21percent.org. The 21 Group

A staff group founded at Cambridge in 2023, supporting members facing institutional retaliation.

Recent posts

201
Blog · 19 May 2024

Astro-Bullies 1

There have been a series of high-profile bullying scandals in astronomy in recent years. These include : These scandals have affected European & American universities. What about the UK? The Royal Astronomical Society has just carried…

202
Blog · 28 Apr 2024

The 21 Group Launches its Survey

There is a need for more statistics on bullying, discrimination, harassment & victimisation in academia. Existing surveys are either restricted to certain subject areas (eg astronomy & geophysics) and/or curiously unavailable (eg EPSRC’s Report on “Understanding…

203
Blog · 13 Apr 2024

Sherlock Junior & Mr Pork-Scratchings

If you raise a formal allegation of bullying or misconduct, your University will have to investigate. Studies show that bullying is endemic in Universities. A few examples among many will suffice. In one of the largest…

204
Blog · 16 Mar 2024

The Shame of the LSE

The London School of Economics (LSE) have just provided another classic example of failure to deal with harassment. The outcome has been — predictably enough — the demoralization of the victims and the exoneration of the…

205
Blog · 8 Mar 2024

False Allegations & Public Money

Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, made false allegations about two academics. Donelan wrote to the Prof Ottoline Leyser, the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to “express, in…

206
Blog · 26 Feb 2024

The Shame of Oxford University

The Billionaire University has been found guilty of exploiting its staff at an Employment Tribunal. Rebecca Abrams and Alice Jolly taught Creative Writing at Oxford University for 15 years. They were employed on fixed-term “personal services”…

207
Blog · 19 Feb 2024

The Shame of Bristol University

This is a very upsetting story. It concerns the death of an undergraduate student. Natasha Abrahart was in the second year of a physics degree at Bristol University. She sadly took her life in 2018 —…

208
Blog · 13 Feb 2024

The Cost of Bullying

There is a human cost to bullying. The people running UK Universities don’t seem to care much about that. They are primarily interested in running the University like a business. So here, we will just look…

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