The main difficulty faced in reforming Universities is the culture of silence around bullying and harassment.
Universities are abuser-centred. The abusers are usually senior academics, Heads of Department, Heads of School and Directors. They are routinely protected by University Human Resources (HR). Remember HR does not exist to protect you. It exists to protect the University from you. So, any interaction with University HR is always abuser-centered. The starting assumption is that the abuser is innocent and the victim is hysterical or mistaken. An extremely high burden of proof is needed for any conviction.
Suppose now that the evidence against an abuser actually is overwhelming. Even University HR cannot deny it. What then happens? Misconduct investigations are shrouded in secrecy, so nothing is ever made public. The University shushes everything down, but — if matters are very bad — the abuser may have to leave. Of course, this only happens if the abuser is not holding down a lot of grants. Money usually trumps abuse.
This brings us to the mysterious disappearance of Professor G.
Professor G has had to leave two previous universities because of inappropriate staff-student relationships. He’s an oddball — charismatic, outspoken, sexually aggressive and flirty, yet married with a family. (His wife is his former graduate student). His unsavoury reputation is very well-known in the subject. There are a number of known victims, but they are unable to speak out publicly given the climate in modern Universities.
Female students are routinely advised not to apply to work with him. Female postdocs are routinely warned away.
Nonetheless, Professor G was appointed to his most recent position as Chair, Head of Department and Director of an important research institute at a UK University a few years ago. This is the well-known phenomenon of ‘pass the abuser’. A University may sometimes think it is better to see an abuser promoted and move elsewhere than become a public embarrassment at an existing institution. So, serial abuse actually can help a career and lead to swift promotion.
Very recently, Professor G has disappeared from the University. He is no longer Director. He is no longer a Professor. He is not employed by the University at all. Despite having a high public profile, he is not mentioned anywhere on the University’s websites. He has been made to vanish.
The problem of inappropriate staff-student relationships has recurred. This is unsurprising — serial abusers do it again and again. And so ‘passing the abuser’ simply creates more and more victims.
This time, however, the world famous Professor G has not moved to another University. Interestingly, the hiring of Professor G by a new University was announced as a grand coup with fanfare in the press some months ago. It has not happened. Professor G now describes himself on social media as retired.
Forcibly retired.
There are good reasons for closed & independent investigations, including privacy, due process and compliance with employment law protections. Those accused might want to defend their case without being tried in the court of public opinion first.
However, once an investigation has been conducted and an abuser has been found guilty, then the report should be made public (if necessary with redaction of victim’s names). There should be no more hushing up by Universities.
Only then can the culture of silence around bullying and harassment be broken.
(The 21 Group is already involved in legal action elsewhere and cannot afford to name Professor G. Please do not name him in any blog postings.)
4 Comments
Anon · 7 July 2024 at 18:27
“The main difficulty faced in reforming Universities is the culture of silence around bullying and harassment. Universities are abuser-centred. The abusers are usually senior academics, Heads of Department, Heads of School and Directors. They are routinely protected by University Human Resources (HR). Remember HR does not exist to protect you. It exists to protect the University from you. So, any interaction with University HR is always abuser-centered. The starting assumption is that the abuser is innocent and the victim is hysterical or mistaken. An extremely high burden of proof is needed for any conviction.”
Absolutely, after the initial cognitive dissonance and shock, it doesn’t take too long to feel the culture of silence and realize that the system is geared towards protecting the abuser and silencing the target, and that this comes from the top of the totem pole. In that sense, even if it is supposedly secular and ostensibly based on the values of science and the Enlightenment, academia very much resembles the Catholic Church. However, perhaps an even better comparison would be one of the major cults—maybe Scientology.
There are equivalents of “charismatic” and abusive cult leaders in academia, and the mysterious Professor G seems to be of that stripe. However, there doesn’t always have to be an academic equivalent of Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh, Jim Jones, or Shoko Asahara doing the bullying. Sometimes, the structure is more akin to the hierarchy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ “Watchtower”: a group of late-middle-aged or elderly men and women in the twilight of their careers who stand back, while a bunch of mid-level, early- to mid-career “enforcers” go around doing the dirty work of bullying subordinates to submit to the institution’s “sacred truth” and drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, getting promoted and on tenure track as a result.
I genuinely believe that until legislation improves and given the power differentials within these institutions and their resistance to change, the most effective way to drive reform may in some cases be through public exposure. As with any cult, publicizing reports that reveal the inner culture of these institutions can serve as a public service. It can raise awareness among the public and potential students about systemic issues that may exist and in the best case scenario even incentivize the institution to enact meaningful change (though, unfortunately, as with cults, there are always going to be followers who refuse to listen or institutions that are resistant to acknowledging or addressing these issues).
As for the mysterious Professor G, I’ve already got an inkling as to who he may be, but it will be very interesting to know for sure who he is and what institutions he’s worked for over the years, when and if the details are made public.
Anon · 17 July 2024 at 15:05
I am a woman in Professor G’s wider field, and I have only interacted with him directly a few times; all were positive. However, I also always got the feeling that he was someone who might think the rules didn’t apply to him, and based on the “vibes” of those few interactions, plus how loudly he proclaimed himself as an “ally” to various groups, I was not at all surprised to find out that he’d married his graduate student and that there were other complaints against him. I believe those women. I applied for a permanent job at his institution and I’m glad I didn’t get it. He left his colleagues a huge mess to sort out, and I feel for them.
A friend of mine was one of the complainants in an official complaint against another abuser in the field (another open secret, another institution, same country). I was interested to learn, through supporting my friend through that process, that once a complaint is upheld, legal requirements about confidentiality likely don’t apply anymore (at least in this country). This may be what cost Professor G those two jobs (I first heard informally about one promotion to another institution, then suddenly it was another, and I think only the latter got all the public fanfare). I’m glad those institutions did their due diligence. My friend’s abuser’s would-be escape institution did the same thing, and when they rescinded their offer to the abuser, it meant that my friend ended up having to move institutions instead, because the university failed so utterly to protect her after it found officially that her abuser had bullied and sexually harassed her. The abuser is still at that institution, and the culture there is still at least partially toxic.
I absolutely agree that these official findings should be made public. What I’m also wondering is: how bad must it have been for Professor G to *not* have a job at the same institution to fall back on? Yikes.
21percent.org · 20 July 2024 at 16:45
“He left his colleagues a huge mess to sort out and I feel for them”
Agreed. Only once the predator has been sacked can the workplace begin to heal.
We wish his colleagues the best (some of whom were very shocked at how Professor G had managed to cover up the abuse).
If a harasser is left in place (as in the second case you mention), the consequences for the dept are bad.
Usually, the dept becomes an unattractive and dysfunctional place to work.
21percent.org · 28 July 2024 at 19:07
We have had a number of requests to confirm the identity of Professor G
As the 21 Group is already in legal dispute, we cannot risk confirming the identity of
Professor G
We are willing to confirm Professor G worked in a STEM subject at a UK University
This behaviour is unfortunately common in STEM subjects