Scientist Recounts Coercive Control in Higher Education

And you are listening to The Academic Verdict, the official podcast of academicabuse.com. This is Julie Cruse, and I'll be giving you the latest headlines of academic abuse from the trenches of higher education. Let's get on with the dispatch. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Academic Verdict. Today, we're going to interview our next guest and discuss their story of what happened to them in higher education, specifically in an adjunct teaching role.

So let's start with you. Tell me about your role in the university.

Yeah. Sure. So I was a junior group leader, at a cell biology department at a university in Germany. While I was there, I mean, I was raising 100% of my own salary through grants and I did that for seven years. When I first arrived I was told it would be for two years it ended up being seven and after my funding was cut after seven years then I was given two extra positions on top of what I was already doing and that broke me basically and then I resigned and left academia a year later.

This is almost like the story of our generation of scientists that, you know, I mean, when we were coming through training, I mean, we were sold a vision of what an academic career could be, should be. And, unfortunately, that career no longer exists. The I mean, for me, one of the huge ironies of this, and in fairness, I mean, for me to walk away was enormously traumatic. I mean, I had wanted to be not just a scientist, but very specifically an academic ever since I stopped wanting to be an astronaut. So to voluntarily walk away from this was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

And the huge irony is that, I mean, I'm now working in industry and my day to day working life now is much closer to what I conceived of an academic life being. So, yeah, I mean, there's no need to hang around.

Yeah. Is there any more that you want to share about those specific things that happened in your case?

Yeah. Well, so I mean, in the in the context of, you know, the the the podcast and the themes you're, addressing, theory, what I really wanted to talk about was something that happened after I left, but which was symptomatic of a lot of what was going on in the department at the time. So after I left I was still working on publications. Again this is a great example of how much unpaid labor there is in academia and you really realize that once you've left. Left.

I got involved in an authorship dispute with the head of the department. Now I mean this wasn't the first authorship dispute I've been in in academia, but basically one of his PhD students had collaborated with my group on a project and the head of the department had known about this, had given his approval verbally, but had not been involved scientifically. And when the time came to write up the paper, I put him on the paper as an author, which I thought was justified, but he felt very strongly that he was entitled to be co corresponding and second from last on the author list despite the fact that he contributed nothing to this paper at that point. And to take that position would also have meant displacing a collaborator who'd been on this project right from its inception and he also suggested that he was entitled to this position on financial grounds of course, which is completely unethical, and I refused. And this escalated and when it became clear that I was not going to back down, he threatened to accuse me of scientific misconduct unless I did as he wanted.

And because I'd already left, of course, had to make this threat in writing, so it was sent to me by email and in the email he had inserted this line saying that this whole email was covered by German data protection law and was therefore not to be shared with anybody. So in other words, I was being threatened with an accusation of scientific misconduct and told that I had to keep that threat a secret. What is even worse is that he threatened his own PhD student in the same way. This student was hauled into a meeting where the only other attendee was another professor from the same department. He was given a sheet of accusations to read and not allowed to take them away with him and, this student who is no fool promptly said that he was going to withdraw his data from the paper unless the head of the department was made co corresponding and second from last.

Things what else happened there was also, the head of the professor circulated unsubstantiated rumors of scientific misconduct to the whole author group. When I tried to resolve this situation he accused me of playing the victim and then there was later a really bizarre face to face meeting I had with him when we managed to get the whole thing up and running again where he claimed that he personally thought no misconduct had occurred, but that the university had felt that misconduct had occurred. And he was actually doing everything he could to protect me from the consequences of my own action.

That is a ton to endure and unpack. I mean, they sound at this point like gangsters.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I think too what's extremely hard about these sort of situations, and I mean, in this case, I mean I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a case of narcissistic personality disorder. What is extremely hard to articulate when you're going through these sort of experiences is that you know when you to other people and say oh my boss is being terrible or he's bullying me' you know people interpret that as oh they're being really aggressive or they're being nasty but there's something very different about this sense that somebody is reaching out and attempting to coercively control your behavior.

Exactly.

This this is a profoundly unsettling experience and it's something that I think you don't really appreciate until you've been through it.

Exactly.

And it's not the same as sort of being forced to do something. It's the sense of being controlled or somebody attempting to control you.

That's, you know, blackmail, extortion. That's not illegal. Illegal criminal behavior. But I am curious, at what point during all of this, in the context of your seven year timeline, Did you start to put the pieces of the puzzle together? Okay.

I'm being targeted. I'm being exploited. You know, how when did that shift for you?

Yeah. Well, I mean, actually, I mean, what I feel bad about still is that this this was actually the first incident when I come into direct conflict with this person. But for years beforehand I had had a stream of different people in the department technicians, students, postdocs, even other group leaders coming to me, sometimes in tears, to complain about this individual's behaviour and the complaints always revolved around coercive control. And what I feel bad about and this sort of echoes what I was saying earlier that at the time, you know, I listened, I sympathised, but I did nothing. And that is something that I deeply regretted as soon as I was actually exposed to that behavior myself directly.

Because then you understand when people are coming to you and saying, you know, I'm not comfortable with this. Don't know what's happening or I don't feel in control of things. Again, you know, unless you've been through it, it's very hard to articulate how that feels and how unsettling it is. And I I feel bad now that I did nothing for those former colleagues at the time. And of course, people don't change their behavior.

So I'm sure it's still ongoing now.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the book Complaint by Sarah Ahmed. Man, it's called Complaint with an exclamation point. Sarah Ahmed famously resigned from Goldsmiths over the university's failure to address sexual harassment. And it was public, a public resignation. And as a result, she received droves of letters from other people in academia who'd also been through similar things.

What she did with those letters is she analyzed them looking for themes and how universities handled complaints. And by and large, the outcome is that complaints can be buried, the burial of the complaints itself can be buried, complaints can be weaponized against the complainant. In other words, instead of investigating the complaint, they'll investigate the complainant. What you're talking about there where you weren't sure how to respond maybe and maybe didn't respond initially. Those are things that oftentimes academics are actually trained by the university response or lack thereof, to do for their own safety.

I know that you've expressed you feel regret, but I also don't want you to hold on to that because there's a university environment that makes taking action and that makes speaking out oftentimes more dangerous than staying silent. And that's not a you thing, right?

So No, no, no. Mean, absolutely. I mean, and actually, I mean, this this was exactly the reason why I felt it was important to make a complaint in my case because I had the rare and unusual luxury of no longer being in the system at this point. So I had already left academia when it happened. I mean, course, in the short term, I mean, what I was most concerned about was making sure that this PhD student who'd been caught in the middle of all this was not exposed to any further, harm or, duress.

Yeah, I mean the paper was eventually published, the professor got everything they wanted, My collaborator voluntarily gave up her place on the author list, which is also what always seems to happen. The PhD student did extra experiments under the professor's supervision and at that point the desired position on the author list became uncontroversial, but I promised myself while this was going on that I would launch a formal complaint as soon as the student had graduated and left the uni and that's what I did about six months later. And, yeah, I mean, when I was talking this through with friends, I mean, some of them were saying, you know, why why put yourself through it? You've left academia. You you have a new career.

Why risk all of this stuff for the, you know, for the sake of something that's history? But I think it is important to speak up and it is important to to take a stand, when you have that luxury of having already left and not being quite as exposed to some of the possible retaliations that can occur.

Yeah. Thank you for taking action.

Yeah. Well, think, funnily, I think the Harry Potter series is a good point of reference for this because there's there's a line of Dumbledore's in the books where, where he says, you know, the the time is coming when people have to choose between doing the right thing and doing the easy thing. And this there's there is some profound truth in that statement. And, you know, I would never blame anyone, and it's the majority of people, for doing the easy thing because there were always very, very good reasons for doing the easy thing and staying silent and putting up with it. But I think, if if you are driven by a strong sense of what is right and a strong sense of morality and justice, then there is a, yeah, a kind of catharsis that comes from doing the right thing, even if it comes at some risk.

How long was it after you left that you decided to file a formal complaint?

Oh, well, I mean, I decided to file the complaint as while it was happening. And actually to return to the I mean, to return to the earlier point, I mean, for people that don't feel comfortable or safe yet to speak up, mean, I think these I think two things that I would add to that. I mean, one is that it is an extremely helpful thing when you promise yourself that you are going to do something about it when the time comes. This is this is a way of lightening that load in the short term. And the other thing too is that generally abusers don't change their behavior over time.

And so what happens to you remains relevant. I mean, just because a certain period of time elapses doesn't mean it didn't happen. And so it's possible to come forward a long time after the actual events have occurred because they are still relevant and they are still unethical and they are still flat out wrong. So I mean in my case I promised myself that I would do something. I waited until the PhD student left and I sent in the actual complaint.

I think it was about nine months, eight months or so after the actual dispute had kicked off and about yeah, I can't remember the exact timelines, but there were two key things and was speaking to former colleagues who gave me some really excellent advice and there were two things that I thought worked really well in this case. So the first one was that I isolated the bully from the institution. So I didn't go public. I wanted to give the institution the opportunity to deal with this themselves. I think one problem is that when you go public immediately, it puts the institution on the defensive and then they will all, you know, draw up the drawbridge and close ranks and nothing will happen.

So what I wanted to do was try and isolate the abuser within the institution. And then the other thing I did when I sent in the complaint, I say the complaint, it wasn't just one complaint, I lit up the switchboards. So I sent this complaint letter to the president of the university, the dean of the faculty of biology, all the vice deans of the faculty of biology, the ombuds people responsible for the natural sciences, the graduate school of life sciences, the student coordinator, the student association, and the university's HR office. And the reason and I think this is one reason why I managed to get a successful outcome because they all hated it. They absolutely hated the fact that it had gone to so many people, but it stopped anyone from sitting on it.

You never know what the politics are within universities. You never know who owns somebody else. But if if the complaint has been seen by that many people, it is impossible for them all to deny that they never saw it.

That's such a good strategy. Yeah.

I made it clear that I saw that there was a clear public interest angle in terms of student welfare and the abuse of institutional privilege. And besides describing the specifics of my case, I then provided a list of other examples that I witnessed within the department that made it clear this wasn't an isolated incident. And, yeah, was actually it got resolved remarkably quickly. I, in a matter of weeks, was in possession of a groveling written letter of apology from the head of department, and I insisted it had to be in writing because I knew if it was if there was anything verbal, he'd pretend that his memory would erase it in no time at all. But no, I have a written letter of apology in which he

For that guy.

Yeah. Yeah. In which he rather charmingly describes himself as nicht nicht klugster, so not not the brightest thing to do. And that's I plan on printing and framing it, to be honest.

I love that.

Not not so much to enjoy the discomfort, but as a reminder to myself that, you know, it is it is important to do the right thing.

I love those strategies. I love the outcome. Did the accused actually get disciplinary action as well?

Well, actually, so one interesting thing that happened was that I mean I cashed out early, know, the university onwards people were really good actually and they made this solution I made it well, I made it clear that that was what I was expecting and I felt that was proportionate to what I went through, although I noted that that in no way resolved the issue of the pattern of behaviour within the department. But as soon as that was made available I cashed out early, so I took the letter and that was it. What was interesting was that just before I accepted this letter I got a phone call from one of the Vice Deans who had been in receipt of the letter, had not expressed any sympathy or interest or had not contacted me at all up to that point. But he then strongly urged me to reject this deal so that the professor could be hauled up in front of a university disciplinary panel and I refused because to me this was departmental politics and I had no wish to get turned into a pawn in a political game. I mean my feeling was if he had genuinely had my interests at heart he would have contacted me when he received that letter on the first day, but it was only when it was clear that the matter was going to be resolved quite quickly, cleanly that he then suddenly took an interest in trying to escalate it to a university disciplinary panel.

My feeling is that again, and perhaps this is something else for people thinking of coming forward, it's important to define what counts as a win. It's not incumbent upon us to try and change a rotten department or a rotten faculty. This is ultimately the responsibility of the institution and we, by drawing attention to this, are already doing everything that can be expected of us. We do not need to immolate ourselves attempting to reform an institution that we do not wield any executive power within.

I love the idea of blasting it far and wedging Yeah. Up the

It's worth noting too that I never received an official response to my complaint from the university's HR office. And I've heard this elsewhere from talking to others. Mean, university HR offices are at best clueless, it seems, in these kind of things at worst knowingly incompetent. I don't know. I had to fight to get an acknowledgment from them that they had received the complaint, but no action came from there.

On the flip side, the ombuds people were fantastic and I think one thing that could be implemented more widely is just making students, you know, scientists generally or young academics generally more aware that these offices do exist within universities and they are often much better situated to resolve those kind of situations than the HR office which is what would happen in corporate setting. A few general points. Mean one is, you know, get as much evidence as you can in writing. I mean, that's difficult because I think a lot of experienced abusers and buddies are very good at making sure things are done verbally and so there's no paper trail. But do always get things in writing if you can and if need be, you know, send an email after a meeting to say this is my recollection of events.

Is there anything you would disagree with? Create some kind of paper trail even if it's difficult. Never ever have one on one meetings. It's impossible to establish who said what or even what happened. Recruit allies.

It is emotionally draining to go through these experiences, a complaint process and trying to get resolution, so you will need emotional support. I think former colleagues from previous institutions were an enormous help to me at the time because they understand the dynamics of these situations, which friends outside academia might not necessarily do so. Promise yourself that you will take action because this is a way of taking back control of your own narrative. And I think too, I mean I'm a compulsive writer, but writing down your version of events as often as you need to and rationalizing things in your head is extremely important because almost always you will find that your perception will be attacked. Your version will be called into question, so you need to be extremely sure and perhaps have told the same story to yourself as often as it needs to to get everything really straight and even be able to see it from from different angles.

Be clear about what constitutes a win because especially if you do manage to light up the switchboards and you are suddenly getting a response from the institution, you need to be able to say immediately what you want, whether that's a written apology or something else. But be clear about what is a win for you and do cash out as soon as you have it. If in my case, I mean, this all happened much, much faster than I was expecting, and I think that was because the strategy worked well. And again, I, you know, I I thought maybe I shouldn't have accepted the apology. Maybe I should have tried to escalate things further.

But ultimately, I feel it's not our place to be fighting that kind of fight. And I I had defined for myself a written apology was proportionate to what I went through. And that was how I was defining a win. So it's not your place to change the system. It's just to win your battle.

Yeah. That's very helpful. Let's circle back to what could institutions do better in scenarios such as yours. What should the university, if you could go back and change anything about how they handled your situation, what would you change? What should they do?

What should they have done?

I think, I mean, it, one of the simplest and most important things that any of the recipients of those letters could have done is to write to me to say, you know, we will investigate. We will let things take their course, but we hear you. We appreciate you. You've been through something unpleasant, and we're sorry about that. And these, you know, these are very easy platitudes if you like to make, but they can be extremely helpful to people who have already taken a risk and probably have felt quite scared to come forward.

That's one thing. There needs to be more institutional awareness of how you go about complaining if you feel that you've experienced inappropriate behaviour. I confess I did not even know that the ombuds people existed until after I'd left the uni and they turned out to be the ones that were the most help in this complaint case. And also I think in general universities are often unfortunately guilty of kind of performative reform, so there'll be fine words and declarations, but there's often a lack of institutional follow through, particularly in terms of code of conduct. Funnily, I mean, after I moved into the private sector, I had this this bizarre epiphany when I think in the first few months I had to, you know, read the institution's code of conduct and sign to say that I had read and understood and would agree to abide to those terms, and that's a legally binding document.

And I've funnily, I don't ever recall having had to do something similar in an academic setting. That, you know, that sort of thing is proper top down leadership in an institutional way. Yeah.

Yeah, you've all sorts of things are coming up for me as you say that. And one of them is the risk of filing a complaint, right? And such that you waited until you were out, so that at least some of that risk was offloaded. Some of it, not all of it. One of the things I contend is that if the risk of filing a complaint is professional suicide, then the risk of misconduct drops down to zero.

They need to flip that. So we are about at time, which is very unfortunate, because I have so enjoyed hearing your strategies and also feel so much empathy for what you went through. And I just wanna thank you for sharing your story.

Oh, thanks. No. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about it.

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