Let’s take five while we await the outcome of a (Professor at a) prominent University’s Carter-Rucking the UK media (or in Private Eye parlance, Carter-Fucking)
On an earlier thread, the poster called ‘TheResearcher’ made an intriguing suggestion:
“I would be game if a few of us come together to write a book on how the University of Cambridge changed our lives. “Breaking the Silence” campaigns are curiously missing the view of the victims. I reckon that book would be a best seller and we could even donate any profits.” [TheResearcher]
A recent parallel — though not on bullying — is the book “Shaping for Mediocrity” by Dr David Harvie and co-authors. This is an insider account of the 2021 demolition of the departments of English, Business, Informatics, Mathematics and Neuroscience, Psychology & Behaviour at Leicester University by its Vice Chancellor, Professor Nishan Canagarajah. Though focused on resisting 200 job losses, the book exposes Leicester University’s authoritarian senior management as remorseless Bond villains. Some of the victims subsequently won unfair dismissal claims at Employment Tribunals, for example Harvie and Others versus University of Leicester and D’Arcy versus University of Leicester. (The D’Arcy case is particularly notable as she won by herself without a barrister against the University’s KC.)
‘TheResearcher’ is suggesting something similar, a book with individual chapters written by the victims, recounting their stories.
A takeaway from comments on the 21 Group blog is that the unethical and heavy-handed tactics are similar across many departments in many institutions. For example, the organised abuse from HR is a consequence of the changes that have taken place in UK universities over the last decade, which have drained power away from academics to powerful and unaccountable administrators. So, the scope should be more general than just Cambridge University (though certainly Cambridge is generating enough cases for a multi-volume set).
The personal case studies would include names and references to hard evidence. To counter the particularity of any case (What can you learn from a case, given it is just one case?), the book should also extend or generalise findings from one case, either to other cases or to other disciplines. For example, there have been shocking stories in other areas — such as this recent story from a Belfast NHS Trust, which has resonances with cases discussed on this blog. The book should have editorial narrative to provide context, explain significance, draw connections between cases within and outside academia and suggest possible ways forward, both for victims and institutions.
The book would gather personal accounts into a single, publicly accessible, permanent document. There are a number of important forthcoming legal cases, so some evidence (including names) will be discussed in open court. Even if a case settles, the forthcoming ban of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in legal agreements makes reporting and discussing the matter easier. Previously victims were hushed up. If they broke the NDA, they risked being Carter-Fucked.
So the aim of this blog post posting is to gauge interest and stimulate discussion of the proposal. Clearly it is a longer-term (1-2 years) project, but we should start soon if there is sufficient interest. Possible contributors/editors should let the 21 Group know.
Many thanks to the poster ‘AnonymousAcademic’ for helpful discussions about this.
Wyn Evans
57 Comments
TheResearcher · 28 September 2025 at 09:53
I do not mind contributing to chapters, editing or whatever is necessary.
However, we should be careful. Our universities cannot know that we are doing this. What would UCam do to me if they knew that I am planning to participate in this book? Perhaps increasing the list of people that I allegedly abused? Perhaps implement “Ultra Special Precautionary Measures” where I am not allowed to use internet at all? Put my face on tree trunks saying “wanted”? They should not be concerned by this collective movement after all because, as I was reminded by the most discussed Lead HR Business Partner of the 21 Group, my contributions are simply “baseless personal attacks on the integrity and professionalism of members of the University.”
In due course, we should try to push the idea of presenting the victims’ perspective in websites of universities and colleges like we find in customer feedback. This is the sort of thing that could be approved via a Grace in Regent House. “Breaking the Silence” campaigns are missing personal experiences, if you know what I mean.
Eileen Nugent · 30 September 2025 at 13:41
“baseless personal attacks on the integrity and professionalism of members of the University.”
1. “baseless” = no basis in fact = would be hard for some of the Lead HR Business Partners in Cambridge to defend the employment actions taken in some of these cases that the university has generated. The facts will speak for themselves.
2. “personal attacks” A person with a legal obligation to an organisation initiates a public interest legal process – that doesn’t make actions this person takes within that specific context personal actions. If the lead HR Business Partners actions taken in the context of administering HR are not their personal actions then why are the actions of “the person with a legal obligation to an organisation” to raise concerns personal actions – they are not personal actions. It’s legally obligated organisational criticism – it’s academic freedom.
3. “Integrity and professionalism” – a distinction needs to be made here between the properties of the organisation and the characteristics of individuals in an organisation. An organisation can lack integrity at the level of the organisation – e.g. it can have a systemic financial process with a significant error [post office] and that can eventually bring an organisations governance structure down. The persistent lack of organisational integrity forces individuals in the organisational to work harder to maintain their individual integrity and professionalism under conditions of increased individual pressure within the organisation – the organisational integrity fault generates an additional force on individuals that then requires the counter-actions of individuals with integrity and professionalism to stabilise the organisation, diagnose and fix the fault it & restore the organisation to a state of organisational integrity.
4. “members of the University.” the group of people who have a duty to care what state the University is in and what happens to the University
translator · 30 September 2025 at 14:59
“baseless personal attacks on the integrity and professionalism of members of the University”
This statement in fact best describes the actions taken by some Lead HR Business Partners: the magnification of issues, the fabrication of evidence, the needless and indeed baseless but highly detrimental escalation of grievances against members of the University who have served their communities with integrity and professionalism.
There is a strong “personal” element in the retaliatory measures taken against The Researcher, almost in real time, and as we know, The Researcher is sadly not the only one experiencing such attacks.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 15:02
Eileen, unfortunately, the most discussed Lead HR Business Partner in the 21 Group who sent me that phrase does not have the same moral system than people who post in this blog and I seriously doubt that she can even reflect on what you wrote. I hope, however, to see her in the whistleblowing trial on June 1-28th 2026 at Bury St Edmunds Tribunal, and I can ask her directly, in a respectful manner of course, if what you said makes sense to her.
TheAstroGossip · 30 September 2025 at 17:39
Quite a circus at Bury St Edmunds
AQ, Nurse Emily, Fireman Mike, Concerned Face Nigel, Teddy Bear and the usual HR Drones will all be there
Assuming they are not all on sick leave by then 😉
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 18:01
How many times can a person in the public interrupt the proceedings and scream “liar” while pretending that is coughing before the judge instructs security to remove the person from the room? We need to know how many warnings we can afford, and take turns…
Eileen Nugent · 30 September 2025 at 18:13
A substantial amount of HR training is preparing HR professionals to think in the employment law private interest framework where statements such as : “baseless personal attacks on the integrity and professionalism of members of the University.” don’t look out of place. In the public law organisational/public interest framework such statements can lose all meaning.
These are “baseless personal attacks on the integrity and professionalism of members of the University.” is an odd organisational response to a concern that the functionality of the organisational grievances processes – which has been in decline over the past three decades – has now reached a level of functionality where it’s not possible to run the organisational grievance processes in some of the individual cases the organisation is now generating, a situation which is not in the interests of the individual, the organisation & the public.
I see no reason why HR staff cannot make the transition to thinking in the public law organisational interest framework and start reflecting on a subset of their HR cases in that framework. The moral system is encoded in the framework – one framework involves more complex conflicts of interest calculations and it therefore takes more mental effort to think in that framework – doing so however can reveal cases where what is being done is in no ones best interest and enable alternative approaches to be found which could be in everyones best interest. The extra work can ultimately pay off if the case is resolved more quickly & in a way which is agreeable to all parties.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 18:28
Join us in the whistleblowing trial on June 1-28th 2026 at Bury St Edmunds Tribunal, and I reckon you will understand why the most discussed Lead HR Business partner in the 21 Group does not have the ability to reflect on misconduct, namely the one she is responsible for. Those who had the pleasure to interact with her via their reports of research and behavioural misconduct know what I mean. But I might be wrong!
21percent.org · 30 September 2025 at 19:23
There is plenty happening before then. A particularly interesting tribunal in April 2026 sees a very senior member of HR and a very senior member of the University legal department accused (amongst other things) of fabricating evidence.
Under the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), particularly Rule 32.14, any party who knowingly makes a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth may be in contempt of court. This includes witness statements, witness summaries, and other documents submitted during proceedings. A person found in contempt of court can face imprisonment for up to two years, a fine, or both. Additionally, under the Fraud Act 2006, offences such as fraud by false representation carry a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment on summary conviction and up to 10 years on indictment Crown Prosecution Service. If false evidence is presented with the intent to deceive the tribunal, it may constitute perverting the course of justice, a common law offence punishable by life imprisonment and/or a fine. Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, with intent to mislead any tribunal holding any judicial proceeding by fabricating evidence.
There is a real chance that, if the Claimant wins the Tribunal, there will be subsequent criminal proceedings and two senior members of Cambridge University HR/Legal will be off to Holloway (the Prison not the College).
21percent.org · 28 September 2025 at 10:39
This is worth emphasising. Dr D’Arcy is a specialist in medieval literature.
“The D’Arcy case is particularly notable as she won by herself without a barrister against the University’s KC.”
Many don’t go to Employment Tribunals (ETs) because of cost. Universities know that those on insecure contracts can rarely afford barristers & they take advantage of this.
But many (most?) academics have the skills to assimilate the necessary Employment Law, represent themselves and win their cases.
Even if you lose at an ET, you do not bear the costs of the winning parties. So, it need not be super-expensive to go to ET.
Note that some Universities will threaten you with their costs at ET. This is a bluff. If a University solicitor does this, report them to the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA).
Anon · 28 September 2025 at 11:12
There are multiple documented instances of university poison pill letters sent to other universities in an attempt to prevent faculty continuing in academia via the spreading of false claims. The victims became big name professors internationally – so if they speak out, they will have a huge amount more credibility than the nobodies who had tried to block their pathway to success. This is important because it needs to be clear that the victims are not simply disgruntled or bitter. The insiders were bitter about being outshined by the achievement of others, and abused their power out of spite.
21percent.org · 28 September 2025 at 11:21
Very common, not just for academics but also professional services staff (PSS) who don’t toe the line
Here’s Cambridge caught out
“Sued The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge in the County Court for negligence and malicious falsehood in providing a poison pen reference that led to their former employee being dismissed from her new job, resulting in early settlement and the payment of compensation and legal costs.”
https://www.cambridgelegal.co.uk/profile/
E · 28 September 2025 at 11:38
I agree with you that it is important to tell the stories and make clear that this is something systemic that has affected high profile individuals as well as countless students and professional staff without the resources and connections to defend themselves from abuse.
However equally important, not least of all from the perspective of bringing about systemic change, is to situate this within the broader context.
That broader context is one of institutional decay in British public life. What has happened at our elite educational institutions is symptomatic of a broader decline in professional standards and governance and is in need of a revolution in professional standards based on a strict code of transparency, accountability and individual responsibility.
TheResearcher · 28 September 2025 at 13:49
That is exactly why we cannot let this continue. If not for us who at least already know how UCam and other universities work, for those who still do not know the current state and may eventually go through what we did. We cannot wait years for tribunals/courts.
There is no institution who can silence us if we are telling the truth there is public interest involved in disclosing our experiences. We do not need that many stories if people are not comfortable in telling theirs, but we do need to report these experiences as soon as possible to prevent further damage, namely further victims. That is my only priority at the moment.
SPARTACUS · 28 September 2025 at 13:22
As 21percent.org very well knows in the case of UCam victims of the abuse perpretated by the oligarchy are silenced and threatened with serious repercussions if they speak up. Confidentiality is abused and is itself a form if abuse and in effect institutional bullying. The worse aspect is that the oligarchy uses its power, the whole HR apparatus and the funds from the Chest to pay for their abuse while individuals are left with paying the totally of their personal costs. This disgrace will continue until the Press and the Courts start acting! Only then will the many good people that still exist in the University say enough and basically kick out the whole oligarchy, starting with the American Queen, and restore our University as a prestigious and scholastic institution. It will take years and in the meanwhile the decay will continue.
TheResearcher · 28 September 2025 at 13:52
Sorry, my post above was a reply to SPARTACUS, not E. I meant to copy/paste SPARTACUS’s “UCam victims of the abuse perpretated by the oligarchy are silenced and threatened with serious repercussions if they speak up” and then add my comment as I did above.
Bloody right · 28 September 2025 at 16:14
Bloody right, bloody well said!
Eileen Nugent · 29 September 2025 at 00:14
It’s like being forced to walk the organisational plank only to discover that the organisation you are dealing with seems to have taken inspiration from Escher in the design of their organisational planks.
User · 29 September 2025 at 06:59
Why not call a vote of no confidence in the VC/PVCs/Council via the Regent House? My gut feeling is the the discontent around the place is such that a good number (40-50%) would back it and the VC would have to resign
TheResearcher · 29 September 2025 at 11:04
Even if she resigned, changing one individual will not make much of difference if Registrary, Academic Secretary, university HR and other leadership remained. That is the distressing thing about the current state of affairs, it is the result of robust team work. We could ask her to bring her colleagues with her though…
Xerxes · 29 September 2025 at 13:11
Of the top University Officers, I’d actually rate the VC as the best.
It’s not a very strong accolade, as the Registrary, the Academic Secretary, the HR Director and the two most senior of the ProVCs are so abysmal. (Two or three of the other Pro-VCs are competent, but probably have little power) .
So, it’s not obvious that the VC is the problem. She may even understand the problems (which clearly predate her arrival) but she lacks the power or influence or support to fix them.
In my opinion, it’s more important to remove the Registrary who has had a catastrophic influence on the University.
SPARTACUS · 29 September 2025 at 13:18
They ALL need to go! This team of senior managers (VC, ProVCs, Registrary, Academy Secretary, and Head of HR) is a complete disaster presiding over rot and decay!
Anonymous · 29 September 2025 at 13:39
The problem is also that VCs are carefully screened when appointed, by the various other actors that are really running the show. They will only appoint a candidate that they know they can control, or at least shield from certain realities. Such a weak VC will generally only appoint individuals of lesser ability and similar (or worse) moral compass, in supporting roles, making wider and significant change just about impossible.
ProfX · 29 September 2025 at 15:38
This is the reason why you appoint a VC from 3000 miles away with no experience of UK Higher Education
Anonymous · 29 September 2025 at 16:24
At the other extreme, it is generally a bad idea to appoint a VC or Acting VC that has never worked anywhere else since their PhD. Nor is it a good idea to appoint a VC that is known to have caused havoc at their previous institution, requiring “2-3 years to fix” according to reports. The institute in question is now on the brink of collapse.
21percent.org · 29 September 2025 at 19:00
The other point is VC jobs are normally sought through executive search firms like Saxton Bampfylde or GatenbySanderson
https://www.saxbam.com
https://www.gatenbysanderson.com/
They’ll filter out any applications that suggest you might have the wellbeing or happiness of staff at heart, of course
Eileen Nugent · 30 September 2025 at 09:56
One problem with executive search firms – other than them being expensive – is that if one firm starts to monopolise the national market for pre-selection of candidates for leadership positions it can then have a significant impact on the evolution of leadership characteristics across many organisations in a country.
Using an executive search firm introduces another potential conflict of interest – another potential source of bias in leadership selection. One of these companies has the potential to be a meta driver of leadership evolution across many organisations in a country – whether that is a good of bad thing depends on whether the leadership in the executive search firm is itself evolving in the right direction and whether the leadership is then taking the whole organisation with it.
I think part of the reason organisations started using these firms was to reduce hiring biases in their organisation and increase the pool of people applying for leadership positions. The risk Is that organisations substitute the hiring biases of one organisation for another. Also, whilst this might increase the number of candidates applying for a particular leadership position it may result in the same candidates applying for every leadership position and this can actually reduce the probability of new leadership candidates entering into the system and new leaders emerging.
Anon · 1 October 2025 at 13:44
It is not needed for any one person to go, any more than the “right” person would somehow fix the institution. What is needed is processes that ensure people do the right thing, if only from self interest. An obvious example is how a group like this allows those who failed to secure internal redress the last option of blowing the whistle. We can do this by working collectively to ensure accountability – we are the solution the university needs.
21percent.org · 1 October 2025 at 15:26
But, the university actively engages in institutional victimisation of whistleblowers and victims of misconduct.
The majority of the victimisation is performed by the institution itself – HR, Legal, Heads of School.
This runs directly against the purpose of the university and the will of the academic community it both serves and is built upon.
The remedy is for academics to reclaim control of the institution. In that sense, we are the solution.
But there are also those who will need to go, because they committed criminal acts and because there are real victims who suffered real distress and pain in all of this.
It’s illegal to victimise whistleblowers. Hence Jun 1-28th 2026, Bury St Edmunds.
IMAGINARY · 29 September 2025 at 09:25
Fear rules in all Consiglieri Universities of the parallel University. In our reality all is rosy?
Anonymous · 29 September 2025 at 13:16
I’m certainly interested in supporting this, and I hope it goes ahead.
Perhaps various HR departments should know what’s going on though, so that those within HR and senior management that are seeking positive change but feel helpless in doing so, may consider contributing, anonymously if preferred.
This resource may also make it easier for future Employment Tribunal claimants/victims to reference specifics and hard evidence from other cases where precisely the same technique was used to abuse, to silence, or to unlawfully dismiss etc. I think this would be very beneficial to such victims in ETs. Better prepared cases should mean more successes in court, which means higher likelihood of change, and for victims to be a major step closer to closure and to healing.
As for a potential alternative title for the book, I suggest “I am sure you do” …
Eileen Nugent · 29 September 2025 at 14:26
I think I first need to go through a set legal processes to finish complying with this set of legal obligations to the university. Whilst the regulation of work-related stress has its own specific regulatory properties which are distinct from other types of organisational health and safety regulation the general approach to dealing with this fundamentally new type of organisational health and safety regulation is no different to dealing with any other existing type of health and safety regulation. If the root of the problem lies with the organisational processes in relation to a particular health and safety issue [a new defined one] then it may then become necessary to drive a set of legal process through the organisation in order to define the right changes to those organisational processes in a “formal conversation” with the organisation at the end of which is a legal mechanism to ensure the changes are implemented.
This seems to be a case where an organisational health and safety fault has built up gradually in an organisation over an extremely long time [more than 3 decades] and under many different leaders [more than 6 previous organisational leaders] after which time a combination of sufficient evidence and societal understanding builds for the health and safety fault to be recognised as such & then raised with the organisation. This organisational fault emerged due to a lack of any functional joined-up societal understanding and awareness of the existence of this particular type of organisational health and safety issue – organisational regulation of work-related stress – and therefore the organisation evolved for many decades in the absence of any societal recognition of the need for any form of organisational health and safety regulation in relation to it.
If neither an organisation nor the society it is embedded in is aware of the existence of a particular health and safety issue – organisational work-related stress regulation – and the organisation therefore has no legal obligation to regulate that health and safety issue that it is also not aware of the existence of then it’s not surprising that the first time the organisation becomes aware of the existence of that organisational fault it when it is already severe as it has just been through a major organisational stressor. The awareness of health and safety risk arrives suddenly but the health and safety risk itself has existed in the organisation for decades without any recognition of it, it is a complex health and safety risk and one which is not well characterised, at the time of organisational awareness it already presents a serious health and safety risk and it is therefore necessary to take organisational action in relation to it – this is the most challenging governance situation an organisation can be presented with because it is one that involves digging deep into the organisation to find answers and solutions.
The test of the current organisational leadership in this specific case is therefore whether during the course of their leadership they can unpack previous decades worth of organisational behaviour. The organisational behaviour that evolved prior to the arrival of new senior leadership evolved in the absence of both an awareness of a organisational health and safety risk and the requirement for any organisational regulation with respect to that health and safety risk. This historical situation permitted organisational behaviour to emerge some of which is now proving incompatible with this new legal obligation to regulate a health and safety risk – work-related stress. The test of the current leadership is therefore whether they can get the organisation to an organisational state where it is sufficiently open, honest, and ready to co-operate fully with inquiries and investigations such that it is possible for an individual/group of individuals who have been impacted by this particular organisational health and safety fault to drive a new set of legal processes through the organisation under their leadership.
If the current leadership can get the organisation to that point – where the organisation itself is prepared to cooperate with processes to diagnose the organisational fault and find a solution to it – organisational processes such that they can become compatible with the effective regulation of work-related stress – a necessary step in driving the required organisational behaviour change [i.e. in building organisational processes that will enable the organisation to function better as an organisation under conditions of increased organisational stress in future]- to address this newly recognised type of organisational health and safety fault and bring the organisation into a state of compliance with a newly defined national health and safety obligation.
The thing to bear in mind here is that when an organisation first discovers the existence of an organisational health and safety fault that has in reality been with the organisation for many decades already – e.g. existence of RAAC in organisational buildings which many organisations lived with for many decades without realising the destructive potential of that organisational health and safety fault embedded in their infrastructure – the organisation still has to run continuously as an organisation whilst the organisation finds the safest way to address that organisational fault. It will rarely make sense to stop running altogether because this will be more stressful [generate other types of risks] for all its members than running in a temporarily adapted mode of operation.
The senior leadership still has to do all the tasks that are associated with the normal running of the organisation which is what they were hired to do and if this was all they did – i.e. there were no major organisational faults to fix – they would still get paid the salaries in their employment contract. The senior leadership also has to deal with continuously adapting the operation of the organisation to the newly recognised health and safety fault – knowledge of which might emerge all in one go [RAAC] with an already known solution or gradually over a longer period of time [work-related stress regulation risk] with a solution that might only emerge in the course of the organisation attempting to deal with the situation – such that the organisation runs continuously while it adapts to its current state of knowledge of the organisational health and safety fault that it is now aware of the existence of. The senior leadership also has to deal with managing the changes to the organisational processes to adequately the newly emergent health and safety regulatory risk to an acceptable level. The organisation can always add some extra tasks for senior leadership – no confidence vote for all the senior leadership – but adding extra tasks for senior leadership is unlikely to increase the speed with which the organisation handles e.g. the RAAC organisational health and safety fault.
This is a particularly serious type of governance risk for an organisation : when an organisational governance process relating to a specific type of organisational health and safety fault is active and the organisation starts initiating counter-actions to the current organisational actions to address that health and safety fault – e.g. a no confidence vote. These organisational counter-actions have the potential to generate an even greater organisational health and safety risk for the organisation than the current organisational actions to address the health and safety fault. It is possible for an whole organisation to put all its senior leadership through a no confidence vote – and generate lots of additional work-related stress for them all in the process – as part of an organisational governance process to deal with an organisational health and safety fault on the regulation of work related stress. It also is possible for a whole organisation to gather together and to jump up and down on a RAAC structure that is embedded in one of the organisations buildings to check whether that RAAC structure – that always looked so structurally sound when it was embedded in the organisational infrastructure for decade – really did always pose an ongoing health and safety risk to them all.
SPARTACUS · 29 September 2025 at 16:20
As this gladiator said many times: UCam is run like the Post Office! VC really does NOT care! She makes 550k/year! Paula Vennels 2.0!!
TheResearcher · 29 September 2025 at 18:57
That is exactly why we cannot let this situation continue.
I had two independent meetings in college today where people tried to convince me that it could be a question of “perspective” that perhaps my evidence is not as strong as I think it is. Did they want to review my evidence and comment on it? No.
Raven · 29 September 2025 at 20:00
Classic!
Why are people who waffle about perspective and refuse to consider evidence even members of this University?
Aren’t they missing something fundamental about theory of knowledge?
TheResearcher · 29 September 2025 at 20:46
The meetings made me think about the tobacco industry’s long-standing public relations strategy to create uncertainty and controversy about the health risks of smoking in the late 1960s: “Doubt is our Product.” But experiencing this from people who are responsible for us, people we trusted for years, is very disturbing.
No one wants to see the evidence about the state of UCam because it reminds them that they should have reported similar problems, but they did not act. The problem of UCam is much bigger than VC, Pro-VCs, university HR, Registrary, Academic Secretary and company. The culture of concealing, manipulation and pretending is so engrained that only large-scale exposure of misconduct will have a significant impact. I can safely say that after contacting many tens of people, only the 21 Group took me seriously.
Please, consider reporting your experiences. It will make a big difference to many.
Bloody right · 29 September 2025 at 19:00
Bloody right
Eileen Nugent · 29 September 2025 at 18:55
The first step is to ask permission from Regent House to proceed with a set of legal processes to comply with a legal obligation to the University of Cambridge that has arisen in the context of membership of Regent House.
Eileen Nugent · 29 September 2025 at 22:36
There are some interesting and fairly thorough discussions from the Reporter that record the state of employment processes at the University of Cambridge between 2004 and 2009 – two decades ago.
https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009-10/weekly/6171/section8.shtml
“The need for this overhaul arises in part from the unsatisfactory nature of our present disciplinary, dismissal, and grievance procedures, and in part from the fact that employment practice has changed substantially in recent years. The inadequacy of our present procedures is reflected in the time they are taking to deal with cases – for example, the score or more grievance cases that are under way at any given time are taking on average a year to settle, and some several years. This is not a case of delays to refine justice. Delays generally amplify the bitterness of disputes and of grievances, increasing the collateral damage to colleagues and the Departments affected.”
Professor Simon Deakin who specialises in Labour law notes :
“The changes to grievance procedures are intended to return the grievance process to its original purpose, namely that of providing an informal means of resolving work-related complaints. Statute U is vague on the objectives of the grievance procedure, and the Ordinances fail to provide an adequate framework for the conduct of the process. Over time, grievance hearings have tended to become increasingly lengthy and adversarial. This occurred in part because of the change in the law which, from 2004, required certain statutory employment claims to be pursued as internal grievances before they could be heard by an employment tribunal. That law, which was designed to reduce litigation before employment tribunals, had the effect of greatly increasing the costs of dispute resolution for employers. It has now been repealed. We should take this opportunity to clarify the aims of our grievance procedures and to put in place effective time limits and other protections against potential abuses of the process.”
Eileen Nugent · 29 September 2025 at 23:29
There’s this one from 1997 – that’s nearly three decades ago – some very interesting discussions on that particular case :
https://rso.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/1997-98/weekly/5724/36.html
https://rso.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/1997-98/weekly/5738/14.html
https://rso.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/1997-98/weekly/5716/4.html
The sheer volume of information that a grievance relating to a single employment process – promotion process – can generate.
21percent.org · 29 September 2025 at 23:35
These are very interesting links, thank you for tracking them down & posting.
Problems Have Solutions · 30 September 2025 at 19:36
My suggestion is to register a website that will function as an open repository of employees at the university, listing a complete record of their behaviours to date in relation to bullying and harassment of students and other staff.
This should not be structured around victims but around each individual perpetrator. Each profile will list one person (e.g. HR administrator, professor, college official) and members of this group will be able to edit the profile to include their experiences. These must follow a strict rule of supporting documentation i.e. for each statement a link to uploaded copies of emails and documentary evidence. The editorial rights management will allow easy addition of materials by members of the public, but limited rights of removal.
Profile pages will also be set up for any member of staff who received information in relation to staff abuse in any capacity, together with a full account of the actions they took, if any, in response. This will act as an incentive to ensure appropriate handling of complaints under commonly accepted legal and ethical guidelines.
The site would entail no non-vexatious legal challenge as the information would be factually supported. A complaints review mechanism will be offered, and this will offer an independent review process of less than three years for any subject of a profile page who wishes to make a complaint.
I am happy to initiate this process under a suitable jurisdiction, with editorial rights management fully assigned to non-university staff team who are resident outside of the United Kingdom.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 19:54
I would say that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Your idea is great for university members who are involved in multiple cases, which makes their misconduct more evident and harder to contradict, but I fear that it may overlook the complexity of individual cases where multiple senior members are involved in concealing and manipulating information. The voices of individual victims can be more powerful for highlighting the systemic nature of the issue—institutional corruption—namely if we make comparative analysis to highlight common behavioural practices among cases.
Anonymous · 30 September 2025 at 20:42
What makes you think you people will not join the dots? I suspect the volume of material will astonish you.
The head of HR received a report last year of a recent bullying case resulting in suicide. She did not think such matters are worth investigating. I have a copy of this email chain.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 22:05
I do not have any doubt there is a very large volume of material, and this idea has all my support. I just think the website and a book are complementary, not mutually exclusive, and indeed the former may be quicker to implement and to have an impact.
“The head of HR received a report last year of a recent bullying case resulting in suicide. She did not think such matters are worth investigating.”
This does not surprise me at all. She has recently dismissed a safeguarding referral based on over two years of medical evidence. Believe it or not, the head of HR is the Designated Safeguarding Lead for the entire University of Cambridge.
Eileen Nugent · 1 October 2025 at 09:01
The UK went from [position A] where there was no legal requirement to regulate work-related stress, there was no legal requirement to investigate any death by suicide to analyse whether it was a work-related & also no legal requirement to report any death by suicide under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) to the health and safety executive to [position B] where there is now a legal requirement to regulate work-related stress but there is still no legal requirement to investigate any death by suicide to check whether it was a work-related & no legal requirement to report any death by suicide under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) to the health and safety executive.
This is a stepped approach to the development of an effective national framework for work-related stress regulation and at this stage there is a high level of uncertainty for individuals and organisations over the handling of individual cases that have the potential to fall under this type of health and safety regulation. I think it is likely that the current position is an intermediate position [proves a difficult position to stay in] en route to a stable long-term position and not a stable long-term position in itself. In an intermediate position it is a case of individuals and organisations checking individual cases with the health and safety executive – is this individual case potentially indicative of an organisational failure to meet the current legal obligations to regulate work-related stress – the classification of the individual case as evidence of a wider organisational failing to regulate work-related stress could change the decision-making on whether an investigation is required in this intermediate position.
21percent.org · 1 October 2025 at 09:57
“The head of HR received a report last year of a recent bullying case resulting in suicide. She did not think such matters are worth investigating. I have a copy of this email chain.”
If you are able to share more details in confidence, please use contact@21percent.org
We are interested in gathering enough data & cases to raise a formal complaint against Cambridge University at the Health and Safety Executive.
The running of the HR division in Cambridge University is a danger to the safety of staff.
21percent.org · 30 September 2025 at 20:24
This is a very, very interesting idea. We’d be happy to discuss it some more.
The legal & practical difficulties are obvious. Vexatious or malicious individuals could overwhelm such a site with false claims or accusations about an individual or individuals.
The safeguards you suggest sound reasonable, yet they also could be quite time-consuming. It may need full-time staff to run this website and make sure it remains legally compliant.
Of course, this could be possible with fund-raising.
Fixed · 30 September 2025 at 20:55
I know an NGO in Estonia that operates this kind of reporting on human and women’s rights, and could extend this to the hosting and maintenance of such a website specific to academia. It would have to be fully locally managed and administered. I am sure vexatious legal threats provided them a good source of toilet paper during the pandemic! But the key is that all stories have to be sourced with links to documentary evidence and there is a clear complaints review mechanism that is respected.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 19:38
The recent book “Critical Storytelling: Experiences of Power Abuse in Academia” seems relevant and free here (https://brill.com/display/title/63141). The summary reads:
“What does power abuse look and feel like in the academic world? How does it affect university faculty, students, education and research? What can we do to counteract and prevent power abuse? These questions are addressed in this collection of autobiographical poems, essays and illustrations about academia. The contributors reflect on individual experiences as well as underlying institutional structures, providing original perspectives on bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, and other forms of power abuse in academic workplaces. They share their stories in order to break the culture of silence around power abuse in academia and point out pathways for constructive change.”
Gnosis · 30 September 2025 at 22:07
A comment on a previous post (I forget which) told readers “DON’T be a martyr”
Coming from (I presume) a Cambridge academic (though I suppose it might have been a member of HR or anyone really), I found this statement deeply ironic. For originally, the term “martyr” did not have anything to do with self-sacrifice, but came from the Greek word for “witness”. It was commonly used in legal documentation as such, as a secular term to refer to a person who came forward to speak the truth about what they had seen or experienced in court or in the public square.
Only later did the term develop its modern connotation – that of self-sacrifice – when Christians who faced repression for their beliefs described themselves as persecuted as “martyrs” (“witnesses”), and in this way the term gradually transferred from its original epistemic sense of someone who knows and communicates things one holds as true, to the moral sense, of a person persecuted for the act of holding a personal commitment to truth more important than earthly life.
In both senses we should, indeed, be prepared to be “martyrs” – namely as witnesses to the truth of the events we have experienced (and can abundantly document with written evidence), and as prepared to withstand suffering in their attempts to silence the truth, in which they will never succeed.
TheResearcher · 30 September 2025 at 22:40
I remember that comment well. It was said here (https://21percent.org/?p=2458).
I did not take that comment as a critique. It can be interpretated as a friendly advice. I find it much worse comments (not here in the blog) that are meant to promote doubt in us or disapprove our decision of ignoring enforced confidentiality when we are sure that confidentiality is used by the senior management to conceal and manipulate at UCam in the context of reports of misconduct. And when they come from people we trusted, they are the worst comments of all.
SPARTACUS · 1 October 2025 at 10:57
21percent.org just needs to submit an FOI asking for ALL communication (obviously redacted, including all emails, letters, and phone call records) that the Head of HR received regarding instances of alleged bullying. This will show the scale of her corruption! Oligarchy will tremble because in many instances they contributed to the gross violations that have occurred! This gladiator knows about cases where senior faculty reported their direct knowledge of serious bullying to the Head of HR with members of the oligarchy in copy and nothing happened!
21percent.org · 1 October 2025 at 11:28
If you report bullying to our HR, it is **YOU** who will be investigated.
They have easy get-outs to FoI. The best is to reverse victim & attacker, as usual.
“If you persist in making such requests, then the University may need to take disciplinary action against you. It may constitute bullying to point out the fact that the HR Division is currently not fit for purpose”
TheResearcher · 1 October 2025 at 16:03
To be clear, if you ask many questions, not only you are told that you will be investigated for asking questions, but they will find a way to present your questions not as questions but as abusive behaviour. If you push their nerves further and show that you do not care about their threats, you may be investigated for abusive behaviour against the Vice-Chancellor, all the Pro-Vice Chancellors, the Academic Secretary, the Registrary, all the senior HR, all senior members of his previous Department, the Head of the Education Services, the Head of the Office of Student Conduct, Complaints and Appeals and others. If you keep pushing, they will give you “precautionary measures” during the investigation. If you push further, they give you “urgent precautionary measures.” If you push even further, they give you “special precautionary measures.” That is how much my experience goes, but I am happy to tell you about the next stages if I get there.
SPARTACUS · 1 October 2025 at 16:18
This is horrific! These people have lost their humanity, dignity and decency! The Chancellor Lord Smith will I am sure be alarmed by this! The place is deeply toxic, rotten and in decay!
TheResearcher · 1 October 2025 at 17:08
You would be surprised to know how many senior people know about this and find it acceptable. The level of retaliation from the university is proportional to their perceived threat. When they realize that you are not afraid of their threats, and every time they tell you that the investigations against you must be confidential you immediately ignore and cc many people, they freak out and start applying all sorts of precautionary measures that are not even in the books. This is what I really think: The university can control many things but not our silence by enforcing confidentiality that is used to conceal and manipulate information. That already happened to me once and will not happen again. So, yes, I ignored their “special precautionary measures” right after they told me I had them.