{"id":2729,"date":"2025-09-28T09:29:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T08:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2729"},"modified":"2025-09-28T12:03:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:03:36","slug":"voices-of-the-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2729","title":{"rendered":"Voices of the Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Let’s take five while we await the outcome of a (Professor at a) prominent University’s Carter-Rucking<\/a> the UK media (or in Private Eye parlance, Carter-Fucking)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On an earlier thread<\/a>, the poster called ‘TheResearcher’ made an intriguing suggestion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“I would be game if a few of us come together to write a book on how the University of Cambridge changed our lives. \u201cBreaking the Silence\u201d 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]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A recent parallel — though not on bullying — is the book “Shaping for Mediocrity”<\/a> 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<\/a>. Though focused on resisting 200 job losses, the book exposes Leicester University\u2019s 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<\/a> and D’Arcy versus University of Leicester<\/a>. (The D’Arcy case is particularly notable as she won by herself without a barrister against the University’s KC.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘TheResearcher’ is suggesting something similar, a book with individual chapters written by the victims, recounting their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/em>), 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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many thanks to the poster ‘AnonymousAcademic’ for helpful discussions about this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyn Evans<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2729"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2743,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}