DIT settles bullying case among senior staff, all allegations withdrawn - Ireland

The Irish Times, 21 May 2007

A long-running bullying case between two senior members of staff at Dublin Institute of Technology's business faculty has been resolved. This has led to the withdrawal of all allegations made against the director of the business faculty, Paul O'Sullivan, by his junior colleague, Dr James Urquhart.

Under the terms of an agreement with the college, Dr Urquhart is believed to have received a severance package worth more than €250,000. In return he has agreed to leave his post as head of DIT's graduate business school. However, it is understood that while he has vacated his post with immediate effect, he remains on the college payroll.

The case, which first commenced in January 2004, revolved around allegations of bullying and harassment levelled by Dr Urquhart against Mr O'Sullivan and which have now been withdrawn fully. An independent investigation by a rights commissioner examined 31 complaints and upheld six of the allegations in December 2005, one of which was subsequently overturned by DIT. The majority of the other complaints were not upheld by this investigation, which included interviews with a range of witnesses and DIT president Prof Brian Norton. The investigation found that Dr Urquhart had sustained a case of bullying against Mr O'Sullivan.

The findings of this report have now been set aside and all allegations withdrawn by Dr Urquhart. Mr O'Sullivan is understood to have sought to clear his name through an appeal of the findings of the report, and is believed to have been confident that this would transpire during any appeals process.

However, Dr Urquhart through his union, the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), was also unhappy with DIT's interpretation of the report's findings and launched an appeal. The matter came to a head last month when the former chairman of the Labour Court, Finbarr Flood, who was appointed to handle the appeals process, succeeded in securing an agreement. Mr O'Sullivan incurred significant legal costs as a result of the long-running case. However, it remains unclear what percentage, if any, of the legal costs incurred by Mr O'Sullivan and the TUI have been met by DIT under the terms of the agreement.

The amount to be paid to Dr Urquhart is thought to include the equivalent of 18 months' salary, plus additional pension benefits and other monies. The agreement includes a commitment not to pursue any further disciplinary or other action in relation to the matter. It also includes a clause containing a commitment that no officer of DIT would be pursued legally or any further allegations about the matter made against them. Mr O'Sullivan and Dr Urquhart have agreed to a confidentiality clause and refused to comment. When contacted by The Irish Times a spokeswoman for DIT refused to comment.

Not only in America...

The story below repeats itself in many different versions and combinations in this country too (and perhaps many others). There are many (ex) academics who have suffered and continue to do so in a very similar manner to the story described below. Sadly, these things do no happen only in America...
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After a very successful career at a major U.S. private university, I accepted some time ago an offer from another major private university to become chair of a department that had been in trouble for years, with the mandate to bring its house in order and improve its stature both within and outside the university. With the help of a supportive dean, I was successful beyond anyone’s expectations, bringing the department to national attention and recruiting a sizable number of good graduate students in competition with the some of the best schools in my discipline. There was a widespread perception that I was one of the best department chairs in the university —one administrator described what I had done for the department and the university as a “miracle.” It wasn’t easy, since faculty in my department were often at odds with one another, and one female faculty member was antagonistic to me from the outset, trying to undermine my role behind my back by spreading false stories among the faculty. She had limited success, since, apart from one important supporter, she alienated most of the other members of the department with insults and false accusations.

Some of those who have described their mobbing experiences have characterized themselves as “outspoken,” a trait which is supposed to be protected by academic freedom, but which can unfortunately lead to the active hostility of colleagues. I was just the opposite, supporting and encouraging all faculty and staff, including my antagonist and those who were less competent or productive among the faculty, in both their professional lives and their inevitable personal difficulties. My administrative credo was based on integrity, fairness, openness, and positive support for everyone.

At one point, however, I was forced to remove one of the less competent faculty from a minor administrative role she had abused for years, not only for poor administration and repeatedly upsetting other faculty and students, but because I couldn’t believe anything she said to me. At approximately the same time, I also had to let go a part-time adjunct who, in four years, had proved herself manifestly incompetent in a vital area of the department’s activities. The latter individual was a close friend of the former, and both of them had friends in the department.

In a matter of months, this group had organized its first mobbing effort against me, and joining forces with the original antagonist and her supporter, voted that my appointment as chair not be renewed. The dean was taken aback, interviewed most of the faculty individually, and declared himself “sickened,” by their conduct. Nevertheless, he believed I had lost too much support to continue as chair, insisted on my resignation, and admitted in the process that the same group of faculty, if they got their way in this matter, would probably cause further trouble in the future. I am reminded of a story circulated at my previous university about its president admonishing a faculty member about to take a dean’s position at another institution, “Never fire anybody. No matter how bad he or she may be, everyone has friends, and those friends will be after your blood.”

That president’s attitude had seemed to me an inappropriate way to run a university (there were some rather poor officers in his administration), but both his words and those of my own dean proved prophetic, for not only did I lose my chairmanship, but for the next couple of years I was subjected to a series of public slanders from the mob that had ousted me and their male supporter, to the point of where I complained in writing to one of them—my long-term antagonist. What happened afterward was a wholly unexpected shock. A few months later I received a letter from what was by that time a new, interim dean (who was being vetted as the permanent dean), saying that a group of women in my department had accused me of sexual harassment and other offenses, a committee had been appointed to oversee an investigation, and an outside attorney had been hired to do the investigating and report to the committee and the dean. The process was very secretive, in violation of every aspect and safeguard of the university’s own policy (which had never been published and was kept hidden from me and my attorney) as well as in violation of every safeguard for handling such matters published and recommended by the U.S. Department of Education. Nevertheless, the investigator made it clear through numerous comments to me and to several other witnesses, that she not only found no fault with me, but also found my accusers so outrageous that at one point she blurted out, “How can you work with such people?” She also declared that she planned to recommend that the university hire a psychiatrist to assist the department. Her judgment concurred in detail with the more general assessment of the university’s highest personnel officer (also a woman), who declared the ringleaders “crazy and hysterical.”

The report of the investigator was not what the dean wanted, since he couldn’t afford a group of women complaining that he was insensitive to their grievances while he was still under consideration as the permanent dean. He has therefore kept the report under wraps ever since and refused under any circumstances to release it. Meanwhile, from friendly departmental witnesses I learned that the mobbers had been meeting secretly for several months, intimidating and threatening students and staff, and acting in general like a typical lynch mob obsessed with groupthink. I also learned that the investigator had uncovered numerous instances of outright fabrication on the part of the mobbers, in addition to false statements, radical distortion, and pettiness in all their other allegations. Nevertheless, the two faculty committees eventually involved in the investigation were easily misled by the dean and the university’s legal office, documents were withheld from them by university officials, they did not interview witnesses themselves, nor was I given adequate opportunity to respond to either committee. At the end of the investigation, the dean tried to get me to resign my tenure in return for a couple of years’ salary and the threat of dire consequences if I didn’t. I refused, since senior positions in my field are scarce as hen’s teeth and my discipline isn’t marketable outside the academy.

Without my ever seeing the written complaint the mobbers had submitted and without a hearing, the dean then banned me from my department, my salary and benefits were cut, and I was suspended from teaching for a period of time. I do not fault the faculty committees for ill-will, or even overweening arrogance, but for naiveté in being unprepared to believe that there wasn’t anything to the hundreds of accusations the mobbers had thrown at me (their meetings had generated some truly wild stories and hysteria), and for incompetence in running a complete and fair investigation. Sometimes where there is smoke there is no fire, but only purveyors of smoke.

In reaction to what had been done to me, I attempted, at great expense, to sue the university, but without success—my suit was dismissed on a technicality. Private universities can get away with vastly more misconduct than the courts allow public universities. However, I did obtain detailed information about the dishonesty that attended this matter from beginning to end, not only on the part of the complainants, but on the part of the dean and the university’s legal office. The information, to me, was worth the price of the lawsuit. The subsequent decade has been difficult, in part because of the detailed information about injustice that I uncovered and have been unable to use to any effect. Even though I have interviewed elsewhere as a finalist for several administrative positions, the necessary disclosure of my difficulties with my present university terminated each of those possibilities. Openings for senior professors in my field have been rare, and although I’ve been a finalist for both positions I’ve applied for, in each case I lost out to younger candidates. In recent years, in response to my formal complaint about the dean to the Board of Trustees, my annual salary increases have been reduced to a pittance in relation to everyone else’s. So much for academic freeedom.

My professional life at my university is now filled with ironies. My teaching has been restricted to an introductory course for non majors that others in my field don’t want to teach, nor am I allowed to do any interdisciplinary teaching or teaching in other departments, even though in the past I had taught highly successful interdisciplinary courses and courses in two departments other than my own. Fortunately, the students who register for my present course are mostly quite good, and I receive some of the best student evaluations in the university despite the deadening effect of teaching the same thing year in and year out. But I have no opportunity to work with majors in my field, and I am deprived of being part of the life of the university, which I always enjoyed. On the other hand, since I am not included in or asked to do anything other than teach my course, I have far more time for my own research and publications than ever before.

Outside the university I have an international reputation for my scholarship, integrity and personality, and I am treated with great friendship and respect by colleagues elsewhere. I am frequently invited to international conferences and asked to speak and give workshops on endowed series at other institutions. I’ve served on doctoral committees at other universities and on review committees for departments in my field, including the Ivy league. I’m constantly asked by younger colleagues for fellowship recommendations, and by department chairs for tenure and promotion evaluations, including some from the most prestigious departments and universities in the country. I am regularly asked to do peer reviews for the most important journals in my field.

No one either inside or outside the university who knows me believes any of the allegations of the mobbers, and the effect of my being disciplined and rusticated has been to bring disapprobation from colleagues all across the country on my university, my former department and the colleagues who mobbed me. In the past decade the department has been mostly ruled by the mobbers and their supporters, and each in a series of chairs has ruined a specific aspect of the department. The once thriving graduate programs have either disappeared or are hanging on by a thread; no longer are there applicants from important undergraduate departments in our field. Recruiting of new faculty has also been problematic because of the widespread negative reputation of the department. These chairs have further fouled their own nest by retaliation against faculty and staff who supported me or who even insisted on remaining neutral. Firings of faculty and staff over the past decade have been legion, including non-tenured faculty who were outstanding in their subject areas. Even the university administration is fed up with a department that is the source of constant problems. Nevertheless, the dean not only overlooks this kind of behavior, the university has refused to investigate numerous thoroughly documented grievances of serious retaliation, despite piously advertising each year that it does not permit retaliation of any sort. Many current faculty stay away from the department, only showing up for their classes and avoiding as much contact with its ruling clique as possible.

All this has happened in the decade in which I have been gone from the department and had no influence over it whatsoever, so I clearly was not the problem. Almost all faculty and all of the staff are afraid of the current chair, who was the leader of the mobbers (this appointment alone illustrates the irresponsibility and cynicism of the dean). The department is now in almost as bad shape as it was before I arrived. Recently the university has instituted a code of conduct, emphasizing professional integrity, which all faculty are required to sign, but whose standards none of the department chairs who followed me, nor the dean himself, who is widely criticized throughout the university for dishonesty, could ever meet. But of course, they will never be held to account.

How have I coped with all this over the past decade? It hasn’t been easy. On the one hand I have very few duties and still receive a full-time salary and benefits, even if somewhat reduced, and can continue to do so as long as I wish. This is comforting financial security. As an academic cousin of mine put it, “You’re in academic Heaven—you just had to go through academic Hell to get there.” When I talk to colleagues at other universities about my situation, they sometimes jokingly ask, “How can I get such a deal?” But I hardly view it as heavenly. In my innermost being I’m a teacher—at my previous university I won all the major teaching awards—and it’s very frustrating not to be able to expand my teaching into new and interesting areas or to be able to engage majors and graduate students in my field. It’s difficult not to be able to share in the life of the institution through committees and interactions with colleagues—something which I always found interesting and rewarding, even if sometimes overly time consuming. I had for decades been an active and forceful supporter of women’s role and rights in the academy, but I now find myself uncomfortably suspicious of women in a way I never was. I now wonder what someone to whom I’ve been pleasant, supportive, and helpful might be plotting behind my back.

Perhaps most difficult of all, however, has been the shattering of my belief in the societal role of universities as committed to truth and as bastions of justice and ethical conduct. I’ve seen plenty of bad behavior by both individual faculty and administrators over my long career at four different private institutions, but I had never before encountered or even heard of a systematic, sustained Orwellian environment, not only within a department, but at the central core of a university. The very foundation of why I became an academic in the first place has been dislodged, and I find myself in that otherworld of big brother who officially declares that black is white and who defines reality, not according to facts and objective judgment, but according to what is expedient for the pursuit of authoritarian power and control. I feel like an alien in my own country, a refugee with no place to flee. I’m sure that most other “mobbees” are in far worse circumstances, though probably are not any more angry, than I.

Name and institution withheld at writer’s request for fear of further retaliation.

Due credit...

Anonymous said...

While this blog is becoming the platform to name and shame many bullying and corrupted managers, I wish to give credit to Prof. Peter Grant from Edinburgh University who displayed the highest levels of integrity when dealing with a complaint against someone quite senior to myself.

Dignity at Work, HEIs - UK

In large, complex organisations such as HEIs, conflict between staff, students and visitors will inevitably occur from time to time. The key is for organisations to recognise this and to take steps to deal with issues that arise in an appropriate and timely manner. This research has identified a number of important criteria for tackling bullying and harassment in the workplace effectively.

• Senior management support is vital – those institutions that promote dignity at work most effectively have a proactive and committed senior management team.

• The business case for tackling bullying and harassment must be articulated effectively and understood within the institution. Institutions need to be more effective at identifying the costs and benefits, both of introducing dignity-at-work initiatives and of failing to do so. A ‘virtuous circle’ of continuous improvement in relation to dignity at work should be developed and promoted.

• Dignity at work must be established as a core value of the organisation and thus become a basic right for all. It should form part of the institution’s strategic objectives, and should become embedded in all its strategic developments.

• Organisational factors can create problems in relation to dignity at work; bullying and harassment do not always occur because of personal differences between individuals.

• Working in partnership with trades unions to develop a culture in which bullying and harassment are treated seriously and tackled effectively can be beneficial.

• Dignity-work policies should be comprehensive, but easily understood and accessed by all staff within the organisation.

• Institutions should emphasise the importance of early intervention and the use of informal dispute-resolution procedures to minimise damage for all concerned, and should explore less adversarial routes of conflict resolution such as mediation.

• Services such as harassment networks and mediation should be supported by effective communication and rigorous training.

• Institutions need to develop good monitoring and evaluation systems for such services. Provision should be regularly reviewed to ensure it continues to be appropriate.

• Institutions should make every effort to provide a range of support services for staff, to ensure they meet the needs of people from a range of backgrounds and with different needs.

• Managers should be well trained, and encouraged to seek support if they are encountering difficulties with staff management issues. A blame culture, and one that encourages reward by results, by whatever means, will be detrimental to the institution’s efforts in tackling bullying and harassment.

• Finally, institutions should be encouraged to work towards becoming a model workplace in which all staff are treated fairly, and dignity at work is effectively and continually promoted.
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From: Dignity at Work, Final project Report, Equality Challenge Unit, April 2007

Open Letter to Mr Robert Moreton - The 'correct' procedures

Dear Professor Roberton Moreton,
Dean of the School of Computing and Information Technology, Wolverhampton University

In the Times Higher Education Supplement of 18 May 2007, we read the following: '...Robert Moreton... said in a statement: "Following a series of incidents, I can confirm that a member of staff in the School of Computing and IT has been dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct." He said that all allegations by the staff member had been "fully dealt with" under correct procedures, adding that staff welfare is a priority for the university.'

Professor Moreton we have some questions about the above statement.

Firstly, if the member of staff who was dismissed on the grounds of 'gross misconduct' did not approve of you sharing this with the media, then this could potentially constitute a breach of confidential information and could be reported to the Information Commissioner. Did you have the approval of the staff member to share his dismissal with the above publication?

Secondly, you state that 'correct procedures' were followed in reaching the decision to dismiss the staff member.

When a staff member raises in writing concerns about lack of support and allegations of workplace bullying, are you aware that this should be dealt with as a formal grievance? What efforts for mediation did the university attempt?

Did you follow the three-step discipline and dismissal procedure (as described by ACAS) before you reached the decision to dismiss the staff member? Did you follow your own internal procedures? Did you seek independent external advice, for example from the Andrea Adams Trust?

Was the staff member allowed to read transcripts of witness statements, and was he invited to present witnesses? What representation did he have and was this adequate? How have issues of confidentiality been dealt with? What training did the investigators have?

Unless there are answers to the above questions, any claim that correct procedures were followed, and that staff welfare is a priority for the university are unsubstantiated.

Lastly, we wish to quote the following from ACAS: '...Most people have very clear ideas about what they think is fair. These are partly a reflection of personal values. However, in society we also have shared values – and many of these are associated with the idea of 'natural justice'.

Natural justice refers to certain fundamental principles of justice that many of us deem to be fair. Conflict often occurs when we neglect our duty:

• to give someone a fair hearing
• to explain the reasoning behind a decision
• to be impartial
• to hear an appeal against a decision.

Your organisation's procedures and policies must include key aspects of natural justice.'

Yours sincerely,

Louise Michel

Staff see red over online policing

Staff face dismissal for criticising their employers in chatrooms and blogs, report Phil Baty and Tony Tysome. [Times Higher Education, 18 May 2007]

Academics' internet activity is increasingly being "spied on" by managers, it was claimed this week after a lecturer at Wolverhampton University was sacked for making a series of allegations online.

Union leaders and academic freedom campaigners argued this week that lecturers and researchers must be free to criticise their managers and to discuss their jobs without fear of reprisal. But university marketing chiefs warned that online activities such as blogs and web forums are increasingly being monitored by universities keen to protect their reputation.

The debate was sparked by the case of Sal Fiore, a senior lecturer in computing at Wolverhampton. An investigation by The Times Higher has established that he was sacked on grounds of gross misconduct last month following a series of e-mails.

Evidence against him included a posting he had made to a discussion forum in which he named Wolverhampton in association with general bullying allegations. Dr Fiore had also contributed to a blog for bullied academics - bulliedacademics.blogspot.com - where academics this week complained that they were under surveillance. One said that managers use postings "to 'get' their targets on some violation of university policy". Another said that bosses were "snooping around, looking for 'evidence".

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "Academics should not be made to feel that any comment they make may be picked up by some sort of university spy team and used against them." [Thank you Sally - such a radical statement!]

Peter Reader, director of marketing and communications at Bath University, said that there was "huge interest" in such websites and that universities were beginning to monitor them.

Wolverhampton confirmed that Dr Fiore's dismissal related to a number of incidents. Geoff Hurd, deputy vice-chancellor, said: "No member of staff has been, or ever will be, dismissed for exercising their right to freedom of speech."
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Dear Geoff Hurd, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Wolverhampton University,

Of course it is impossible to prove that "No member of staff has been, or ever will be, dismissed for exercising their right to freedom of speech." It is normal routine to 'manufacture' new 'evidence' against the staff member to be eliminated from his/her position.

Regarding allegations of 'spying' we have evidence that on May 18, 2007, at 9.12am somebody from your university - and yes, it could be anyone - visited this blog and then followed the link to the online forum to read 'Pack of Wolves, Part 2'. Now who would have an interest in this story, and if it is not you, is it somebody you know?

How likely is it that a staff member - in full knowledge that online communications are monitored in HEIs - would use their work PC to try to join the online forum? Slim chance.

Mr Hurd you are welcome to visit this blog and the online forum - there is much that we can learn from each other...

Question for/about HEFCE

Anonymous said...

What does one do when one obtains hard evidence that the Governors are themselves violating the Nolan principles? Does one need to go public with this evidence in order to stop the Governors from continuing their abuses?

What if HEFCE Board Members are in on the improper behavior? What would one do if one had evidence that a HEFCE Board Member engaged in collusion with a panel of a Board of Governors hearing a grievance appeal?

Where does one go with all of this?

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- The seven principles of public life as articulated by the Nolan Committee, are integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. They apply to higher education institutions and holders of related titles and offices.

Quote from Nolan report: '...Institutions of higher and further education should make it clear that the institution permits staff to speak freely and without being subject to disciplinary sanctions or victimisation about academic standards and related matters, providing that they do so lawfully, without malice, and in the public interest...'

Also from: Whistleblowing Revisited - Tenth Report, January 2005

...After the first comprehensive review of how whistleblowing is working in the UK, the Committee on Standards in Public Life made some wide-ranging and important recommendations. In its report the Committee stresses the importance of leadership and sets out whistleblowing best practice.

One of its recommendations was that: Leaders of public bodies should reiterate their commitment to the effective implementation of the Public Interest Disclosure 1998 and ensure its principles and provisions are widely known and applicable in their own organisation. They should commit their organisations to following the four key elements of good practice i.e.

(i) Ensuring that staff are aware of and trust the whistleblowing avenues;
(ii) Provision of realistic advice about what the whistleblowing process means for openness, confidentiality and anonymity;
(iii) Continual review of how the procedures work in practice; and
(iv) Regular communication to staff about the avenues open to them.
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HEFCE will reply:

'...Higher education institutions are legally independent corporate bodies. Their councils or boards of governors are responsible for the effective management and future development of their affairs. They are ultimately responsible for all affairs of the institution.

The fourth edition of the Committee of University Chairmen's 'Guide for Members of Governing Bodies of Universities and Colleges in the UK' (HEFCE 2004/40) was published in 2004, in association with the UK funding bodies.

The guide outlines the legal status of institutions, their governance, and the responsibilities of their governing bodies. It shares and encourages appropriate adoption of current good practice across the higher education sector. A voluntary code of practice is proposed to which, it is hoped, [Hope is a great thing and pigs fly] all institutions will be able to subscribe or explain where their practices differ...'

HEFCE will also say:

'...Allegations concerning higher education institutions: HEFCE policy and procedure

The HEFCE and its Audit Service receive, from time to time, a range of allegations of financial irregularity or impropriety, mismanagement, waste and fraud in higher education institutions, from a variety of sources. The attached annex sets out our procedure for dealing with allegations.

We welcome these allegations insofar as they are brought to our attention in good faith and relate to our statutory functions. Our public interest disclosure, or whistleblowing, procedure has been in existence for a number of years and it has guided the Audit Service in dealing with allegations received. The volume of cases is increasing, and the interaction with those making a public interest disclosure is becoming more complex. Therefore, the policy and procedure have been reviewed and redrafted, informed by legal advice.

If you require any further information, please contact Paul Greaves, tel 0117 931 7378, e-mail p.greaves@hefce.ac.uk.
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Now let us think about this... If you are about to whistleblow and you are employed by an HEI, the chances are that you will loose your job and HEFCE will not be able to stop this. When they make their enquiries with your employer, they will mention your name to them. They will not be able to demand that your university follows correct precedures in dismissing you. Also, there are many university managers that have close working relationships with HEFCE...

Back to the original sin (question): Where does one go with all of this? The local MP is unlikely to challenge the local university. The appropriate minister is caught up in the post-Blair situation - He recently referred us to the courts and Employment Laws wishing us good luck.

Now ask: At what price to the victim/target, the taxpayer, the students and education in general? How many more good academics will be bullied out of their jobs?

Want to get rid of an annoying academic?

University administrators are familiar with academics who are uncomfortably outspoken, disruptive or different. If these problem staff would just leave the campus, life would be much easier. But how can this desirable outcome be achieved?

The answers are in a book by Kenneth Westhues, Eliminating Professors: A Guide to the Dismissal Process (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998). Westhues, a sociologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, gives a step-by-step account of how administrators can get rid of troublesome academics.

There are five stages. First is ostracism, to cut the victim off from influence and support. Second is administrative harassment, often in petty ways. Then comes the incident, an action by the victim that can trigger formal retribution. The fourth stage covers the various appeal procedures and the final stage is elimination.

Within this framework, there are many specific points of value. For example, the matter of truth can sometimes be an obstacle, but by following Westhues’ practical principles for administrators it can be reduced to manageable dimensions. Principle one, for example, is that charges should be formulated sufficiently vaguely that hard facts are not relevant.

From this description, you might imagine that Westhues is some sort of academic Machiavelli, giving advice to university rulers on maintaining power. Actually, Westhues is on the side of those targeted by administrators. Indeed, he has been a target himself. His book is an extended satire.

After immersing himself in the details of some 25 cases of academics targeted for elimination, Westhues extracted common features and developed his guide for administrators. To personalise his advice, he dubs the hypothetical target for elimination "Dr Pita," an acronym for Pain In The Arse...

Review of Kenneth Westhues, Eliminating Professors: A Guide to the Dismissal Process (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), published in Campus Review, Vol. 9, No. 38, 6-12 October 1999, p. 12. Written by Brian Martin.

Pack of Wolves #2

...This story describes how my partner endured breaches of contract, bullying and misconduct by managers during his probationary year and, despite his probation being concluded, how such conduct was turned against him as the basis, for the first but not last time, of a spurious attempt to formally discipline him...

After many breaches, dismissed complaints and breakdown in communication by the School, my partner was called in to meet with the Dean Moreton. During the meeting, despite acknowledging that the events my partner cited constituted "unprofessional conduct" by the colleagues concerned and seemingly recording my partner's allegations of bullying, Prof Moreton used the meeting to accuse my partner of having relationship problems which he needed to address...

Strangely enough, while my partner's probation was due to end on 31 August 2005, the 3 month extension was declared to be until 31 December. Either the Dean was trying to impose a prohibited 16 month probation or there were serious problems in managing dates within the School; either way the extension was not admissible and its handling represented yet another contract breach.

The letter dated 7 September was clearly instead a disciplinary letter. It invited my partner to "a formal probationary review meeting" at 10am on Tuesday 13 September. This was itself impossible given that his probation officially had ended on 31 August. However, my partner and I attended to answer to the two spurious allegations set out in the letter...

By Melody Boyce - The complete story available at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bullied_academics/

Procedures for making allegations concerning higher education institutions and the 2008 RAE - UK

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.

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.

Any allegations of irregularity or impropriety on the part of members or chairs of RAE main or sub-panels will be treated as complaints.
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...The criteria and working methods encourage higher education institutions (HEIs) to submit the work of all of their excellent researchers in the 2008 RAE, including those whose volume of research output may have been limited for reasons covered by equal opportunities legislation...
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...The legal framework for the RAE: a changing context

7. Since the last RAE there has been an increase in the scope and application of equalities legislation that encompasses all functions of HEIs and of the UK higher education (HE) funding bodies, including the RAE.

8. This means that, throughout all stages of the planning and implementation of the RAE, legislative requirements must be met by HEIs and the funding bodies. HEIs, funding bodies, and panels acting on behalf of the funding bodies may be open to external scrutiny. HEIs and funding bodies may be open to challenges in respect of their operation of the law.

9. HEIs will need to meet legislative requirements in selecting their staff for inclusion in RAE submissions. The funding bodies, through the RAE team, will require HEIs to confirm that they have developed, adopted and documented an appropriate internal code of practice in preparing RAE submissions and selecting staff for inclusion.
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From: http://www.rae.ac.uk