offence has been committed or that a legal obligation has not been complied with.

In Kraus v. Penna, the Employment Appeals Tribunal held that, in a case where a whistleblower relies on a reasonable belief that the disclosure tends to show that a legal obligation has not been complied with, protection is lost if, as a matter of law, there is no legal obligation. The fact that the whistleblower reasonably believed the legal obligation existed did not matter.

The Court of Appeal has now overturned this point, stating that there is nothing in the whistleblowing provisions which requires the whistleblower to be correct in his reasonable belief that a criminal offence had been committed or that a legal obligation existed. Wall LJ stated that "the fact that (the whistleblower) may be wrong is not relevant, provided that his belief is reasonable and the disclosure to his employer is made in good faith".

This is clearly a sensible decision. As the Court of Appeal pointed out, there are sound policy reasons for this interpretation of the legislation as the purpose of the statute is to "encourage responsible whistleblowing". It would not be reasonable to expect every potential whistleblower to have a "detailed knowledge of the criminal law sufficient to enable them to determine whether or not the particular facts which they reasonably believe to be true are capable, as a matter of law, of constituting a particular criminal offence". The interpretation previously given had the potential to deter potential whistleblowers as they could lose protection from dismissal/detrimental treatment if it turned out that they were wrong to believe, however reasonably they held that belief, that a legal obligation existed or that a criminal offence had been committed.

From: Work Place Law

Research Assessment Exercise - UK

Anonymous post to this blog:

'Let the RESEARCH ASSESSMENT EXCERCISE account for scientific misconduct. Top UK universities are getting away with data manipulation and with double counting.'

Behind every fascist and incompetent academic manager there is a serial bully...

Bosses Who Bully

If you think bullies only lurk in playgrounds, think again. Adult bullies are ubiquitous, cropping up as supervisors in organizations around the globe. In laboratories and other scientific settings, the inherent imbalance of power between trainees and their supervisors can set the stage for workplace bullying. "Bullying thrives in situations where the perpetrators are both powerful and frightening, and those around them too scared to challenge," writes physician and career counselor Anita Houghton, M.D., in BMJ Careers.

There are other reasons why science is a fertile breeding ground for bullies. "People in certain fields rise up the managerial chain by being experts," says sociologist Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., author of A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses: Dealing with Bullies, Idiots, Back-Stabbers, and other Managers from Hell (American Management Association, 2006). "Science is one of those fields. You can have supervisors who are brilliant in their work as scientists but who don't necessarily have people skills. They may not have management training or an understanding of how to work with employees. Also, in scientific laboratories, there isn't always a human resources person to go to, and there may be few opportunities for oversight. If someone complains, there are likely to be repercussions, and the person can be blacklisted."

If you're a science trainee whose boss is a bully, the challenges and risks, to both your professional and your personal life, are formidable, and your options are usually limited. But if you recognize this phenomenon, there are ways to minimize its adverse effects.

Barbara's experience

Barbara,* currently a postdoc, acquired what she now calls "emotional scars" while earning her doctoral degree. Even though the experiences occurred several years ago, she still can't put them out of her mind. She was a Ph.D. student in biology working in a laboratory at a European university when she was bullied by her bosses.

"It felt like the slave trade," she says. Her advisor, one of two co-directors in the lab, was enraged when he learned that Barbara had moved in with her boyfriend. "If you are planning to have children," he said, "I should know it so you can leave the lab now." Barbara had no such plans--but when one of her labmates became pregnant, the advisor started assigning the woman less and less work, isolating her from her peers. "You became pregnant, and that's the last thing you do in my lab," her advisor told her. The woman resigned.

While Barbara was writing her dissertation, the other co-director told her he needed help running some experiments for a project that would be published in a top-tier journal. When she told him that she was already stretched thin finishing her doctoral work and applying for postdocs, he got angry. He demanded that she think about it overnight and return to his office the next day. Barbara returned and told him that she simply didn't have the time. "You don't understand, Barbara," he said. "I'm not making you an offer; I'm telling you that you are going to do these experiments." Because she was close to finishing her degree and didn't want it derailed, she felt as though she had no choice. She took on the additional work.

Her advisor also asked her to share authorship of her papers with people who had nothing to do with the work. When she questioned the dubious ethics, he made it clear that she wasn't in a position to negotiate. "This is my lab, Barbara; if you don't like my rules, you can go straight to the door," her advisor told her, not for the first time. Other students suffered similar indignities. "Both of them were controlling, possessive, and had no problems threatening students to get what they wanted," Barbara says.

People like Barbara--on the first rung of their career ladders--often have no choice other than to "grin and bear it" when faced with a bully in the workplace, says Scott, who often consults on workplace relationships…

A study in the British Medical Journal estimates that workplace bullying affects up to 50% of the workforce in the United Kingdom at some time in their working lives, with annual prevalence rates of 38%. Statistics from a workplace bullying advice line suggest that 90% of cases in the U.K. involve a manager bullying a subordinate; 8% involve peer-to-peer bullying; and in 2% of cases, subordinate(s) bully managers. Perpetrators are equally likely to be male or female, but targets are more likely to be female.

A study published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal focused on doctors who work in a research environment. The investigators surveyed 259 doctors who had registered on Doctors.net.uk--the largest Web site for doctors in Europe--and found that more than half reported having been bullied in the form of threats to their professional status and personal standing.

Namie estimates that nearly three out of four bullied individuals ultimately lose their position, which suggests that perpetrators aren't often held accountable for their actions. In many cases, victims are blamed; other times, the situation is written off as a personality conflict between two or more people…

Bullies exist because the workplace culture supports them. "The incentives to challenge bullying behavior are far outweighed by the incentives to keep your head down," writes Houghton. "This creates an aggressive culture that continues because it selects people who can survive in it--people who are likely to be thick-skinned and aggressive themselves. These people in turn provide role models for the up-and-coming generation."

From: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org - 22 September 2006

Irene S. Levine is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in many of America's leading newspapers and magazines. Trained as a psychologist, she works part-time as a research scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York, and she holds a faculty appointment as a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. She resides in Chappaqua, New York.

Faculty Perspective: Malfeasance in academe and its danger for democracy

'America faces a crisis over the lack of ethics and morality among elected officials, police, business executives and religious leaders. Academics so far are largely shielded from the public "tar brush" but they know about similar woes in their own profession, noted for example in the book "Leasing the Ivory Tower" by L. C. Soley. Conspicuous eruptions of academic administrative crime and corruption were reported in recent news stories by NPR and CNN regarding the University of California's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory. Those reporting the story observed that American universities were as deviant as other institutions in American society. Notice that the "Persons of the Year" recognized by Time magazine were the three whistleblowers who exposed government malfeasance and business corruption.

The pervasiveness of this societal ill is being revealed through the ongoing sexual abuse scandal at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The academy administration had successfully conducted the usual cover-ups and had intimidated the victims. Fortunately, outside oversight in the form of the secretary of the Air Force is now finally exposing the fraud.

At U-M, many faculty and staff know of malfeasant acts inflicted by employees within the University's administration. Instances of malfeasance such as theft of intellectual property, plagiarism, conversion of resources, penalization for efforts to maintain academic standards, or bringing attention to creation of false information and documentation have been covered up by the administration. Investigation reveals that these cover-ups occur regularly, they are successful, and they have become a staple of the administrative underworld. U-M is a significant case study because of its large number of influential alumni and huge administrative appetite for the overhead from federal funding.

Policy statements do exist ostensibly for faculty and staff to protest and rectify malfeasant disregard for the public trust, but such statements are no better than practice and oversight procedures that are not implemented. In practice University administrations are no more capable of policing themselves than is Wall Street. Grievance procedures are whitewashes constructed to shield administrative perpetrators and to deflect federal investigations that could be conducted by the Office of Research Integrity at educational institutions that receive federal funding. Malfeasance could lead to suspension of federal funding with its vital overhead. For whistleblowers there is no protection of due process in these internal proceedings. They are exposed to retaliation, retribution, harassment, intimidation and surveillance by the university administration in defense of the indirect cost revenue stream. In the late 1980s, the Financial Affairs Committee of the Senate Assembly made repeated requests to the central administration for an accounting of indirect cost funds without result...

In my own case, I developed a proposal for funding an undergraduate educational initiative. The idea along with most of the text was plagiarized by an administrator and submitted to the foundation that I had identified. The plan was funded, but I was excluded from its implementation. An internal U-M investigation orchestrated by the Office of the Vice President of Research purported that the two documents were similar (they were identical except for some omissions of what I wrote), but that such was not of consequence to the U-M administration...

Because I protested this immoral behavior, I received retaliations including reduced salary, removal from traditional teaching duties, loss of teaching assistants and graders, removal from student advisory positions, assignment of excessive work loads, loss of laboratory equipment and space, and insulting treatment by the administration.

I brought a lawsuit that is still pending, and the U-M administration has now proposed its settlement offering me money for early retirement if I sign a gag order. I reject this payment to hide the abiding malfeasance of my own alma mater. The general counsel now asks me to propose a settlement that mimics my original proposal. This has been done, with no result as yet. Meanwhile, I have developed some serious stress-induced medical problems. As part of a campaign of unrelenting retaliation, U-M officials refuse to grant me medical leave despite requests from my physician for necessary diagnosis and treatment.

The academic community is fast becoming another societal institution steeped in moral or ethical decline. The situation must be addressed, and integrity be restored with transparent oversight. The abuse and intimidation against faculty and staff whistleblowers must be terminated. There is historical similarity between Academe and Church. Both were long regarded the seed bank of society's moral values. Now the legal experience gained in the archdiocese scandals may loom over university cover-ups. Both Church and university are averse to negative publicity and public pressure. Public exposure of malfeasance is the effective corrective mechanism. Hence herculean efforts may be required. A Freedom of Information Act request filed in federal court asking for a listing of all lawsuits, settlements, gag orders and the details of the employment of all outside legal counsel seems a good way to start...'

From: The University Record Online - University of Michigan, April 2003
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A relatively old story but many of the issues raised concern many academics today.