Is Oxford University racist?

"It is increasingly clear that the purpose of Oxford University's current method of handling ethnic minority complaints is to exhaust complainants in order to force them, for the sake of Oxford's brand name, to withdraw their grievances."
Letter from an Oxford academic to Kofi Annan prior to Annan's acceptance of an honorary Oxford degree in July 2001

Keble College has been labelled institutionally racist by an employment tribunal after being found guilty of unfair dismissal and racial discrimination.

College accountant Diamond Versi accused bursar Roger Boden of forcing him out of his job due to his race. Mr Versi, who is of Asian origin, left Keble College following a reorganisation of the accounts department instigated by the Bursar in January last year. Versi had worked for the college for 14 years.

In a written ruling, the tribunal said: "The whole process was a sham and the tribunal takes a most unfavourable view of a prestigious Oxford college."

Versi told The Oxford Student he felt the reorganisation of the accounts department, which led to his resignation, had been designed to shunt him out. "They have around 600 students and now they say they don't need an accountant. Can you believe that?"

Versi described how the ordeal had caused a great deal of stress and he had received medication from the doctor due to high blood pressure and sleepless nights. "I am thoroughly surprised that he [Boden] kept his job," said Versi. "His position is untenable. I saved the college millions of pounds. He should have gone, not me. I blame not only Roger Boden, but the whole Keble College system. The Warden would not talk to me, nobody would talk to me."

However, staff and students of Keble have defended Boden, refuting the conclusions drawn by the tribunal. Keble Warden Professor Averil Cameron expressed her dismay at the verdict. "The college is very shocked and upset by the tribunal; we don't recognise its findings and we are looking into an appeal very carefully. There are a lot of mistakes in the tribunal's findings. We have explanations for every alleged incident and they were not recognised. We lost because the tribunal was unfair, they only listened to Mr Versi's case."

Versi's case was based on proving he had been unfairly dismissed by Keble. If this was proved, it was then up to Boden to prove he was not racially prejudiced against Versi. James Stuart, representing Versi, built a picture of conflict between his client and Boden, which led to his dismissal. This was accepted by the tribunal. It was described how the bursar launched an internal investigation against Versi in December 2002 with his only motivation being Versi's purchase of a new BMW and his taking his wife on holiday to Sri Lanka.

During 2003 the relationship between the two men worsened and the claimant described how he felt he was sidelined from decision-making by Boden. In January 2004 the bursar submitted a review of the accounts department which recommended the posts of accountant and assistant accountant be scrapped and replaced by a new post of financial controller. Mr Versi claimed this was designed to force him out of the office and that his assistant, Julie Hernandez, was assured the position. Hernandez did not appear as a witness.

Versi refused to apply for the new post and issued a formal grievance of racial discrimination to the Finance Committee in January 2004, the first instance where his official racial discrimination complaint was made. The claimant felt he was not given a fair hearing by the college, who rejected his claims as without merit and felt the case for the proposed re-structuring was entirely workable. The tribunal said Boden had undue influence on the complaint and appeal process.

A number of examples were submitted by the claimant as evidence for Boden's alleged racism. In March 2003 Boden refused to provide a £4,000 loan to a Keble employee of Pakistani origin. In October 2001 he had agreed to grant a £5,000 loan to a white employee.

Keble College's Warden, Professor Averil Cameron,
who believes the ruling was unfair

The claimant also cited how Mr Boden had blocked the transfer of a member of the Hall staff of Vietnamese origin, Hien Le, from moving to the accounts department in April 2003. Le, who now works in the accounts department, was not called as a witness by either the college or Mr Versi, but she told The Oxford Student she did not support Diamond Versi's assertion that Mr Boden had been racially prejudiced against her. "It was not until I read The Oxford Mail that I heard I had been discriminated against. I didn't get the impression they didn't want me because I was Vietnamese."

Professor Cameron suggested Keble had made a mistake by deciding not to provide Le as a witness. "Perhaps we were advised in the wrong direction," she said.

However, the tribunal felt Boden and Keble College did not provide adequate evidence that he had not acted in a racist manner. Professor Cameron refutes that there was any evidence of racial discrimination.

During an interview with The Oxford Student, Versi was questioned on his evidence of Boden's alleged racial discrimination. He described the conflict with the Bursar over staff loans. "It was total racism," said Versi. However, when Versi was challenged over the nature of the two loans in question, one needed to pay off a credit card debt and the other to help purchase a house, he said: "Stop arguing with me. It bloody well was racism. I don't need to justify myself to you, you're not the tribunal." Versi then said he would not answer further questions.

He had earlier expressed his unhappiness with the nature of coverage of the tribunal by Oxford University's two student newspapers. "I was extremely upset with the articles in The Oxford Student and the Cherwell. It was very upsetting for me. Roger Boden should never have spoken to the press during the tribunal."

Meanwhile, Keble JCR President Mohsin Zaidi expressed his surprise at the findings. "My relations with the Bursar have been amazing. I can say that he's not a racist because I know him and speak to him every day. I hope the Keble student body can trust my, the JCR treasurer's and the vice-president's judgement in our support for Mr Boden because we deal with him and they elected us to do so," he said. Zaidi was not surprised at Mr Versi's reaction to being questioned over the evidence in the tribunal. "It shows he doesn't have any basis to claim the Bursar was racist," he said.

From: http://www.akme.btinternet.co.uk/vsioxst2.html
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Late in 2004, to celebrate the fact that no legal action alleging racial discrimination had ever successfully been brought against any Oxford college or the University, Akme assembled the special Oxford Is Not Racist subindex of reported incidents and failed lawsuits. Now with the dramatic conclusion of the case Versi vs Keble College & Roger Boden, in which both the college and its bursar have been found guilty of racial discrimination and unfair dismissal, Oxford's blameless record and reputation have irrevocably been shattered. For the benefit of scholars Akme has collated the papers in this important, fascinating and at times comical case, and here posted them in a new linked series. Note too the Warden's 'under payment'.

From: http://www.akme.btinternet.co.uk/race0000.html
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The whole process was a sham and the Tribunal takes a most unfavourable view of a prestigious Oxford college who through its Finance Committee and Governing Body failed to apply appropriate checks and balances and allowed a situation to prevail where there were no effective or operable policies in relation to equal opportunities at the college. Much has been canvassed regarding equal opportunities as to admissions to Oxford colleges and no doubt Keble College takes such issues seriously. In the Tribunal's view it should also pay significantly more attention to the matter of equal opportunities in relation to its workforce. The claimant with distinguished service of 15 years in a senior position deserved a lot more from the college in the unfair and prejudicial process that led to his departure.

From: http://www.akme.btinternet.co.uk/vsijgmt1.html

Injustice anywhere...

Studies of bully victims found increased risk of suicidal behavior, with victims being up to 5.6 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts...

When it comes to workplace bullying there are distinct stances adopted by HR Departments

When it comes to workplace bullying and its attendant issues – because it never arrives in the workplace alone – there are distinct stances adopted by HR Departments. Like yoga positions, they can be categorized.

1. The Mafioso:

Perhaps the worst stance, the Mafioso HR Department knows there is a problem with workplace bullying and actively participates or supports the abuse by bringing false, fabricated or unnecessary proceedings against the targets of bullying, supporting the culprits, joining in “the fun”. Their typical way is to issue threats to targets and abuse procedure. They are the harbingers of doom to any firm and and they ride in on the pale horse.

Oh, yes, you know who you are. And so do we. We can tell by the attrition rates, the number of lawsuits, and the fact that you can smell the fear and tension the moment you walk through the door.

2. The Ostrich:

Identified by somewhat sandy and muffled responses to questions on respect at work with.“We don’t have a problems with workplace bullying, nor are we ever going to have one” or even “We take respect at work seriously”. The muffled responses get all the fainter when one tried to identify how, exactly, they are taking it seriously. They achieve the same result as the Mafioso except passively, not actively.

3. The Firefighter:

This HR position involves leaping from crisis to crisis, from formal discipline/grievance proceeding to proceeding, from court room to court room. There’s no time to implement good practice – they are too busy putting out fires.

4. The Bureaucrat:

This HR team loves writing policies that look good on paper and then stuffing them in a drawer, and scheduling expensive training which doesn’t tackle the problems. Failure to monitor and audit procedures lead to a failure in implantation. But hey, they look good, even if you don’t achieve much. Often accompanied by Firefighters or Ostriches.

5. The Tinker:

The Tinker is perhaps the least glamorous respondent to the challenge of workplace bullying. They might not look good, patching here and there, but they only step in occasionally when a rare crisis emerges. For the most part, their conflict resolution and workplace harassment policies and procedures work so well they can get on with other stuff – like hiring, succession planning, and increasing the firm’s knowledge base. They do this by practicing preventative medicine in the work place, continually, monitoring and checking for signs of bullying and workplace toxicity. They actively work to reduce the number of grievance and disciplinary proceedings, and attrition due to mental ill health. They keep their stats in order. Quietly.

You know the burning question, don’t you? Which one of the five positions is YOUR firm’s HR adopting in response to Workplace Harassment?

From: http://scottishboomerang.wordpress.com

An Open memo to Baroness Ann Gibson – Chair of the Dignity at Work Project

Baroness I understand that you have been quoted as saying: ‘Employers who choose to ignore bullying do so at huge costs to society."

I would like you to know, Baroness Gibson, that my university – a prestigious research university – which claims to be a centre of excellence - has in my view behaved disgracefully and unprofessionally in relation to its Dignity at Work policy.

From my experience there is little evidence that the policy has been taken seriously. I believe that since the policy was implemented in my university there has been no impact assessment of the policy.

When a meeting was held to discuss issues in relation to the policy many staff openly ignored requests to attend the meeting.

The Dignity at Work project that you chair has indicated that the costs to the economy of work place bullying run into billions – almost 14 billion pounds a year. Yet there appears to be no ‘moral panic’ about this – whipped up by the media.

Why might this be? Has debate about this been silenced?

I have worked tirelessly at my university to raise issues in relation to alleged workplace bullying. The university carried out an internal survey which has indicated the scale of the problem.

However it is difficult to see what action has been taken to effectively address these issues. Those of us who freely give of our time to raise issues in relation to workplace bullying are often faced with ‘character assassination’; these and other strategies are used by our colleagues whose aim is to discredit us.

In my university I believe that the strategy of ‘character assassination’ against me has been and continues to be very effective. The issues that I raise are ignored as my university tries to brazen out the uncomfortable facts of workplace bullying that inform out working culture.

This blog is the only outlet for my concerns. It has been a lifeline and has undoubtedly contributed to the fact that I have not taken my life.

It is probably impossible for you to understand the effects of prolonged and intense workplace bullying. Talk of suicide suggests an unstable character and very soon one is in a position where the target of workplace bullying is gently ushered into counselling. My university have suggested that I go for counselling.

Currently I am still very much alive… if you saw my smiling face in the street you would have no idea of the suffering that is hidden beneath my smile. If you saw my colleagues from the university you would see charming people…

We have learnt from stories of abusive relationships in domestic violence that bullies are not easy to spot. Targets of workplace bullying can be easier to identify when they are dead as they are no longer a threat.

In writing this memo to you I am exercising my right under parliamentary privilege to draw attention to defects within my university - specifically in relation to work place bullying. I have worked tirelessly to address these issues myself.

I understand that, if I am threatened by my employer as a result of this memo, I can raise the matter with my MP and it will be referred to the Committee of Privileges.

Even so – I use a pseudonym – and construct this memo so that I cannot be traced. I am fearful of the consequences. You see despite everything I love my work with the students in my university and I want to remain there working with them.

I just want the alleged workplace bullying to stop.

Aphra Behn
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Send a polite email to Baroness Gibson to highlight the issue of workplace bullying in higher education.

The Waterloo Anti - Mobbing Instruments

Name the process

Workplace mobbing is an impassioned, collective movement by managers and/or co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. A desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target spreads through the work unit, infecting one person after another like a contagious disease. The target comes to be seen as absolutely abhorrent, outside the circle of respectability, deserving only of contempt. A steadily broader range of hostile words and actions toward the target are to be deployed.

About 5 percent of workers are targets of mobbing sometime during their working lives. Most workers see the process from the other side: as instigator, chief eliminator, collaborator, or bystander, or as the target’s guardian or rescuer. The same individual may play different roles in different cases. Mobbing is a drama performed on a real-life stage; workmates make their respective exits and entrances, and play their varied parts.

Mobbing is distinct from penalizing or firing a worker who, on the basis of evidence, does not measure up job requirements. The latter is a reasoned, routine managerial procedure, normally directed with regret at an underachiever. Mobbing is a furious collective attack made with undisguised glee on an overachiever or someone seen as threatening to good and decent employees.

Workplace mobbing is like bullying, in that the object is to rob the target of dignity and self-respect. Here, however, it is not a single swaggering bully that the target is up against, but the juggernaut of collective will. The message to the target is that everybody wants you out of here. Bullies often play leading roles in mobbing cases, whether as targets or perpetrators.

Understand the stages of the process

No two cases are alike, but mobbing typically proceeds from subtle, informal techniques of humiliation and exclusion to overt and formal measures. Five stages are commonly distinguished:

1. Avoidance and ostracization of the target.
2. Petty harassment: making the target’s life difficult.
3. A critical incident that triggers formal sanctions: “something has to be done.
4. Aftermath of the incident: hearings, appeals, mediation.
5. Elimination: target quits, retires,, is fired, becomes disabled, dies of stress-induced illness, or commits suicide.

Recognize the signs of ganging up

The first step toward prevention and remedy of workplace mobbing is to recognize the behaviours that constitute it and call the process by its name. Here are signs to look for:

1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”
3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is.”
5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson.”
6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.
7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for”or defend the target.
11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action
12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

Question what is going on

What does the evidence show? Has the target really committed an unpardonable sin? Or might this war of all against one be merely a cruel way of trying to avert a war of all against all?

Educate yourself about humans in mobs

Workplace mobbing springs from elemental impulses common to many mammals. The term pecking order comes from what chickens routinely do: gang up on one of their number (often a new arrival), each pecking the target and keeping it away from food and water. Although individual pecks do little harm, their cumulative effect is to kill the targeted bird.

There is no quick fix for something so instinctive and primordial. Reducing the incidence of mobbing and healing its effects require not just training but education: critical reflection on the human project, insight into the complexity of life, knowledge of right and wrong, self-knowledge above all.

Literature

Classic novels like these shed light on mobbing:

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of Seven Gables (1851). The hunt for witches, Hawthorne writes, “should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those that take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob.”
• Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Foretopman (1924).

Films

In many movies, ganging up is a basic theme. Six examples:

• The Crucible (Arthur Miller play; Daniel Day-Lewis; 1996);
• Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, dir.; Robin Williams; 1989);
• Dogville (Lars von Trier, dir.; Nicole Kidman; 2003);
• The Human Stain (P. Roth novel; Anthony Hopkins; 2003);
• Joan of Arc (Roberto Rossellini, dir.; Ingrid Bergman; 1948);
• Malena (Giuseppe Tornatore, dir.; Monica Bellucci; 2000).

Research summaries

In the early 1980s, the late Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann spearheaded the research effort on psychological terror in the workplace. Here are three practical summaries:

• Noa Davenport et al., Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace (Ames, IA: Civil Society, 1999). Engaging.
• Gary and Ruth Namie, The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job (Benicia, CA: DoubleDoc, 2000). Well-researched, helpful.
• Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare, Work Abuse: How to Recognize It and Survive It (Rochester, VT: Schenkman, 1997). Key concept is shame. Profound, easy to read.

Web-sites

Do Google searches for “workplace mobbing” or “bullying,” or for Australian researchers like Charmaine Hockley, Brian Martin, Linda Shallcross, Michael Sheehan. Look at mobbing.ca

Be at once kind and careful

Lying low, keeping your head down, following the crowd, and kowtowing to the boss are poor defenses against being mobbed. Nobody is safe in workplaces of chronic scapegoating, mobbing, and nastiness. This year’s mobber may be next year’s target.

Practical suggestions researchers commonly offer for personal conduct include the following:

• Keep your mind on the job. Mobs form when people lose sight of the organization’s purposes, turn their attention inward, get caught up in power struggles and one-upmanship.
• Plan carefully before blowing the whistle on managerial misconduct. Managers tend to go after whistleblowers, and elites close ranks. See Brian Martin, The Whistleblower’s Handbook (Annandale, NSW: Envirobook, 1999).
• Get a life away from work. Cultivate social relations in many different groups – family, school, church, community. If managers and workmates turn on a person who lacks alternative sources of social support, the target is easily destroyed.
• Show kindness to the target. Instead of joining mobbers or bystanders, find ways to affirm the target’s humanity. The mob may then turn on you, but you may possibly save another’s life.
• Nietzsche said it best: “Distrust all those in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”

Promote workplace decency

Keeping a workplace free of scapegoating and terror takes more than good intentions on the part of the managers and workers involved. Some organizational structures and procedures work better than others, for getting work done well and for discouraging people from ganging up. Here are possibilities:

• Spread power around. Pluralism, countervailing power, checks and balances, bring out the best in people. Concentration of power in a single hierarchy brings out the worst.
• Minimize adversarial, zero-sum proceedings. Quasi-judicial tribunals unleash groupthink and the impulse to scapegoat. Productivity, truth, and justice are better served by open administration and straight talk, with cards on the table.
• Discourage a culture of grievance and legalism. Given the choice, wasting hours in occasional arguments is less costly and stressful than wasting years in arbitration or in court.
• Avoid “neutral” mediators. They usually side with whoever has the upper hand. An effective mediator is committed to truth, fairness, give and take, productivity, quality, efficiency.
• Provide opportunities for dialogue. If people have the chance to voice concerns, air differences, listen to one another, and seek common ground, the threat of mobbing is reduced – see Daniel Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue (New York, 1999).

By: KENNETH WESTHUES, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, ON N2L 3G1, CANADA – kwesthue@watarts.uwaterloo.ca

Academic Bullies

I received a call from a former client this afternoon. This morning, a senior faculty member, who teaches the same subject matter as her, "summoned" her into his office where he proceeded to berate her, call her names and threatened her. He repeatedly screamed that he was tenured and she was still untenured and that she had to answer to him.

Over the phone, she still sounded very shaken and wanted to double check that her reaction and plan of action were on target. She was fighting the urge to simply withdraw from the world and quit her job on the spot. She told me that she never wants to be alone with him again. I was proud of her. Her plans were right on target. This bully had already been warned about his behavior before. She is reporting his behavior to the appropriate people, documenting his bullying, and reaching out to other senior faculty women on her campus for the best ways to deal with him. In essence, she is calling upon her inner warrior princess to shore up her boundaries and is drawing a line in the sand by stating that she refuses to be bullied.

Hazing and bullying have gone on for far too long. Afraid of the bully, colleagues and administrators look the other way as women, especially, are subjected to an extremely hostile environment. Too often, the bully relies on the knowledge that the junior faculty member is too afraid of jeopardizing their chances for tenure and promotion to say anything. But, if you read discussion forums, the end result is that the environment becomes so unbearable that the faculty member ends up leaving for what she hopes are greener and kinder pastures (after all sense of self-confidence in one's abilities have been destroyed).

Bullying has been the elephant in the room. But I am hopeful that people are starting to finally address it. Lately, I have seen a lot of conversations about "faculty incivility" on professional forums for faculty development specialists as well as timid forays into the subject by the Chronicle of Higher Education (Click here for an interesting op-ed about tenure that states that tenure encourages bullying). Let's hope that these conversations develop legs and are the beginning of real change.

I have not had the chance to read Twale and DeLuca's book Faculty Incivility: The Rise of the Academic Bully Culture and What to Do About It that was released earlier this year, but my colleagues are all giving it a thumbs up on how to deal with bullying and how to deal with a culture that encourages the chewing up and spitting out of junior faculty.

Let's join my former client in drawing the line in the sand. Let's conjure up our warrior princesses and remind the bullies that we expect to be treated with respect.

From: http://aroundtheacademy.blogspot.com

Informal complaints: handle with care

Statutory grievance procedures continue to plague employers. For example, in Procek v Oakford Farms Limited, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found that a grievance which had been labelled by Mr Procek, a Polish farm worker, as "informal" did satisfy the requirements of the statutory grievance procedures. Consequently, the tribunal was able, not just to hear Procek's claims, but also to slap a punitive 50% uplift on any award of compensation it made against his employer.

This case shows that although the statutory grievance procedures have been with us now for more than four years, the basics of their application continue to be debated at tribunal.

Past case law tells us that grievances can be "minimal" in terms of content do not need to refer to the statutory procedures nor even indicate that the sender requires the complaint to be dealt with. Now with the decision in Procek, a grievance that the employee had labelled as being informal, and which specifically indicated that it was not intended to satisfy the statutory procedures, has been determined as being sufficient to satisfy the statutory requirements.

Some may see this ruling as unsurprising, but the statutory procedures have real bite, and failure to comply with them has serious consequences for both the employee and the employer. From an employee's perspective, they can be prevented from having their claim heard from an employer's perspective, they can face an uplift in the damages that have to be paid if they are unsuccessful in defending a claim.

This may seem like a fair quid pro quo. However, the link between an employer's failure to comply and the potential award a claimant could receive has been the source of much discontent among employers. The volume of cases on this issue is testament in itself to the difficulty the procedures have caused for them. When an employer's failure to comply hinges on its inability to recognise a grievance (rather than from inadequate internal procedures, a disregard for the law, or behaviour in any way culpable), an uplift of up to 50% hardly seems proportionate.

In Procek, the EAT considered this point but found that since the uplift was determined at the tribunal's discretion, rather than being an inevitable outcome, the argument was insufficient to dissuade them from finding that the grievance did not satisfy the statutory requirements.

So how should employers react to this decision? Most employers' grievance policies provide for a grievance to be dealt with informally. Arguably, this is the best way to resolve employment disputes, nipping them in the bud at an early stage before the parties' positions become entrenched. If the position cannot be satisfactorily resolved, then the grievance procedure will go on to suggest that the employee raises their concern in a more formal way.

Following Procek, the era of the informal grievance is over: any employee who writes an e-mail to HR raising a complaint should expect the response to set in motion the full force of the statutory procedures, whether they like it or not. The message for employers is clear: any written complaint must be dealt with in accordance with the statutory procedure, or a 50% uplift in compensation may result.

It would seem the informal grievance has breathed its last breath.

From: http://www.personneltoday.com

Don’t sue–run for your lives! Part II

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, which was about workplace bullies and the ways in which they can come to dominate a work environment by driving away some people while turning those who remain into bullies themselves. According to Robert Sutton, “[R]esearch on emotional contagion, and on abusive supervision in particular, finds that if you work with or around a bunch of nasty and demeaning people, odds are you will become one of them.” This describes many of the people I worked with in my first tenure-track job, which I resigned seven years ago.

My major foe at my former university was someone who was tenured but simultaneously (and humiliatingly) denied her promotion to Associate Professor. She had published a book after all in a department that didn’t require a book, whereas men in the department had recently been promoted to Associate Professor before tenure and, in one case, without a book at all. (That’s right: men without books? Can’t wait to promote you! Women with books? Wait a year or two, then apply again.) There was a whole class of women assistant professors who got that treatment right around the time I was hired, either within their department or at the college review level. Need I point out that the curious creature known as the tenured Assistant Professor was a pink-collar only rank? Unfortunately, this individual’s experience resulted not in anger and radicalization, but in shame and internalization, which was then directed outward not at the people who caused her misery, but at other targets below her on the hierarchy.

This was a pattern that repeated itself many times in that department. People were filled with ressentiment about the way they were treated, and most of them either became bullies or apologists, explaining that “don’t worry, you’ll still be tenured. That’s just the way we do things. Everyone goes through it, so you’ll just have to suck it up.” There were a few good people who tried to make changes–but they have been easily defeated by the others. Those who were my friends and allies were valiant in their optimism and their commitment to change, but in the meantime, what a life: stomping out flaming bags of poop that someone else is leaving on yet someone else’s doorstep.

One of the effects of this kind of work culture is that it stifles new ideas, fresh methodologies, and innovative research and pedagogy, because of the rate of turnover among those who leave, and the inner turmoil suffered by those who stay. (Bullying academic departments tend not to allow Assistant Professors to follow their own bliss, either in the classroom or in their research agendas. This is sometimes the very motive for the bullying: many departments really don’t want anything–or anyone–new or innovative around. And, scrutinizing other people’s work to belittle it is one of the pleasures of academic bullying!) Unsurprisingly, women’s history and histories of other not-dominant groups and historically marginalized perspectives have a hard time gaining purchase in an environment like that. For example: Historiann was hired to be the American women’s historian in that department, a position that had been a tenure track line for thirteen years but one that had never seen anyone progress to tenure. (Historiann was number five in the long line of historians who had held that position.) And guess what, girls and boys? Twenty-four years later, no one yet has been tenured in that line! That’s right: success beyond anyone’s wildest antifeminist dreams in 1984, when the position was first established. Of course, the fact that that position was the only line dedicated to women’s history was doubtless a major factor behind the abuse and harassment suffered by all of the historians who hopped on and off that merry-go-round.

So, who says cheaters never prosper? Bullies may not be happy people, but it seems to me that they get what they want, and that really sucks. (The woman described above is probably one of the unhappiest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to know–a truly wretched creature.) But what might suck more is staying in an abusive job because you’re determined to be SuperProf who’s going to vindicate herself and save her department of its destructive culture. We don’t encourage people in abusive relationships to believe they can make the abuser change–why should we expect people in bullying work environments to stick around and try to change the culture, when they have little if any power or influence to force reform?

The million-dollar question is, of course, how can anyone turn a bad department into a good one? Who can get control over bullying work environments and force change upon them? My sense is that it takes a strong-willed dean who’s not afraid of the bullies and who’s got a healthy budget to clean house with brutal post-tenure reviews (including perhaps buyouts), and to support lots of new hires. But–in the arts and humanities–what deans have that kind of time or money, outside of elite universities and SLACs, where the humanities are central rather than marginal to the identity of the institution? My guess is that most departments have to shift for themselves, so how do good people leverage their goodness to isolate, marginalize, and/or drive out the bad?

From: http://www.historiann.com

The formula...

Witness Intimidation Declared Legal by Crown Prosecution Service

In January, 2007, solicitors for Dr Howard Fredrics, claimant in a pending case before the Employment Tribunal of whistleblower victimization, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal informed his former employer, Kingston University, that Mrs Lori Fredrics, who had attended the proceedings on behalf of her husband, who had become ill, had inadvertently recorded several tea breaks during an internal grievance appeal held before the University’s Board of Governors. The recordings allegedly contained statements by the Governors, Personnel Director, University Secretary and Vice Chancellor that were of an inappropriately pejorative and prejudicial nature and which suggested that the Governors had no intention of hearing the facts of the case in an impartial and unbiased fashion. Clearly, the University would be quite embarrassed were this damaging evidence of corruption to see the light of day in open court.

Instead of admitting wrongdoing, the University’s response was to have its University Secretary, Mr Donald Beaton, send a series of allegedly threatening and intimidating letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics and to their solicitor in which Mr Beaton accused them of having committed crimes in the collection of evidence, and accused their solicitor of having been “complicit” in the commission of these alleged crimes. Mr Beaton threatened to report Dr and Mrs Fredrics and their solicitor to the Information Commissioner for criminal prosecution under the Data Protection Act 1998 and to seek a court injunction with attached costs unless Dr and Mrs Fredrics turned over all copies of the recordings and transcripts thereof.

Dr and Mrs Fredrics, not being legally qualified, were terrified by these letters, believing that they might, indeed, have inadvertently committed the crimes alleged by Mr Beaton, who cited all sorts of obscure provisions of the law to justify his accusations of criminal wrongdoing. At the time, they were residing in virtual exile in the US, having lost their right to live and work in the UK after Dr Fredrics’ dismissal, where they were awaiting the outcome of Dr Fredrics’ application for Highly Skilled Migrant visa status. Their immigration solicitor advised them that were they to be charged with a crime or even simply reported to the Information Commissioner, they could very well be barred from entering the UK, where they had all their worldly possessions, including their 21-year old cat. Not having access to a criminal solicitor, they remained in a state of panic for several months until Dr Fredrics’ visa was approved and they were able to return to the UK.

Once they returned to the UK, they sought legal advice and were told that Mr Beaton’s accusations were entirely without merit, that they had done nothing illegal and that they were simply the victims of witness intimidation. Mr Beaton and the University took no action as they had threatened to do, and Dr and Mrs Fredrics held on to the recordings and transcripts, as to turn over all copies would be to risk their becoming compromised or destroyed altogether.

The next step for Dr and Mrs Fredrics was to seek redress and a stop to the alleged ongoing acts of intimidation by filing criminal charges against Mr Beaton. Thus after a hearing on the facts, a panel of three Magistrates duly advised by the Clerk of the Court issued a summons on 20 April 2007 to Mr Beaton to appear to answer charges of Witness Intimidation, a violation of the Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001.

Once the charges were filed and the summons issued, Mr Beaton allegedly continued through his solicitors to send intimidating letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics, despite the fact that their solicitors explicitly wrote to Mr Beaton’s solicitors asking that no further direct approaches be made to Dr and Mrs Fredrics. Accompanying a letter of 1 May were copies of one of the earlier letters sent by Mr Beaton to Dr and Mrs Fredrics. Interestingly, this letter contained a dated fax header, which was clearly marked “Office of the Vice-Chancellor”. The date of the header was 6 March 2007, the date of one of Mr Beaton’s letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics, and prior to their having filed charges against Mr Beaton. This gave rise to Dr and Mrs Fredrics’ suspicion that the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof Peter Scott, had been aware of the sending of these letters and that he had in all likelihood authorized their sending, which would, therefore, implicate him in the acts of Witness Intimidation. Given that Prof Scott had been recently nominated by the Prime Minister for a Knighthood, it was quite troubling to Dr and Mrs Fredrics that he might have been inappropriately involved not only in the allegedly corrupt grievance appeal hearing, but also, in the alleged attempts by the University to cover up the evidence of the conduct of these proceedings.

After a preliminary hearing on 10 May 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service, in an apparently political decision, took over the case from Dr and Mrs Fredrics and on 22 June 2007, dropped the charges on the grounds that there was “insufficient evidence” that a crime took place. The basis of their decision was that the Act does not explicitly refer to Employment Tribunal proceedings under its list of “relevant proceedings”.

Could Parliament have intended for witness intimidation to, in effect, be legal when it involves parties to an Employment Tribunal, a bona fide civil proceeding with the full weight of law behind it? Or was this merely an oversight in the wording of the Act? Could a panel of three duly advised Magistrates have got it all wrong? In any event the implications are positively chilling – parties to Employment Tribunals and their witnesses can now be freely intimidated with an eye towards perverting the course of Justice. Whistleblowers who take their employers to Tribunal must now be especially careful that they do not fall victim to such acts, for which they will have little or no recourse under the law.

From: http://www.freedomtocare.org

Also from Freedom to Care: Three Fundamental Human Claims

• Every human being has an inalienable right to accountable behaviour from organisations (whether public, private or independent) whose activities significantly affect their quality of life and that of future generations.

• Public officials and private sector directors and managers (whether of for-profit or non-profit organisations) have a duty to explain and justify their intentions, actions and omissions to all those whose quality of life is affected thereby.

• All employees have a right to freedom of conscience and speech in the workplace.