The story begins...

...The story begins with a tenured Dr. PITA who had worked quietly for decades in a fractured department. A private sort of man, he kept to himself. He taught his classes, told jokes to passing colleagues, ran experiments in his lab, and went home to his family. He would later be described as "a dynamic teacher who appeals, particularly, to bright students who have a thirst for learning."

Dr. PITA was foreign-born and of recognizible ethnic origin. For this reason, professional jealousy, or who knows what, there was no love lost between Dr. PITA and his department chair. Mainly they stayed out of each other's way.

Then came the incident... A third accuser materialized, claiming Dr. PITA had trivialized her work and been unprofessional.

The chair, dean, vice-president and president all agreed that Dr. PITA had to be dismissed. He was suspended with pay pending an arbitrator's hearing of appeal. His research money was returned to the funder/ His lab was dismantled. Stories appeared in the press of an unidentified professor dismissed on a morals charge, but without details.

On account of the customary delays in scheduling, the arbitration did not commence until 16 months after Dr. PITA was suspended...

From: 'Eliminating Professors. A Guide to the Dismissal Process', by Kenneth Westhues

Mob, v t, to kill by pack

May I clarify that this is no attempt at scholarly lucubration but rather a personal story of why an Argentinian emigrated to the United States by way of Venezuela; chose an academic career hoping to realize his main values through it; emigrated later to Canada (there is hardly any place farther north to go); found university life – especially in recent years – rather different from what he expected; experienced bias in his profession (mostly from being in a minority of one, as sometimes we all are); was mobbed when he interrupted his quiet research as a highly successful, tenured full professor with an international reputation in his field when he saw it as his moral duty to speak up against a major administrative blunder that hurt thousands of students; had to persist for five months with emails until the university president finally acknowledged, through clenched teeth, that a problem had existed at all; had to endure repeated tricks, attempts at humiliation, and false accusations, including secret lies in court; spent an eye-opening night in jail; saw the phoney story about his “mental instability” and his “tendency to violence” planted by the Administration on the front page of Vancouver newspapers destroy his public reputation; experienced a mixture of redress and personal compassion when the university president had to resign his position because of mental illness (most of his blunders resulted from an obsession with sexual harassment, whether real or in his mind, a crime for which he proudly announced a policy of zero tolerance, always seeing the females as victims in these juicy sex stories, even in cases where the women made false claims and the men were clearly innocent); enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his biography included in the University of Toronto’s Canadian Who’s Who beginning in 1998 (one year after being forced to retire four years early from his university); had to spend five very stressful years and a fortune in lawyers in vain attempts to wipe out the mud and worse thrown at him by the vice-president who then sued him for defamation; developed a limp when given an overdose of medication for his court-related stress; survived quite well through spiritual resources and by immediately going into the second career that should have been his from the start; yet had to endure the ultimate humiliation of being held in contempt of court because a reporter wrote a story with recent events – which he didn’t learn from the defendant and were supposed to be kept under wraps. (Sorry, that was indeed a long sentence. Former professors of linguistics occasionally write like that.)

...The undoubtedly bright university administrators who mobbed me were not lacking in foresight; they obtained a court injunction forbidding me from making any comments about “anything mentioned in the mediation,” an illegal phrase as wide as a Mack truck which I objected to, for in the mediation a great many things, old and new, and without relevance to this particular case, had been mentioned. Any lawyer worth his or her salt would have objected strenuously to this encompassing phrase, but mine accepted it.

... Academic life can be very stressful, especially for those who think differently from the crowd. Long before my mobbing, I remember that for some time, almost every morning, as I approached my campus building from the parking lot, I suffered from nausea. (The section of the department where I did most of my teaching was controlled by four people with political and religious views very different from those of three others, including myself. The interference with the minority’s careers was such that one gave up his promising academic career to run a motel, another died young of a stroke, and I was the only one to survive till retirement age – well, almost). Life has never been fair, but if academic life were even a little fairer, only incompetent deadwood – which I never was – should have to get sick when coming to work.

...At about the same time, the Administration succeeded in having their disingenuous side of the story published on the front page of the two largest newspapers in our province, complete with the smiling face of the “miscreant,” which the adjoining text defamed as emotionally unstable and dangerous.

Evidently the worst “sin” a professor can commit on a campus is to become a dissident against his university administration, even though that has long come under the rubric of “academic freedom.” Again, many colleagues protested for weeks the suspension of my email and other things being done to me, but gradually – as often happens with campus crises – things quieted down, I being the only one indulging in forced quietness.

...My legal ordeal – which lasted almost five years because of my determination to “clear my name” – was very expensive and a source of almost continuous stress, with negative effects on both my physical and emotional health. As for “clearing” anyone’s name, the great majority of people, including many professors, are far more likely to remember an adverse front-page story than to notice any small, neutrally worded announcement that may appear years later somewhere in the back of the same publication. One of the tragedies of mobbing is that once a reputation has been destroyed, a person can never recover it fully...

By Hector Hammerly, Late Professor of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University

From: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/hhammerly-ess.htm

Management briefing: bullying in the workplace

Workplace bullying is on the rise and the public sector is the worst offender, a report has found.

The Government estimates that bullying costs the UK economy £13.7 billion, with 100 million days in productivity lost every year.

In Bullying at Work: the Experience of Managers, 70 per cent of managers polled by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) said that they had witnessed bullying in the past three years and 42 per cent had been bullied themselves, with unfair treatment, verbal insults, unwanted sexual advances, blocked promotion opportunities and physical intimidation among examples named.

When asked about their experiences, managers said that instances of bullying were not only top down. Some 55 per cent had witnessed bullying among peers, and one in three had seen subordinates bullying their managers.

When bullying did occur, it often went unchecked. Almost half the respondents (47 per cent) said no action was taken by their organisation.

There appear to be multiple reasons for the trend. Root causes named include a lack of management skills, cited by 71 per cent of respondents, 59 per cent said that personality clashes were the problem and 44 per cent blamed authoritarian management styles.

The CMI report compared the results with the same survey conducted three years ago and found that bullying appeared to be on the rise across all organisations. On a 5-point scale, individuals gave their employer a score of 2.37 to show the extent of bullying in their workplace, up from 2.25 in 2005. The public sector received an average 2.60.

Gill Trevelyan, the head of good practice services at Acas, the arbitration service, said that high levels of stress associated with professions such as teaching or healthcare were a big factor.

“One of the main reasons for managers to adopt bullying behaviour is when they are under pressure or stress themselves,” she said. However, the figures could also owe to greater awareness of bullying in the public sector, making employees more likely to report incidents.

“In other workplaces that have a more aggressive culture, such as a financial trading floor, these practices may be seen as normal - although not necessarily right,” Ms Trevelyan said. It pays for organisations to be vigilant. Bullying contributes to ill-health, and organisations that tolerate it can be held to account under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

A ruling by the law lords in 2006 made it clear that the principle of vicarious liability under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 applies in the workplace, so employers may be held liable even if they have not acted negligently or were unaware of the problem.

The best course of action is to have clear policies to define what constitutes bullying and to make employees aware of procedures, Ms Trevelyan said. Effective management is crucial. “Managers who take a more consultative, consensual approach rather than ‘command and control' are less likely to be seen as bullies,” she said.

From: http://business.timesonline.co.uk

Apology following Elimination

We do therefor hereby signify to all in general (and to the surviving sufferers in especial) our deep sense of and sorrow for our errors in acting on such evidence to the condemning of any person, and do hereby declare that we justly fear we were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which we are much disquieted and distressed in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ's sake for this our error, and pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves not others. And we so pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living sufferers as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with and not experienced in matters of that nature.

From the statement of the jurors for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, made in 1697, five years after their conviction of 150 men and women for various forms of witchcraft.

From: 'Eliminating Professors. A guide to the dismissal process', by Kenneth Westhues

Universities have been listed among the worst in a survey on bullying of university staff across the UK

Northern Ireland’s two universities have been listed among the worst in a survey on bullying of university staff across the UK.

The University of Ulster and Queen's University feature in the “worst” category for staff being “always” or “often” bullied.

The UU was 7th on the national list compiled by the University and College Union (UCU). The union has named and shamed the universities with the worst reported levels of bullying ahead of Friday’s national Ban Bullying at Work Day. Queen's was 19th.

Of the 143 respondents from Queen’s, 11.9% said they were always or often bullied. At the UU, just over 10% of the 148 respondents said this was the case.

The University of East London had the worst ranking with almost 17% of the staff surveyed saying they were always or often bullied. In 19 institutions at least one-in-10 respondents to the UCU survey reported being ‘always’ or ‘often’ bullied.

A University of Ulster spokesperson said: “The University of Ulster has received a copy of the UCU survey and is in the process of assessing its validity and relevance.

“The university has a comprehensive bullying and harassment procedure agreed with the local trade unions. The aim of the procedure is to provide a safe and harmonious working environment and to provide mechanisms to address any issues raised.

“All staff and students are expected to comply with the policy, and to assist in the promotion of a good working environment free from any form of bullying and harassment.”

Queen’s University said: “Queen’s University is a large employer and has an extensive range of policies to support staff in the workplace.

“The university views bullying at work as unacceptable and has procedures in place to fully investigate complaints of this nature and take appropriate and timely action.

“An analysis of the last two years indicates only three cases have been brought to the attention of senior managers for examination under the agreed procedures. The university has comprehensive consultative procedures in place with all its trade unions.”

Over 9,700 UCU members working in higher education across the UK were surveyed and the results reveal that 6.7% of members said they were always or often bullied at work and 16.7% said “sometimes”. Only half (51%) said they were fortunate enough to “never” be bullied at work.

Less than half of all respondents in higher education (only 45.1%) said they were never subjected to personal harassment at work, 7% said they were subjected to it “always” or “often” and nearly one-in-five (18.8%) said they “sometimes” suffered personal harassment.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “Bullying at work can take many forms and all of them create stress for the victim.

“Everybody has the right to expect to work in a safe environment free from bullying. We believe bullying to be a deep-seated problem in higher education and we want to know what organisations such as the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) are doing to tackle the problem.”

From: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Also: UCU today names and shames the universities with the worst reported levels of bullying, ahead of Friday's national Ban Bullying at Work Day.

They are:

• University of East London
• Kingston University
• De Montfort University
• University of Lincoln
• University of Salford
• University of Glamorgan
• University of Ulster
• Bangor University
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• Birmingham City University
• University of Greenwich
• University of Westminster
• Oxford Brookes University
• University of Gloucestershire
• University of Hertfordshire
• University of Dundee
• University of Portsmouth
• University of Bradford
• Queen's University Belfast

-----------------------------------------------
Tackling bullying - a UCU conference

UCU will be holding a national conference on tackling bullying and harassment in the tertiary education workplace on 27 November in London.

UCU conference centre, Britannia Street, London, WC1X 9JP

Britannia Street office location map

Speakers include:

Dr Iain Coyne, University of Nottingham
Hannah Essex, College and University Support Network, and
John Bamford, UCU health and safety advisor

There will also be practical workshops in the morning and afternoon, on campaigning against bullying and negotiating anti-bullying policies, and results from UCU's forthcoming survey of bullying and cyber-bullying.

7th November 2008 - Ban Bullying at Work Day

The Ban Bullying at work campaign is spearheaded by the Andrea Adams trust – the first charity in the UK dedicated to raising awareness of workplace bullying.

Last year’s Ban Bullying day was very successful, with over 300 organisations involved and an estimated 3 million of the UK’s workforce taking part in events on the day. The website was accessed by an estimated 3 million people up to and including November 7th. All campaign promotional items were completely sold out and several thousand co-branded posters were sold across Europe.

A very successful PR campaign saw us on BBC News, GMTV, Sky News, the ‘Today’ programme, 23 regional BBC radio shows and a wide range of newspapers and magazine articles which all helped get the campaign the attention it deserved.

As the UK’s leading authority on workplace bullying, the Andrea Adams Trust is committed not just to helping individuals and organisations deal with the problem, but to extending our understanding of the nature and scale of workplace bullying through extensive partnership working. For more details of the Trust’s work click here.

The Fundamental Question: Do You Side With Bullied Targets or With Perpetrators?

We are a blame-the-victim nation. Part of this is human nature. Cognitive psychology teaches us that when faced with two conflicting internal beliefs when bullying strikes a friend -- "I like my co-worker friend" and "Bad things happen only to bad people" -- there is a tendency to want to reduce the conflict, the dissonance, by changing one of those beliefs.

The result is that we individuals are more likely to abandon the bond we feel for our friends in order to support the internalized twisted worldview that if tragedy visits someone then that person must have deserved it. Sounds bizarre, right? But this distortion, called the fundamental attribution error, is our tendency to overestimate the role individuals play in their fate.

Under the artificial cover of "toughness" or "responsibility," we humans rationalize remarkable cruelty perpetrated senselessly against others. Though domestic violence is now criminalized, it is still rampant because of the insipid belief that if a spouse gets battered, the batterer must have rationally acted on the basis of something the battered one made him do. Poppycock!

When we learn that Americans now torture others in violation of all international and moral laws and against our traditions, too many of us justify the torture because we believe that innocents would not be tortured if it was not necessary. This blame-the-victim trend is becoming all too American!

Similarly when we witness a peer being bullied in the workplace, it arouses such negative emotions in us, that too often we make ourselves feel better by ostracizing the victim and ending our historical relationship with him or her. We turn our backs on our fellow human beings out of the selfish desire to not feel empathy for them when we see their pain. Empathy causes us to feel the pain ourselves. The deliberate distancing from others probably explains a growing alienation that drives epidemic levels of depression and social dysfunction in our society.

As a society, we discount or diminish workplace bullying and psychological violence with hollow, dehumanized phrases like "managerial prerogative must be ensured" "don't interfere with the ability of businesses to be competitive" or "this country was built by mean, aggressive sons of bitches ... some people may need a little appropriate bullying in order to do a good job ... they are really just wimps."

For the first decade of the U.S. movement against workplace bullying, we have applied rationality to the irrational process of destructive interpersonal bullying. We appealed to businesses with bottom-line fiscal impact. Bullies are too expensive to keep. Employers did not care. If they are in business ostensibly to make a profit or to sustain quality government services, they should care. However, our experiences on-site with employers as consultants as well as the empirical data we gathered in a series of surveys expose employer indifference to workplace bullying. Without a specific law posing a litigation threat, employers blithely carry on as if bullying never happens, even denying it when it is reported to them.

As for "personal responsibility," there is a double standard. Victims are responsible, but the bullies-perpetrators never take responsibility. Their explanations are always some form of the target "made me do it." Weak employers allow the bullying to happen with impunity, without accountability, as if helpless to stop the abuser on their payroll.

According to the 2007 WBI-Zogby poll, in 44% of cases of reported bullying, employers did nothing. (In an additional 18% of cases, they worsened the situation by turning on the victim-complainant.) Rationally, employers can afford to do this because 80% of bullying is legal.

Bullying is morally wrong.

Doing nothing is not a neutral act when an individual pleas for relief from the emotional misery bullying inflicts. Doing nothing is denying the person credibility as an adult. Doing nothing is sustaining the status quo and defending the perpetrator, however implicitly or indirectly. How dare HR, the primary agent responsible for implementing or blocking the employer's response to reported bullying, side with the bully (most often in management, 73%) against the employee who naively came to HR for "help"!

So at the beginning of our second decade, we must not be reticent about calling perpetrators and those who support them immoral. It is not our subjective morality that is violated, but the deeper sense of human dignity that is undermined when victims of bullying are not supported. We need to rekindle our compassion for those less fortunate than us whose fate was not their own making. Bully apologists have an indefensible, unconscionable position of favoring abuse.

Once we are bullied and feel the full force of a laser-focused campaign of interpersonal abuse, we drop the smug justifications for the bully. If we work long enough in enough different places and encounter enough incompetent bosses, we are likely to be bullied ourselves in our work life (37% of U.S. workers are). The only people who still doubt that bullying happens are the ones who have never suffered an unexpected, univited disaster or catastrophe. Events humble arrogant superiority known only to those lacking experience in bullying, direct or witnessed. But we should not have to wait for everyone to be personally bullied so that they understand how destructive bullying can be to personal health, careers, families, and employers.

Paraphrasing comments from a recent U.S. president: you are either with us or with the perpetrators. The fundamental question is to which side are your willing to commit?

There are not two equally compelling morally equivalent sides to the violence at work dilemma. No one targeted by bullying invited or wanted the intolerable misery. There is no "win-win" amicable mediated settlement possible in bullying situations. To tolerate a little bit of abuse, to appease perpetrators, is unacceptable. It is a moral compromise that leads to societal decline. It triggers retrospective questions such as, what have we allowed ourselves to become?

The choice is simple, actually. Do not squirm to make it complex. The ethical human choice transcends corporate or institutional needs.

Either side with the perpetrators of violence and rationalize and excuse the escalating trend toward hostility and abuse in the workplace

or

side with the targeted individuals who asked for nothing more than to be left alone to do the jobs they once loved.

From: http://bullyinginstitute.org