Resisting Unfair Dismissal

You've just been dismissed - unfairly. Perhaps it was because you spoke out about problems at work. Perhaps it was discrimination. Perhaps you were the target of envious co-workers. Perhaps the boss just didn't like you. What should you do? If you go to court, you may receive some compensation, but you probably won't get your job back. Even if you do, it can be pretty unpleasant if you have the same boss. If you obtain compensation, it usually won't be very much. There's another option: campaigning. To understand how it works, it helps to examine the dynamics of public indignation. Think of a really serious injustice, such as torture, genocide or shooting of peaceful protesters. Many people feel indignant about such actions.

Perpetrators typically use five methods to reduce the indignation. (1) Cover-up: the action is hidden. Torture is almost always carried out in secrecy. (2) Devaluation of the victim: if the victim is thought to be dangerous, inferior or worthless, then what's done to them doesn't seem so bad. That's why enemies are labelled as ruthless, subhuman and terrorists. (3) Reinterpretation: a different explanation is given for the action, making it seem more acceptable, or blaming someone else. The protesters might be called dangerous and threatening. Or shooting them might be claimed to be an accident, or the action of "rogue" elements. (4) Official channels: experts, formal inquiries or courts are used to give a stamp of approval to what happened. Justice appears to be done, but actually isn't. For example, an inquiry into prison abuse might take months or years and lead to minor penalties against a few scapegoats. Meanwhile, public anger dies down and the system remains in place. (5) Intimidation and bribery: victims and witnesses are threatened or given incentives to keep quiet and not oppose what happened. Witnesses to a brutal assault might be threatened that they could be next.

Powerful groups regularly use these five techniques to reduce indignation. The Nazis used them in its genocide of the Jews. The US government used them during the Vietnam war. The Indonesian government used them to manage responses to massacres in East Timor. Unfair dismissal is not nearly as drastic as genocide, but the dynamics of indignation are quite similar. Employers regularly use these same five methods in unfair dismissal.

(1) Cover-up. The person dismissed knows what happened, but others are kept in the dark. No announcement may be made. Settlements often involve a silencing clause. When the dismissal is public, often the reasons are covered up. Files may be destroyed.
(2) Devaluation. The person dismissed is slandered as a poor performer, difficult personality or slacker. Rumours may be spread alleging theft, bullying or unsavoury sexual behaviour.
(3) Reinterpretation. The dismissal is said to be due to restructuring, redeployments, financial difficulties or some other pretext. Alternatively, the dismissal may be justified as due to the victim's failures.
(4) Official channels. Dismissed workers are advised to go to tribunals, ombudsmen, courts, or any of a host of other agencies that supposedly offer justice. Seldom do these address the source of injustice in the workplace.
(5) Intimidation and bribery. Workers may be reluctant to oppose a dismissal because they will receive a poor reference or be sued for defamation. Co-workers may support management in the hope of retaining their own jobs, a form of implicit bribery.

Increasing indignation

To increase indignation from unfair dismissal, you need to challenge the five methods. Here's the general approach. (1) Expose what happened. (2) Validate the person, by showing their good performance, loyalty, honesty and other positive traits. (3) Interpret the dismissal as unfair, and counter the official explanations. (4) Either avoid official channels or use them as tools in exposing the unfairness. (5) Refuse to be intimidated or bribed, and expose intimidation and bribery.

It's extremely helpful to write a short summary about what happened, giving the facts and revealing the injustice. You need to obtain documents that show what happened, such as records about your good performance or documents revealing prejudice. Get help from sympathisers to make your summary clear to outsiders and absolutely accurate. Avoid speculation and avoid abuse or attacks. Just give the facts and let readers come to their own conclusions.

When you've checked everything many times, you're ready to show the summary to others who might be sympathetic. Start small and build up. Show it to some co-workers or friends. Revise the summary if necessary. Then gradually show it to more people. You could email it to other workers. Or you could produce a leaflet and stand outside the workplace distributing it. Send it to the employer's clients.

The next step up is publicity to the wider community. Sometimes the media will be interested. There are also newsletters and email lists. You might set up a website. The key is to expose the injustice to people who will be receptive.

The employer may try to discredit you, so you need to be prepared. Have documents showing your good performance. Have others vouch for you and stand up for you. You also need to behave in an exemplary fashion. If you shout, swear, abuse others, don't do your work or dress poorly, it will be easier for others to blame you for your misfortune. You need to behave as if you're the best worker on earth. Of course it's hard and unfair, and you're under incredible stress. Do as well as you can, and trust that others will see the unfairness in the way you're treated.

In your conversations, your written summary and other communications, emphasise what's unfair about the dismissal. If you were sacked for speaking out, show double standards: point to other workers with the same performance, who didn't speak out and weren't sacked. If you were dismissed in violation of the rules, point that out.

Rather than rushing to tribunals or courts for vindication, use them only with care. Check out what happened to others, similar to you, who used the same tribunal or court. Find out how much effort and money is required, and estimate your chance of success. Find out the likely delay and what you're likely to receive at the end. Remember that if a court rules against you, it will make the dismissal seem more legitimate, even if it was unfair in practice.

Sometimes you can use official channels as part of your campaign. You can ask supporters to attend hearings, or circulate email updates about proceedings. You can post your submissions on a website. Alternatively, you can avoid official channels altogether. Often that's the best option.

If you are threatened, you need to make a careful decision: proceed or acquiesce. If you decide to proceed, try to collect evidence of threats, attacks and bribes. Expose these too.

Mobilise support

Your campaign will be much more powerful if others are willing to join in. If other workers have been dismissed at the same time, try to join forces with them. Try to find others, including co-workers and friends, who will help. If many people join the campaign, it will greatly increase your chance of having an impact.

If your union is willing to support you, that's a tremendous advantage. But sometimes you may need to proceed on your own. If so, make absolutely sure you're prepared and able to follow through. Sometimes it's safer to go quietly and survive.

If you're successful, lots of people will hear about your dismissal and believe that you've been wronged. If there's enough disturbance from your dismissal, the employer will regret doing it. In other words, firing you will backfire on the employer. What happens next depends a lot on the case. If there's enough public pressure, you might get your job back. More likely, you will be offered a bigger compensation package. Or the employer may tough out the uproar.

Even if you don't obtain compensation, a good campaign will damage the reputation and undermine the authority of the employer. You will thus obtain "punitive justice." That can be quite satisfying! Finally, and not least, you will gain greater credibility and self-respect.

Probably the biggest benefit will be for those who remain on the job. The employer will be more reluctant to dismiss them, in fear of another backfire. Your efforts will help prevent further injustice.

Deterrence

If you're prepared to take action against unfair dismissal, then you're less likely to be dismissed in the first place. Employers dislike bad publicity. They hate organised campaigns that might hurt their business. So here are some ways to prevent dismissal by good preparation.

• Collect lots of information about your own good performance. Keep copies in safe places. If you plan to act against corruption or bad practices, collect extensive information to back up your claims.
  
  
• Develop your skills in speaking and writing. Know how to talk with others. Learn how to write persuasive accounts, how to prepare a leaflet, how to run a publicity campaign and how to set up a website - or have reliable friends willing to assist.
  
  
• Avoid doing things that can be used against you. If you spend much of your time bad-mouthing others, getting others to do your work, and claiming credit for what you didn't do, you can't expect support when the crunch comes. Have others help you gain insight into being collegial, collaborative, approachable and civil.
  
  
• Be prepared to survive. You may need financial reserves. You will need psychological toughness. You need exercise and good diet to maintain your health. You need supportive relationships. When you come under attack, you may need all your reserves: financial, psychological, physical and interpersonal. If you're living on the edge, you're more vulnerable.
  
  
• Build alliances: there is great strength in collective action. If you have a decent union, join it and be active.
  
  
• Develop options. Find out about other potential jobs. Think about a career change. Consider downshifting to a less costly lifestyle. Sometimes it's better to walk away from a stressful job. If you have such options, you're actually in a stronger position to campaign against an unfair dismissal.
  
  
• Be prepared to resist. Many workers learn to be subordinate and can't bring themselves to resist even the worst abuse. When dismissed, they do just what the boss wants: leave quietly, perhaps with token compensation. If you're known as a resister, you're less likely to be targeted.
  
  Help others. If you assist other workers who come under attack, you develop useful insights and skills - and others are more likely to help you should you need it.
  

Brian Martin (Whistleblowers Australia). Brian Martin is international director of Whistleblowers Australia, associate professor at Wollongong University, and on the international council of FtC. Email: bmartin@uow.edu.au. He thanks Sharon Callaghan, Truda Gray, Yasmin Rittau, Jeff Schmidt, Kylie Smith and Ian Watson for helpful comments.

China university sacks dean after blog rant - breaking the hidden rules

A prestigious Chinese university has fired one of its deans days after he complained about being sidelined for bold remarks on academic freedom and berated the country's higher education woes on the Internet.

Zhang Ming, dean of political sciences at Renmin University of China, posted articles detailing a row with his superior and attacking the "bureaucratization of Chinese colleges" on his well-read blog last week. Zhang was formally stripped of his post on Friday, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported on Monday.

"They told me that I should be punished for... breaking the hidden rules," the 50-year-old was quoted as saying.

Zhang remained a professor at the university and was likely to be able to continue teaching, the report said. Zhang said in a March 12 blog post that he had irritated his superior last year by telling the media that the university had withheld some dissertation subsidies from graduate students.

The superior was also angry at Zhang for speaking up for a colleague he believed was wronged by a reviewing panel whose members were selected for their official ranks instead of academic achievement, Zhang added.

The university confirmed his dismissal as dean on its Web site, but denied the allegations Zhang made on his blog. The Communist Party has kept a close watch on the Chinese intelligentsia since coming to power in 1949, by setting up party committees in all academic and educational institutions. Controls have eased since market reforms began in the 1980s, but unorthodox studies or teachings are still frowned upon.

"Universities have become an officialdom ... The over-intervention and manipulation of academia by power definitely fetters its growth," Zhang was quoted as saying.

"How is China's academia doing now? Does anybody overseas read papers written by Chinese scholars? Plagiarism and theft are rampant ... Obedient kids are being taught to be minions."

Renmin University's School of International Studies, which administers Zhang's department, dismissed his blog posts as "lies" which had "brought great pressure to the school," "victimized its faculty" and "damaged its reputation."

"Any organization has this or that problem with varying degrees. Professor Zhang made a precedent in China by whipping up the internal problem in the media," read two rare open letters on the school's Web site.

From: Scientific American.com

Effects of Psychological Harassment

'Individual Effects

Many studies show that psychological harassment has extremely negative effects for individuals. Generally, there are three individual consequences. The first effect is a deterioration of the victim’s physical and mental health (McCarthy, et al. 1995, 1998, 2001, Leymann 1996b, Ayoko, et al. 2003, Di Martino, et al. 2003, Einarsen & Mikkelsen 2003, Djurkovic, et al. 2004, Matthiesen & Einarsen 2004, Nielsen, et al. 2004).

Typically, research points to increased stress levels and reduced physical and psychological wellbeing, with the most frequently identified negative health related outcomes including: anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms (hostility, hyper sensibility, loss of memory and feelings of victimisation), aggression, fear and mistrust, cognitive effects (such as, inability to concentrate, or think clearly, and reduced problem solving capacity), isolation, loneliness, deterioration of relationships, chronic fatigue and sleep problems.

Workplace bullying not only affects the targets, but also their colleagues or other bystanders. According to different studies (Einarsen & Mikkelsen 2003), witnesses of bullying reported more mental stress reactions than workers who had not witnessed anyone being bullied in their department. Witnesses may also suffer due to a real, or perceived, inability to help the target.

In the most severe cases of bullying, victims have frequently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD (Leymann & Gustafsson 1996, Matthiesen & Einarsen 2004, Nielsen, et al. 2004, Tehrani 2004). The PTSD diagnosis refers to a constellation of stress symptoms typically exhibited by victims of exceptionally traumatic events.

The hallmark symptoms of PTSD are reexperiencing, avoidance numbing and arousal. First, the trauma is relived through repeated, insistent and painful memories of the event(s) or in recurring nightmares. Also, the victims may experience an intense psychological discomfort and/or react physically when exposed to reminders of the trauma.

Second, victims with PTSD tend to avoid stimuli related to the traumatic situation(s) and exhibit a general numbing of responsiveness. For instance, they may have problems remembering the actual event(s) or may exhibit a reduced interest in activities they used to enjoy. Often they feel detached from others.

A third symptom is hyper arousal. This may be manifested in, for example, sleeping problems, concentration difficulties, highly tense and irritable behaviour, as well as in exaggerated reactions to unexpected stimuli (Einarsen & Mikkelsen 2003). Some authors (Leymann 1996a, Hirigoyen 2001) have claimed work harassment to be a major cause of suicide. Psychological harassment may also have wider ramifications beyond those directly involved. Research has shown that witnessing violence may lead to fear of future violent incidents and as such has similar negative effects as being personally assaulted or attacked (Di Martino, et al. 2003).

The second effect of psychological harassment is the economic consequence for the victim. A loss of income is often real. Harassment may generate coping strategies and health effects which can develop into sickness absence, a lessening of productivity, a reduction of performance, resignation from the organisation, and work incapacity because of a loss of self confidence. Hirigoyen (2001) notes that in 36 per cent of the cases, the victim leaves the firm. In 20 per cent of the reported cases, the person is laid off, in nine per cent of the cases, the departure is negotiated, in seven per cent of the cases, the person resigns and in one per cent of the cases, the person is put in anticipated retirement.

In addition to this loss of incomes, the victim may have medical expenses, psychotherapeutic spending and fees of lawyers. According to Hirigoyen (2001), 30 per cent of the victims stopped working due to illness, disability, or are made redundant for medical inaptitude. In 66 per cent of the cases, the victim is actually excluded from the work world.

The third effect of bullying is the family and social implications. The results of exposure to psychological harassment are likely to affect several important spheres of life, for example, relationship with family or friends, leisure activities, household duties or sex life (Einarsen & Mikkelsen 2003). Di Martino, et al. (2003) report that in a German national study of bullying, a total of 20 per cent of the sample reported conflicts with partners or family, with eight point one per cent eventually leading to a separation from their spouse. Research shows that all of these individual effects are dependent on various variables such as severity and duration of harassment, coping strategy of the victim, coping strategy of the organisation, characteristics of the victim (sensitivity, education and experience). These effects create many costs for the organisation.'

Poilpot-Rocaboy, G. (2006). Bullying in the Workplace: A Proposed Model for Understanding the Psychological Harassment Process, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 14(2), 1-17.

Complete paper available online.
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Can somebody please forward the above to Sally Hunt?

Despair

Bullying happens because silent witnesses allow it to happen - they are some of the main perpetrators of this abuse... they creep around in silence watching the bully at work...like Andrew in my university... like Carol... like Elaine... like.... (pseudonyms)

Bullying happens because it is condoned by UCU...

Sally Hunt refuses to name workplace bullying yet she wants to lead a union whose members are bullied relentlessly as Petra Boynton and others discovered in 2005 - bullying is rife in universities...

...we saw a photograph of Sally in the Times Higher this week (16/3/07)- alone and sitting on a step- against the background of what?

...this is a picture of our leader...this is how she allows herself to be presented... turn over the page of your Times Higher ...look at Wendy Piatt - director-general of the Russell group of universities - 'the woman marshalling fire power for the intellectual battles ahead'... we need someone like this... where is she sitting... what image does this create... how do we read this picture...

...a shame that tackling work place bullying doesn't feature in Wendy's list of things that she wants to address...

Bullies are sad people - they bully because they know they can get away with it... we don't need to see photographs of these sad people on here...

...universites that tolerate bullying need help...

...people who bully need help...

...silent witnesses need....

Aphra Behn

Beware the workplace bully

'Many of us have been in the situation where we've been brimming with great ideas but are constantly thwarted by a boss who ignores us, is threatened by us, or uses our ideas without giving us credit.

This can be extremely frustrating - and worse - it could make us lose confidence and feel ineffective. But how do we get our bright ideas past a 'bad' boss? Management consultant and author of Workplace Bullying Andrea Needham, says what to do depends on what type of bad boss you have.

Needham says there are three types of bad bosses: The workplace bully. The incompetent boss. The boss who is driven by his or her ego.

The most common type of bad boss in New Zealand is the incompetent boss, Needham says. This is the person who has been promoted beyond his or her capability (often referred to as the Peter Principle). "More than 50 per cent of bad managers are not bullies - they're sad, scared people," she says. "This boss is terrified of the employee."

He or she doesn't want someone else to shine and when approached with an idea is likely to pretend to be interested but then do nothing about it. He may say: 'That's a great idea,' but the body language will say something else. This boss has probably been promoted through the old boy's network. It's someone who didn't make waves and new ideas are about making waves."He sends mixed messages. If you push him, he will retreat and treat you as if you don't know anything. There's no substance to this manager and he or she is very difficult to deal with," she says.

A boss with plenty of substance, but who is also difficult to deal with is the workplace bully. Needham explains that the workplace bully is a narcissistic psychopath who will encourage you to bring your ideas forward, but will never give you credit for them. "This boss will definitely encourage you to come up with ideas, and will bring them to life, and that's fine if you're prepared to get no credit for them," Needham says.

The bully also puts you down behind your back to try to discredit you - so no one would imagine that you would come up with any good ideas at all. "The bully is easier to recognise than the others. He will use your idea, take it forward and take responsibility for it. He's not afraid and if confronted will give you a half-dressed excuse."

But how to deal with these bosses - how do you get your ideas implemented and credited to you? Needham has one word: Network. "Networking is the key. This is establishing your own credibility and knowledge base. Get to know people in the organisation, trust your own instincts and present a nice, friendly way of doing things."

When the workplace bully puts you down behind your back, networking can be critical. "Build networks otherwise you're another face in the crowd. It helps you ensure you have credibility, no matter what your boss says about you. Your networks will start arguing for your ideas to go forward."

Needham says that when dealing with the incompetent boss it's a good idea to get other employees or bosses in the organisation to advocate on your behalf. "This is not about kissing up to people. It's about building good, solid realationships."

She recommends if, for example, you have a friend in a different department, you can ask him to fly your idea with his boss. This could eradicate the problem of your boss. "It's sensible to create strong networks in and outside of your organisation. If you feel you need to change jobs, you can use your outside sources to find out about a job you're applying for."

Having a good network is like having an extended family in a business sense, Needham says."Use them like they use you. Be interested in others. People with corresponding and opposite strengths can help you."

The third type of bad boss that Needham mentions is the one with the ego."This boss's ego is so big, he or she doesn't believe the minions will come up with anything interesting." This boss thinks he or she is superior to everyone else, but is often "not overly smart." The superiortity is usually self appointed. Sometimes it's good breeding that gives him or her that attitude, sometimes it's an highly-rated education.

"He thinks he's truly above the rest of us. His elitism is ingrained and he's both pompous and arrogant. He often has friends in high places and is most often condescending and patronising with his employees."

Needham says there's no real way past this boss. "Be prepared for a dull life. In this job you're simply funding your weekend. If you do what this boss wants, you'll get bones every now and then - he expects you to 'be good'." She says the only interest in staying with this boss is to observe human behaviour. If you want your ideas to fly, you have to find another job. Needham acknowledges that working for a bad boss can be debilitating for an employee. "You need to be self-aware and know your strengths. Market those strengths through networking. You're not skiting about yourself - if you don't believe in yourself and your strengths, no one else will."

An Auckland policy analysist (who doesn't want to be named) says he has experienced many bad bosses and divides those he's experienced into four.

* The egotistical, political, selfish ones: Pitch your ideas in terms of the benefits and kudos to the manager as much as in terms of the benefits to the organisation - accepting that they would later pass those ideas off as their own.

* The overworked manager (not necessarily a bad boss): Prepare yourself well and be primed to deliver the idea concisely and be out of the office in five minutes.

* The nasty, bullying ones: Set the scene by prefacing any meeting with a concise email outlining the core of the idea and covering all bases, and suggesting that you will talk later. Then prepare yourself to answer any awkward questions.

* The bosses that are not too smart: State the idea in the simplest possible terms.

"It's a great pity, but the truth is that often good people have to leave jobs that otherwise they would enjoy, simply because of poor management," he says, adding that people often don't think hard enough when making managerial appointments these days.'

By Val Leveson, from: nzherald.co.nz

What's the crime, Mr Wolf?

When bullies in the staffroom outnumber those in the playground, schools have to act fast. But many still deny there is a problem – especially when the bully is the headteacher or a senior manager. “Not enough employers are proactive about workplace bullying,” says Carole Spiers, founder of the Carole Spier’s Group, a stress management and well-being consultancy.

“They bury their heads in the sand and so the conspiracy of silence continues. The typical and easiest outcome is that the perpetrator stays put and the victim moves on. Then the bully’s reign of terror continues indefinitely.”

It is hard to measure the extent of workplace bullying in schools, partly because many victims keep it secret and partly because no single national organisation handles grievances. However, all the indicators point towards it becoming a dangerously prevalent trend.

Last year, 701 teachers contacted the Teacher Support Network about workplace bullying, discrimination or harassment from other adults. And research by the Ban Bullying at Work charity suggests one in five workers has been bullied in the past two years. Translated to schools, that equates to 100,000 bullied teachers.

The implications for teacher retention are colossal. Studies have consistently found that 25 per cent of those being bullied at work will quit – a further 20 per cent who witness bullying will also leave their jobs.

Samantha, a head of department from a secondary school in West Yorkshire, has left her job. “For a year I did not fully understand that I was being bullied,” she says. “When I did acknowledge it, it made me stressed. I was relatively new and had no one to talk with. The school had a polarised staff and it was hard to know who I could trust.”

After months of being repeatedly threatened with disciplinary procedures about a range of issues (including her absence following her partner’s death), being continually ignored by the head, having her workload increased despite pleas for support and being excluded from decisions that affected her, Samantha collapsed at school and was rushed to hospital.

Even then, the school rang her seven times in one hour the following day demanding she email in work. Just three weeks after her return, Samantha was experiencing severe headaches, panic attacks and neuralgia and was again rushed to hospital. She was signed off by her doctor and has now handed in her resignation.

The TES has spoken to several teachers who have had similar experiences. Many follow a familiar pattern. The victim is often unaware that they are being bullied, but then small incidents start to add up.

The bully may ignore victims, not consult them or become overtly critical. There are also frequent reports of ganging up and a sense of “them” turning against an increasingly isolated “you”. The inevitable result is a sense of disempowerment and decreasing self-esteem. Following a deterioration in mental and/or physical wellbeing, teachers attempt to talk to a non-bullying senior member of staff, who all too often tells them to “take no notice”. The next step is to turn to their union representative for help.

Fiona has been an Association of Teachers and Lecturers area representative for north-west greater London for almost nine years. She is supporting four teachers who are off work due to bullying-related stress, but is usually handling many more.

She says: “We know bullying is out there, but it can be difficult to identify and tackle. What may be unwarranted workplace bullying to one person is assertive management to another. In the majority of cases, the normal way out is for the victim to leave the school and perhaps the profession as well.”

By Hannah Frankel, Times Education Supplement, 15 March 2007

How would you cope?

The Kubler-Ross theory of grief has long been used as a model for describing the stages a person goes through when handling loss.

This was expanded on by an employment counsellor (Vancouver based, by the way) named Norman Amundsen to be used when looking at the stages in grieving over 'losing' a job.

Stephen has now used the model to apply to workplace bullying (all situations share loss, grief and change) and even with an audience of seasoned employment counsellors the adaptation seems to hold up.

The first screen shows the basic model, the second how repetition creates such damage.

From: http://www.nobullyforme.org

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