The tenure system, intended to protect academic freedom, paradoxically serves as a mechanism for abuse. For non-tenured faculty, the prospect of tenure reviews provides senior colleagues with immense leverage. A junior faculty member subjected to bullying often remains silent, fearing that filing a grievance will be interpreted as an inability to handle the "rigors" of academia, thereby jeopardizing their career. Even for tenured faculty, the threat of being assigned undesirable courses, having teaching schedules disrupted, or facing baseless ethics complaints serves as a form of coercion. This structural vulnerability allows bullying to thrive in the shadows, unreported and unaddressed.
Institutionally, the consequences are equally dire. Toxic departments suffer from high turnover rates, leading to a loss of institutional memory and the significant financial costs of repeated recruitment searches. Furthermore, a culture of bullying corrupts the educational mission. Faculty who are preoccupied with surviving a hostile work environment have less emotional and intellectual capacity to invest in students. When students witness or hear of faculty mistreatment, it undermines the credibility of the institution and teaches the next generation of scholars that abuse is an acceptable method of conflict resolution. academic violence and bullying of faculty epub
The rise of faculty bullying cannot be decoupled from the neoliberal transformation of higher education. Over the past three decades, universities have adopted corporate management models, prioritizing efficiency, competition, and profit over communal well-being. This shift has generated a culture of scarcity. With the proliferation of contingent labor—adjuncts and visiting professors who lack job security—faculty members are pitted against one another in a Darwinian struggle for dwindling resources, including tenure-track positions, research funding, and departmental support. The tenure system, intended to protect academic freedom,
It is crucial to acknowledge that academic violence is not distributed equally. Intersectionality plays a significant role in who becomes a target. Research consistently indicates that women, faculty of color, LGBTQ+ scholars, and those from marginalized backgrounds experience disproportionate rates of bullying. This often takes the form of identity-based harassment, such as questioning the competence of minority scholars, subjecting them to higher service loads (the "minority tax"), or gaslighting them regarding their experiences of discrimination. The "chilly climate" for diverse faculty is not merely an abstract feeling; it is a manifestation of structural violence that maintains the homogeneity of the academy by forcing out those who do not fit the traditional mold of the professoriate. Even for tenured faculty, the threat of being