Mobbing-U.S.A.

Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace

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Read the Prefacefor the 3rd printing,August 2005

A JAPANESE edition of "MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace" is available, ISBN number 4-8461-0214-9. For information see www.ryokufu.com or write to: info@ryokufu.com. A TURKISH edition of "MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace" is available, ISBN number 975-322-249-1. For information see

www.sistem.com.tr or write to: sistem@sistem.com.tr

MOBBING IS...

EMOTIONAL ABUSE in the workplace. "Ganging up" by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to force someone out of the

workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation, discrediting, and isolation. Malicious, nonsexual, nonracial, general harassment.

Other expressions for MOBBING are:

Bullying Psychological terror or aggression Hostile behaviors at work Workplace trauma Incivility Emotional violence

We consider MOBBING an emotional injury that impacts a target's mental and physical health. MOBBING is a workplace safety and health issue.

This site informs about the MOBBING phenomenon. You find information about the book "MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace" and information about services and resources that help targets of mobbing or organizations deal with the phenomenon in a constructive fashion.

Dr. Heinz Leymann (www.leymann.se), an industrial psychologist and medical scientist with an M.D. in psychiatry, has pioneered the research on MOBBING in Sweden in the early eighties. MOBBING has since become a household word in several European countries.

The book "MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace" by Noa Zanolli Davenport Ph.D., Ruth Distler Schwartz, and Gail Pursell Elliott is partially based on Dr. Leymann's work. The book and this site are primarily intended as a self-help tool and a resource for targets of workplace mobbing. We also address responsible management and human resources personnel, unions, health care providers, insurance agencies, and lawyers as well as families and friends of targets of mobbing. Above all, we encourage preventive, timely and appropriate action.

Since the publication of MOBBING in 1999, we have received only positive feedback.We acknowledge the hundreds of persons who gratefully wrote to us. They confirmed that our initial intent to offer a self-help book was met.

Awareness is slowly growing in the U.S. and in Canada about the darker side of work and the devastating effects that mobbing and bullying can have on the self, health, organizations and society. Our colleagues in North America, though still rather few, do their part to contribute to the growing interest. For example: Three conferences on the topic have been organized in the U.S. since 2000, in California, Massachusetts and Iowa; the Department of Environmental Quality for the State of Oregon has established the first anti-mobbing policy in the U.S.; efforts to add new anti-mobbing legislation are under way in California, other states and in Canada; and several new Internet self-help and advice groups and websites address specific professional groups or aspects of incivility at work. In the aftermath of the Columbine and other school shooting tragedies, the media has increasingly discussed bullying in the schools, thus also raising awareness of adult bullying/mobbing in the workplace.

The authors continue to present about workplace mobbing to the media, corporations, and professional organizations; and Noa Zanolli Davenport has also been retained as expert witness in legal cases. And, last but not least, our book has been used as required reading in several college courses.

Parallel to these developments in the U.S., pro-action keeps growing around the world. For example, a major international conference was held in early 2002 in Australia. In January 2002, France enacted an anti-mobbing law. In, Canada, the province of Quebec, has adopted anti-harassment/mobbing legislation. In Columbia, anti-harassment legislation has been enacted in February 2006. We are proud to say that our book and website were quoted by the congressmen who sponsored the bill before the Columbian Congress. Most importantly, in Germany, workplace mobbing has been acknowledged in the medical establishment as an ill-making condition and is recognized in the European Union as an occupational safety and health risk. Our book has raised interest in Japan and Turkey and translated editions are now also available. Read the Preface for the 3rd printing (August 2005).

Textweaver 2006

Last Updated: October 14th, 2010

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Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, 2002 Revised Edition

Excerpt: "Every year, millions of Americans become victims of emotional abuse inflicted at work. They are damaged to such an extent that they can no longer accomplish their tasks. Co-workers, colleagues, superiors and subordinates attack their dignity, integrity and competence, repeatedly, over a number of weeks, months, or years. At the end, they resign--voluntarily or involuntarily--are terminated, or forced into early retirement. This is mobbing--workplace expulsion through emotional abuse. Ironically and sadly, the victims are portrayed as the ones at fault, as the ones who brought about their own downfalls."

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Comments: [add a comment]

User: americanspiritDate: 11/21/2004 9:49:00 PM

One mans madness is everyones suffering. American Managerial Madness must be stopped dead in its tracks, or else there will be no future for the innocent children in these here United States. I have seen Madmen pass off their resumes as enlightened managers only to engage themselves in fits of violent and abusive behavior makeing a mockery of the very constitution that our sons and daughters have died for................ America, WAKE UP, ; American business; Wake up! Shame on a government that would place disfunctional slave drivers in every corner of the american workplace-------------------What a truly bad joke!, That slavery is alive and well in these here United States! my message: American Business, your formula is doomed to extinction, because you have placed retarded monkies as your store keepers...............

User: anonymousDate: 9/5/2005 11:29:00 AM

User: anonymousDate: 11/10/2005 10:03:00 PM

Have you ever quit or changed positions because of your boss?

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damn dont this ring true!

User: anonymousDate: 12/30/2005 8:24:00 PM

I am a whistleblower and I have for the past ten years have been and continue to be retaliated against. My career was curtailed, my reputation destroyed by wanton malice. The lies were protected by anonymity, a shield Management uses to hide behind. I am on Jan. 4 2006 about to give a presentation on Workplace abuse to the very individuals, including the CEO who had taken part in these horrendous acts of violence. I will continue to lobby and bring out the truth, their shame will be my banner and I will wave it so all can see! It is ironic, they still do not realize that when they take everything away from you they lose their power over you!! The facts bear out the truth and a quote by Winston Churchill where he says they may deride the truth, they make attack the truth but in the end the truth remains unchanged. We no longer branish chains about our angles and wrist, they are now hidden, they bind our hearts and souls, we are the slaves of the 21st. century. Sherrill P. Gilbert

User: anonymousDate: 4/13/2006 11:51:00 PM

MObbing is a very common technique used in the workplace. This book aids in the revelation of it, and how to recognize it and make your decision as to how you and only you plan to deal with it. Even after reading this book I have not left my position, however, I have recognized the dreadful abuse that goes on daily, and also how manipulation and manipulative persons play a huge part in perpetuating this truly horrendous problem. If HR truly were not corrupt, if people truly were team players who cared sinerely for others, ther would be no need for any employer to resort to the tactics detailed in this very informative book. If you feel it --that gut feeling--that you are being mobbed, and please do think about it---as there are good employees out there --on the oher hand there are others that have no business having and/or holding a position due to their laziness and complete inability to perform (unless they are A+++ actors)read this book. Remember, there is a way to conquer these actions, but you have to be true to yourself-are you a capable, good performer who has is being victimized??? or are you a person who needs to straighten out? That being said, mobbing is sickening and can ruin people's health and lives-if you let it. Remember also, do not make your chosen profession your entire life-mobbers can pick up on this, work is work is work. Think about preventing this from happening, if you are completely miserable always, you must leave--is this how you want to live your life?

User: anonymousDate: 5/2/2006 12:16:00 AM

It's late and I'm tired, so I'll limit my comment to simply this: Bravo!

User: anonymousDate: 5/2/2006 12:23:00 AM

I didn't know how this thing operates--I thought my comment would reach a particular user. I intended to talk to americanspirit, the one who compared our storekeepers to retarded monkeys. I'm the one who said "It's late and I'm tired, so I'll limit my comment to simply this: Bravo!"

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What I meant was that I applaud americanspirit's message.

User: anonymousDate: 9/22/2006 9:59:00 AM

I watched a previous boss get rid of workers every February and November. It was sad but even sadder when it happened to me! I was told I talked to my refrigerator! I am not joking!!!!!

User: anonymousDate: 9/27/2006 2:17:00 PM

I have been researching mobbing and I don't feel so bad as it has happened to me off and on through the years. When I think of doing any kind of work whether a large company or small I get so nervous I can't see straight!

User: anonymousDate: 12/8/2006 12:27:00 AM

I WAS A VICTIM OF IT AND I STILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENSES.THAT HAPPEN MANY YEARS AGO WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT . IS THIS SUPPOSE TO STAY LIKE THIS SHOULD I FIGHT BACK BE HONEST ALWAYS WANTED AND THERES WAYS TO TO FIND THOSE PERSONS. THEY LOST THE POWER OVER ME ALREADY. IT WAS MISERABLE NOW AFTER MANY YEARS I WANT JUSTICE. WHAT CAN I DO .

User: anonymousDate: 12/16/2006 9:54:00 AM

This sort of mobbing in the workplace is currently happening to me. I really do not know what to do. I can perform my job well. My supervisor is also involved in the mobbing. What can I do? This is happening daily.

User: anonymousDate: 12/21/2006 3:18:00 PM

This all rings so true. I am also in this situation - with my manager being the instigator of the "mobbing". Interesting how even with a very high work ethic, and good reviews, these kinds of things still happen to many of us. I can only hope that someday there will be some legislation to help protect employees from this, as there is in Europe. Seems like the US is always behind on things like this. Wonderful book - thanks!

User: anonymousDate: 1/20/2007 12:00:00 AM

I'm in the exact opposite situation. My manager uses concern and compassion as criticism and control; she says she wants us to be a team, while demanding (through body language and facial expression) that I obey her as unquestioned leader of the pack. I'm looking around in desperation to find another job as good as this one; I've already given up

on this job.

User: anonymousDate: 1/25/2007 10:59:00 AM

The ironic thing about all of this is: those who choose to join in the mob and degrade others - are degrading their employer's compencies in hiring individuals. Once employers start to realize this, they can start looking into implementing anti -workplace violence programs.Diversity drives a workplace - but it MUST adhere to the COMPANY POLICIES not divide it.

User: anonymousDate: 1/25/2007 11:11:00 AM

Educate yourself on tort laws - within your state as well as personal injury lawyers. No one - should ever have to endure EMOTIONAL ABUSE from anyone within a workplace environment - EVER

User: anonymousDate: 1/29/2007 10:02:00 AM

sad or ironic thing, most of the abusers in a workplace setting - have a history of minor crimes ( traffic tickets, harassment, drunk driving - or drugs, may have relationship problems, verbal abuse at home, or there just mean and nasty individuals, that don't BELONG in a workplace. They're venting their personal issues onto others - to gain personal power - or "control over" others to make themselves appear as trustworthy individuals. Rest assure - they have deep seeded issues.

User: anonymousDate: 1/29/2007 10:46:00 AM

Do companies just randomly pick who there going to send to company EAP program when you file a grievence of this nature?, of course not, they wouldn't recommend that you see someone in EAP unless, they were aware that you were going through some harassment, which means THEY KNEW. They encourage you to come forward and file grievances. Most do an investigation. Do not allow HR to become combative with you with "we dont believe you" after investigation. This clearly outlines ignorance on their part. No one deserves to be victimized for coming forward.

User: anonymousDate: 2/1/2007 12:41:00 PM

Encourage your employer to install two GRIPE containers. Have them place at the employee entrance. One inside the door and one on the outside of the door. So when employees come in they can drop off their problems - and pick them up on their way out.

User: anonymous

Date: 3/26/2007 11:45:00 AM

Does anyone have any recourse/ideas of how to bring down a chronic mobber. I have been a victim by a supervisor who has done this over and over to other staff. I had to leave to save myself, but I fear for whomever her next victim will be!

User: anonymousDate: 6/30/2007 1:02:00 PM

I am a product of mobbing in the workplace. It is taking a toll on my health as well as my job duties. I work for a combative manager who see things her way or the highway. I want to go above her head, and speak with her boss, but don't want to cause more friction in the workplace. Do anyone have suggestions as to how to handle this the right way?

User: anonymousDate: 7/19/2007 8:47:00 PM

I am going through the this. However I am actually relieved that someone has labeled it. I really thought something was wrong with. My boss (female) is even telling my co-workers to stay a way from me. I have lots a friends both in and out of work. I always have. Her abuse hurts deeply.

User: anonymousDate: 7/23/2007 2:57:00 AM

Mobbing in my part of developing country always ends with the victim being stoned to death or lynched set on fire after being doused with diesel/parafin. For me to have come across what described what i have been going through for the last 8 year from the chief chronic eliminator it was like falling in the arms of a saviour. Unfortunately for me, the mobbers have the blessings of the overall boss although he is only a representative. I am already seeing an industrial psychologist and have booked an appointement with the psychiatrist and a lawyer. I am doing this behind the scene for the sake of my sanity and health and for legal redress which i will take up if this does not stop once i forward the issue to HQ office. I have gone through severe emotional abuse such as: snide remarks - she is mad, confused,incompetent, thief, Emotional abuse during my most challenging moments, a child with down syndrome and her eventual death Memos to my file "to build a case" Denial of vacation days yet "am supposed to be incompetent and obnoxious" Verbal abuse from the main boss and appraisal inferring incompetence and - what is the opposite of intelligent?Anyway all i know friends all of you who are victims of this heinous crime just know you are one in a million and that is why but lets all bring this to book wherever we are and in whatever small ways we can.

User: anonymousDate: 7/26/2007 9:13:00 PM

PlEASE SEND HER A EMAIL ABOUT THESE CHATS ANONYMOUS< maybe then she will get the message, I myself is going to do this, but without her knowing. Who has sent it>>>

User: anonymousDate: 7/29/2007 9:20:00 PM

I have been reading the Mobbing book today and it is right on target. My boss is exercising her power by controlling everything you do down to who you can and cannot talk to. She has her little buddy brigade carrying out her dirty little tasks on those of us doing the work. I would love to take the book in and slam it on her desk and say "gigs up I know what you are doing" After she told me that no one likes me she has asked me to plan a party for one of her buddies who is graduating with a masters degree. That takes guts - but I am not sure how to tell her NO. But that is probably the test of it all.

User: anonymousDate: 8/18/2007 4:44:00 PM

Veronica C. I too, was a target of mobbing. In December 2006, I was hired as the first female investigator at a non-policing agency, amongst all retired male detectives. Prior to being hired, I worked as a Child Protective Specialist (a social Service agency within a city agency) and, to boot, I am an educated, attractive young woman, who is half the age of these men. The mobbing began just several weeks from my getting there and it went on for three months. These men intimidated, humilated and assaulted me (sprayed my face w/a water gun while I was working)until I got sick and was on the verge of a breakdown. I filed harrassment charges against three of six men and have returned to work since then. Yes, they alienate me in their way and have spread rumors that I am mentally unstable etc. but they do not prevent me from doing my work anymore. I know it's their insecurities and their issues not mine. Since then,I have educated myself on this matter and won't hesitate to protect myself the right way...and boy do they know this! Although going through all of this has caused me a lot of anguish, I have become emotionally stronger. I strongly believe in WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!!

User: anonymousDate: 8/24/2007 11:58:00 PM

Anonymous I too believe I am a mobbing victim. To confirm my suspicions, I typed "silent treatment at work" on a popular search engine and up came the word "Mobbing" and later on "Bullying." My first reaction was, "Oh my God! There is an actual name for this ? Mobbing ? "If so, then this is really happening to me." I didn't know whether to be happy to realize that I was not crazy or to finally understand what was happening to me with this subtle change in behavior from my colleages at work, i.e. the silent treatment I received from my supervisor, who has done this to me for years, and the same treatment from my other collegues who have just started doing so six months ago." I believe this began with my supervisor and her best friend who is known to be malicious. Although people know this about her, I feel like I'm being punished for something. I've received snarled "Hellos" and "cut eyes from women in my office, people who I have always gotten along with for years. This is why this feels so unfair. I'm hurt and angry about all of this, especially since I know who perpetuated this. Upper management is also against me, as it is reflected in denied requests and unanswered requests. But I'm glad Dr. Leymann wrote this book and did studies on this to help many people since this seems to go unattended by the U.S. Workplace. I wish he was still alive so I could e-mail him and tell him thank you.

User: anonymousDate: 8/31/2007 3:25:00 PM

I also was witness to mobbing and eventually mobbed-as I had seen it for years. It's absolutely disgraceful that this continues to occur, usually damaging employees dignity, ethic, health, and self esteem-Human Resources are corrupt-oh yes I agree-how else would they keep their jobs?I read this book years ago and thought it very useful and necessary for anyone employed, as you never know when YOU will be the target. I had a boss who lied to get the job, lied to keep friends, lied about her abilities, and lies about most everything-pure slime behaviour-just remember everyone KARMA, try to let them go-try to let what they did to you go-I'm still struggling 6 mos later-and haven't been able to hold a job because of this internal mess that has been created - I once was quite dismayed that people "worked" the benefits, esp short and long term disability, now I care NOT-awful isn't it-I was a naive fool-instead of trying to fight them- think again- if you can just GET OUT ASAP

User: anonymousDate: 10/16/2007 1:04:00 PM

After having spent three years working for an emotionally abusive employer, both my co-worker and myself walked out on the same day. I've had a hard time finding a job ever since, as that was my first real job right out of school. It's not easy having to start over again at entry level, especially when it's not your fault. Good for you for putting this out there - the world needs to know!

User: anonymousDate: 12/3/2007 9:34:00 AM

I was a victim of this and it was pretty bad and have recently begun to find these blogs. I plan on using the company's name in everyone, maybe even publishing an article in a journal and using the company's name. This is my suggestion, use the company's name!!!!! Bad publicity!!!

User: anonymousDate: 3/31/2008 4:58:00 PM

Im a woman working in male dominated environment. I stayed optimistic about people treating genders fairly. But I was severely abused. More so than the male colleagues who were hired at same time as me. I am an easy target by other men, and also by other women.Many women at the office (few as they are) cannot bully the men for fear of them but they instead try to bully me. Strangely enough it was the women who were the most viscious, meanest bullies. I am a star player...I was grossly underestimated by everyone. My capabilities far exceed anyone's at the office. I am super nice to everyone and never gossip.I make very few mistakes.I've made some suggestions that have changed the way the firm does business. Then once these achievements were recognized and made known to all coworkers, people ganged up against me BIG TIME. Fortunately the senior manager saw that one woman in particular was spreading bad rumors about me...because she was jealous of me. Unfortunately the senior manager hasn't done much to stop her except to tell her that her behavior was unacceptable. The bullies are numerous and they share common characteristics; jealous, incompetent, mean, gossipers, two-faced, insecure, lazy and undervalue/underestimate the capabilities of a seemingly young attractive woman. Yes many women at my workplace undervalue me! I will have to move on soon. Sexual harrassment hasn't been an issue, and seems much more benign than mobbing. At least with sexual harrassment its easier to fix...just call the cops. But mobbing is harder to prove when you get silent treatment, hateful looks, rumors behind your back, withholding info, not passing on info I need to do my job. I will become an entrepreneur. Becoming self employed is the surest way for me to escape mobbing and to make full use of my talents and smarts. Im

a fighter and I will win. I never back down.

User: anonymousDate: 4/15/2008 9:22:00 AM

I was hoping to complete 30 years of teaching as the retirement benefits are better. Do to emotional abuse from my boss I had to retire at 29 years. Thank God I could retire when I did but how sad to end my career with these awful feelings and memories. He still continues to undermine my happines and emotional health by playing tricks on me. I think he may have gotten into my personal computer and read my personal emails. If I say anything it just looks like I'm paranoid. He desparately wants my approval and support but I just can't give it him. He's used these same tactics on other employees and I worry about those teachers still under his dictatorship. He and his family have a reputation for being vindictive.

User: anonymousDate: 4/15/2008 2:55:00 PM

I am a graduate student being mobbed by the department head, some faculty and fellow students. It's the strangest thing. Most of it involves petty practical jokes which after awhile wear me down. The mobbers don't know me well enough to hate me in fact we have hardly spoken a word. It's what I represent that they hate. They sure know how to push my buttons because I am a nervous wreak whenever I am at the school. It's a really bizarre sick environment.

User: anonymousDate: 7/10/2008 11:28:00 AM

Whats amazing is that it not only happens in small companies or big corporations but also in municipal governements where you would think they would be extra careful to make sure this doesnt happen. But it does. I was reprimanded for upsetting my boss when I asked him for more training on a difficult project. Figure that one out.

User: anonymousDate: 7/17/2008 3:52:00 PM

I was mobbed by a very jealous woman and a obssessed male friend who got very possessive over me (despite the fact he was married) and spread some nasty rumours about me to keep the men from talking to me- I have now a really bad reputation and nobody talks to me -

User: anonymousDate: 9/29/2008 9:16:00 PM

WOW, What a revalation. I was looking for information about vendictive women at work and stumbled onto this. June of this year I had a staff meeting attended by supervisors (3) and the three other women I work with. The discussion was basically being more effecient and more focused on work. I admitted I was often unfocused. The following Tuesday my computer was gone & I was under investigation based on complaints and accusation from these 3 women and another 2 employees from the field. There were accusations of theft, affairs,improper dress,

hostile work enviroment, and who knows what else since I have not had a pre-disciplinary hearing as of this date. My supervisor is also a victim in this as one of the women is friends with his manager. Wish me luck and I am off to get this book based on the comments by everyone here and topics mentioned in this book

User: anonymousDate: 10/17/2008 3:02:00 PM

I am so glad that there are books to support victims of this awful crime. I loved my old boss and my job but when she left due to the dysfunctional management, I was given a new boss who practices mobbing. I have watched her insult, put down and lie to other co-workers, tell them that they did not turn in reports only for me to see the report on her desk. I've seen my co-workers have asthma attacks, anxiety attacks, migraines- we tried going to her boss but she is protected by her- her staff either leaves or is fired. It is so sad to see that in our organization. I'm sad that this happens in so many workplaces. I love my job but the stress is insane.

User: anonymousDate: 12/14/2008 7:16:00 PM

Mobbing is one of the cause that led to the current financial downfall among many companies.Most of the companies are controlled by this mobs who only care about their ego.

User: anonymousDate: 12/30/2008 5:30:00 PM

Yes Sir- You are so correct..I have been a victim of mobbie-and they have tried their best ( Moron Manaagers-GM rejects-etc.My pay was cut in half-because the product I am responsible for-a high end -high cost product was not selling as they wanted.Self Destruct-Moron -Pig-Managers !

User: anonymousDate: 1/15/2009 4:11:00 PM

This has been going on for eons. It's not going to stop unless we have them all killed and make this world a better place to live in. Maybe you could make it look like an accident.

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The Hidden Evil

www.TheHiddenEvil.com

Gang Stalking, Directed Energy Weapons, Non-lethal Weapons, revolution, Hidden Evil, Mark M. Rich

If a fascist revolution occured...would you know it?

Hello, today isSaturday, August 20, 2011

Contact Site Map Feedback

Mobbing, another creation of the Think Tanks?This report won't explain Mobbing or the Hidden Evil in detail, but instead will focus on their similarities.(*) Mobbing, which takes place in the workplace, is an almost perfectly concealed program used to destroy a person's inner self. The program was obviously created by a team of experts such as lawyers, psychiatrists, & others well-versed in the behavioral sciences. The Hidden Evil is a program used by the financial elite to single people out in communities across the planet, & literally torture & murder them with the help of a very naive populace. Mobbing is so similar to the Hidden Evil, that they appear to have originated from the same source.

In the workplace, participants are recruited & directed by credible workplace leaders, such as Human Resource personnel.  For public stalking, participants are recruited by representatives of the state.  Both groups are fed lies to gain their participation in a covert program of psychological terror. Both are told that the programs are legitimate & necessary to remove "troublesome" people from the environment. I've personally noticed that some stalkers participate in both public Gang Stalking & workplace Mobbing.

Both programs often target independent, intelligent people. Also, for both, a triggering event is used as an excuse to set the harassment in motion. After a person is singled out, a bogus investigation is conducted to justify the harassment. And in both cases the targeted person will not be aware of the investigation, or the claims being made against them. Both can be directed against anyone, rather than a specific group, gender, race, creed, or nationality. The programs are cleverly designed to represent the target as the one at fault. Due to the nature of the attacks, targeted people may not be aware of what's happening to them as their lives are destroyed.

Both use covert attacks, which are designed to isolate, confuse & force a person into submission. Attacks are done frequently over a long period of time by multiple people. Lies, rumors, ridicule, discrediting, & framings are used. The symptoms

targets experience in each program are identical. Both may result in the death of the targeted person, through illness or suicide. Targets may also commit violence or "go postal" as a result of ongoing harassment. Hidden cameras may be used so the harassment of people may be broadcasted via closed-circuit TV. The broadcasting is apparently done for the enjoyment of those "in the know." Mental health professionals are used to discredit targeted people. Both represent the removal of the target from the environment as the target's choice.

People who participate surrender themselves to something they believe is powerful in exchange for protection, approval, & temporary empowerment. Both are functional examples of the "heard mentality" in a group setting. Some participants seem to enjoy harassing others. But some are forced to participate to ensure their own survival. Both are apparently a hidden epidemic, which the mainstream news will either not cover, or be used to cover-up. Current laws do not apply to either of them. Both programs exhibit traits which suggest that the controlling faction is made up of psychopaths.(**)

The protocols for Mobbing & the Hidden Evil are so identical, that it would seem that they were created from the same blueprint. In the book, The Hidden Evil, I provide evidence that supra-governmental Think Tanks created a global program of Gang Stalking, as part of a political movement. These Think Tanks are part of what has been called the Military-Industrial Complex, which is essentially a corporate-government merger. The data provided in the book also suggests that multinational corporations run the NATO nations.(***) Functionally, this could be called Fascism. The Mobbing protocol used by Human Resource departments worldwide, is probably also a creation of Think Tanks, for use by the Military-Industrial Complex. Mobbing & the Hidden Evil may in fact be different aspects of the exact same program.

[Footnotes]* For information on Mobbing, see, Mobbing: Emotional Abuse In The American Workplace, by Noa Davenport, Ruth Distler Schwartz, & Gail Pursell Elliott. See also Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: A Silent Epidemic? by Noa Davenport.** More evidence which connects psychopathy to Mobbing will be provided in a future report. Also, in a separate report, I'll supply evidence which dispels the common myth that psychopaths & APD types are more intelligent than the common person. Although they themselves like to believe & promote this fable, studies show the opposite is true.*** For more evidence which explains how Think Tanks run the NATO nations, see, The Shadows of Power, by James Perloff, The Invisible Government by former FBI man Dan Smoot, Trilaterals Over Washington by Sutton & Wood, & The Bilderberg Diary, by James Tucker.

-Sources-Mobbing: Emotional Abuse In The American Workplace, Noa Davenport, Ruth Distler Schwartz, & Gail Pursell ElliottEmotional Abuse in the Workplace: A Silent Epidemic?, Noa Davenport, www.mobbing-usa.comThe Hidden Evil, www.thehiddenevil.com/onlinebooktoc.aspEmotional Abuse in the Workplace, Sullivan University, Tony Belak

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Also, you can also download & distribute PDF Info Sheets, which are single-page flyers that can be handed out to establishments or people. One is called, Informant Networks , & it describes how corporations have turned us into a society of Gang Stalkers. The second one, entitled, The Organizations That Run Your Government, explains how corporations have subverted the U.S. Government & are manipulating our politicians from behind the scenes.

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Resources, information, and contact details

of those who care worldwide

Links....

Global Allies Against Workplace Bullying; More Bully Sites; Workplace Violence; Health and Safety Matters; Working

Conditions; Self-help; Work-related Suicide; PTSD and Trauma Web Sites; Mental Health Web Sites; General Health Web Sites;

Verbal Abuse Web Sites; Stalking Web Sites; Self-Defence; Stress Web Sites; Web Sites of Interest; Writing Opportunities

Global Allies Against Workplace Bullying

The Workplace Bullying Institute (USA) is a nonprofit organization founded and coordinated by Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie. Don't miss this site: Go to http://www.bullyinginstitute.org and enjoy!

Andy Ellis, an employee advocate hosts an excellent resource site at : http://www.workplacebullying.co.uk with a Target Support Community and a Bullying Discussion group.  A site worth paying a visit - for Targets as well as those interested in

the law (UK). Noa Davenport, one of the authors of "Mobbing - Emotional

Abuse in the American Workplace has a site at:  http://www.mobbing-usa.com and http://www.DNZtraininginternational.com

 Whistleblowers Australia have a web-site at http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/  

Violence at the workplace is on the increase.  A site worthwhile visiting is that of Larry J Chavez, http://www.workplace-violence.com and also

http://members.aol.com/HRtrainer/guide-for-media.html Danger: Toxic Company, Alan M Webber, Fast Company

online magazine a http://www.fastcompany.com/online/19/toxic.html

An interesting site on work, poverty and the environment. Go

to: http://www.theworkingcentre.org http://www.caitrin.mtx.net - Bullies Down Under, Australia. Workplace Bullying in universities in Japan - Great Japanese

site BBC Page - Bullying: A survival Guide Adult Bullying - A problem with relational violence Freedom to Care - Seeking freedom of speech at work &

support of whistle blowers Also visit Tony Martin's site on workplace bullying. "Workplace Violence Today" - visit

http://www.workplaceviolence911.com  Those interested in in workplace bullying/mobbing in academe,

could visit the my much expanded and updated website of Prof. Ken Westhues of the Waterloo University: 

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm "Stop The Abuse of Power!!!":  http://F.webring.com/hub?

ring=stop_abuse The Canadian website on mobbing:  http://mobbing.ca Evelyn Field’s site in Australia:  www.bullying.com.au Matt Reider’s new site:  www.workplace-violence.info

www.kickbully.com is a practical guide to fighting back against workplace bullying developed it in response to the epidemic of bullying observed in 20 years as a management consultant.

  Back to top

 Many More Bully Sites

The Northern Ireland Campaign Against Workplace Bullying. Campaign Against Bullying At Work (CABAW): write to

Campaign Against Bullying At Work, Working Environment Unit, Amicus, 40 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD, Email weu@amicus-m.org

UK Work-Stress Network : Brian Robinson, Convenor, 9 George Road, Drayton, Norwich NR8 6ED, Tel/fax 01603 868249. Publishes UK National Work-stress Network News (available electronically on UPFRONT@geo2.poptel.org), editor Ian Draper, NASUWT, 9 Bell Lane, Syresham, Brackley, Northamptonshire NN13 5HP, UK, Tel 01280 850388, Fax 01280 850056, email LA-N66@nasuwt.org.uk

CAFAS , the Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards, defends individuals against victimisation in the further and higher education sector.

Have a look at http://members.tripod.com/~bullybasher/index.html

A good bullying website: www.bullyeq.com . It explores the relationships between bullying, mobbing, abuse, psychopathy and emotional intelligence in various contexts

Good story to read: http://www.Betrayals.net

Back to top or carry on with international sites below

 Organisations and individuals - international (in alphabetical order of country)

Bullying resources inAustralia | Canada | Finland | France | Germany | Ireland |

Sweden | USA

Belgium: SASAM is the Belgian movement against bullying. The organization is focused on 4 points : battling bullying, prevention, sensibilizing the media and the public, political lobbying regarding laws to be improved.

Holland: Stop Mobbing stil verdriet op de werkvloer Holland: see www.pesten.net New! Psychische terreur op het werk: a Dutch web

site on workplace bullying Italy: PRIMA Associazione contro Mobbing e Stress Psico-

sociale, founded in 1996:email derive.approdi@libero.it, website: http://www.ecn.org/deriveapprodi

New Zealand: Andrea Needham, author of Workplace Bullying - a costly business secret launches helpline (0800 0 BULLY) for bullied workers in New Zealand

Spain: forum on bullying Spain: MOBBING.NU at www.mobbing.nu

Switzerland: Mobbing-Zentrale Schweiz

More international contacts below under Web sites of interest

Back to top

Workplace violence

The National Institute for Prevention of Workplace Violence Carrie Lybecker runs the Nurse Advocate: Nurses &

Workplace Violence web site and discussion forum; see http://www.nurseadvocate.org

The Workplace Violence Research Institute is at http://www.workviolence.com

The National Institute for the Prevention of Workplace Violence is at www.SullivanInternational.com

Back to top

Health and safety matters

Tolley's Health and Safety at Work, A practical business newsletter for safety professionals, Tolley Publishing Co Ltd, Tolley House, 2 Addiscombe Road, Croydon, Surrey CR9 5AF, UK, Telephone 0181 686 9141, Fax 0181 686 3155, email sales@tolley.co.uk, site http://www.tolley.co.uk/.

UK Health and Safety Executive www.hsedirect.com is the most authoritative source of health

and safety legislation and guidance. New! Worksafe is a registered charity providing FREE

Occupational Health and Safety advice information and training to individuals, voluntary sector groups and small businesses

The Website of the International Labour Organisation's Department of SafeWork:  http://www.ilo.org/safework/ 

Back to top

Work-related suicide

Suicide & Parasuicide is a comprehensive site looking at all aspects of suicide. .

Back to top

PTSD and trauma sites

Web sites about PTSD and trauma are listed at the bottom of the PTSD page. 

If your health has suffered but those around you cannot or will not see your hurt, see the Invisible Disabilities Advocate web site Why Seeing Is Not Believing When Dealing With A Chronic Illness  

Back to top  

Mental health web sites The At Health web site is at http://www.athealth.com Mental health, support and psychology is covered in depth at

http://www.mhnet.org/ Mental health on the Internet: improving and understanding

diagnosis and treatment is covered at http://www.mentalhealth.com/

The Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN) at http://www.mentalhealth.org is a US government service of the Center for Mental Health Service (CMHS), a component of SAMHSA, which is the federal government's lead agency for improving quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment and mental health services in the United States. There are many FREE US government publications on-line, and available to order, on mental health issues.

Health questions and health answers: health information on the Internet is at http://housecall.orbisnews.com/

Dr John Grohol's mental health page has extensive links to mental health, psychology and support service web sites at http://grohol.com/web.htm

The Mental Health Sanctuary is at http://www.mhsanctuary.com/

Back to top

Abuse survivor web sites

Sites are listed here for their extensive content and/or links to other sites.

Abuse Recovery UK (ARUK) provides interactive support to survivors of sexual abuse either as a child or adult, with related subjects such as date rape, male rape, panic attack, eating disorders, self harm, also partners and parents sections. Includes forums, chat rooms and 250 pages of information.

The Survivors Forum is a place of companionship, friendship, and support along the healing path of childhood sexual abuse; see http://www.eyecatchers.com/survivors/

#Survivors on the Net is at http://www.survivors.org.uk/ The Broken Spirits Network is an online community and

support group that focuses on aiding both current and past victims of child abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic violence. Broken Spirits provides a comprehensive list of shelters, hotlines and organizations that can provide help for potential victims.

A personal site with information and support for survivors of abuse and bullying.

www.bpdworld.org  has been set up by Joshua Cole for sufferers of bpd, borderline personality disorder but also for anyone with mental health problems.

Back to top

Verbal abuse web sites

Dr Irene's comprehensive web site on verbal abuse, codependency and love addiction is at http://www.drirene.com/

Patricia Evans' books are at www.verbalabuse.com

Stalking web sites

The Stalking Victim's Sanctuary provides insight and information on stalking as well as support and guidance.

The Antistalking Web Site is for anyone interested in stalking, from victims to mental health professionals, from law enforcement to security personnel.

Self defence For self-defense information, see Self-Defense Now

General health web sites * Hand picked health resources, everything from Medicine to New Age: alternative, holistic & general health links  

Working conditions The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions is an EU autonomous body situated in Dublin, Ireland, whose aim is to generate improvement in the areas of living and working conditions through European research and information dissemination activities.

http://www.labourprotect.co.za is a resource website for employers who want some information on labour issues.

 

Self help www.ukselfhelp.info provides easy access to the experience and information of all of the UK Self Help Groups and Support Organisations.

 

Back to top

Stress web sites

Stress and its effects on the brain and body are explained (in simple English) at www.teachhealth.com

New! UK National Work Stress Network (part of the Hazards Campaign) aims to raise the profile of work-related stress, its causes and how we can move towards eliminating it.

Back to top

Low pay and employment issues web sites

Information and further links covering basic employment rights, how to get advice about pay rates and homeworking are covered on the Pay & Employment Rights Service (Yorkshire) web site at http://www.pers.org.uk

Back to top

Web sites of interest

Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War : R J Rummel explores democide, the misuse of power.

Fifty signs of an unhealthy organisation by Andrew Gibbons. Healthy Workplace discusses how organisations can influence

our health for good or ill, and provides a toolbox of ideas for how to survive and thrive in your organisation.

Got a toxic boss? See www.toxicboss.com Patricia Evans is author of The verbally abusive relationship:

how to recognize it and how to respond (Adams, ISBN 1-55850-582-2) and her web site is at http://www.patriciaevans.com/

Wrightslaw contains a wealth of information about effective advocacy for children with disabilities.

Peer Support Networker is a forum for the exchange of ideas on peer support, on interventions to address the problem of bullying whether in schools or at work, to link up with other people with a shared interest in this area, to hear about training opportunities and the latest research updates in the field. Visit our linked homepage on the EU training and Mobility of Researchers project which over four years is investigating bullying and social exclusion in schools and the workplace.

The Giraffe Project recognises people who stick their necks out for the common good.

Richard Ames Hart is a former systems programmer who uses his own taxicab in San Francisco to undertake intensive research on specific verbal tools for nipping bullying in the bud. The fruits of his labor are beginning to appear at www.taxi1010.com

The Occupational Health and Safety Research Institute (IRSST), located in Montreal (QC), Canada, carries out scientific activities concentrated in seven research fields: accidents, chemical substances and biological agents, musculoskeletal disorders, noise and vibration, protective equipment, occupational rehabilitation, safety of industrial

tools, machines and processes. More information about the Institute and its research activities, as well as about 1000 research reports are available for free download at :  <http://www.irsst.qc.ca/en/home.html>

 

Back to top

Writing opportunities for victims

WWW.BEWRITE.NET - Many who have suffered bullying and PTSD want to write about their experiences but might find it tough going. Our colleagues at BeWrite.Net are there to help … absolutely free of charge! They offer encouragement, advice, a professional editing and proof reading service … they'll even post your work on sites around the world in the hope of attracting publishers. The BeWrite service is free, friendly and one-on-one. No catches, no hidden costs, no strings attached. Your copyright is legally protected. Tim Field and BeWrite.Net editor Neil Marr have their first co-authored book coming out soon.

  Back to top

 

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© Copyright notice, disclaimer and short description of organization

THE MOBBING PORTALYOUR GATEWAY TO

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF GANGING UP

"A mobbing is like a tornado spun off from a spring rainstorm

- a fervent, collective assault that escalates from an ordinary conflict."

-Kenneth Westhuesqtd. in "Mob Rule"

by John Gravois

HEINZLEYMANN

MEMORIAL

Click here to view the Heinz Leymann Memorial Webpage. This webpage was created in memory of German-Swedish psychologist Dr. Heinz Leymann (1932-1999) whose pioneering research laid the foundation for the current study of mobbing.

ABOUT US

Click here to learn more about the central aims and goals of The Mobbing Portal as well as the contributions that made its construction a possibility.

MOBBING IN THE NEWS

"Colorado Professor Wins Wrongful-Termination Suit"April

Click here for more mobbing news

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

ONLINE BOOK

Custom Search

RESOURCES ORGANIZED BY AUTHOR

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V WZ

RESOURCES BY TOPIC

Not sure where to start? Resources in this section are organized according to key topics in mobbing research.

RESOURCES BY QUESTIONS

The resources in this section are organized in response to specific questions regarding workplace

mobbing.

CASES OF MOBBING

This collection of cases illustrates the diversity of origins and tactics behind

workplace mobbing.

THE MOBBING PORTAL BLOG

The Mobbing Portal Blog reviews, highlights, and offers

insight into the continued development of mobbing

research.

  TOP RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

  TOP RESOURCES FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

 TOP RESOURCES FOR

NURSES

TOP RESOURCES FOR WORKERS IN

THE PUBLIC SECTOR

TOP RESOURCES FOR PHYSICIANS

 

TOP RESOURCES FOR POLICE OFFICERS

REVIEWS

BEST OF THE WEBClick here for links to

relevant websites.

 

Back to    

Mainpage: Workplace

Mobbing in Academe

Homepage: Kenneth

Westhues

THIRTY-TWO ACADEMIC MOBBING CASES, 2005-08

Below, in alphabetical order, are 32 academics whose

troubles, as reported in the press or on the web,

appear to fit the definition of workplace mobbing.

Reviewing these cases is useful for understanding the

variety of origins of the phenomenon and the different

ways cases play out. Scroll down or click on the name

for relevant links and brief description, and google the

names for additional, more recent information about

them. K. Westhues, August 2009. Updated, 2010.

Jury refuses to convict Sami Al-Arian (University

of South Florida); he is eliminated anyway

Jonathan Bean on guard, surviving at Southern

Illinois (Carbondale)

Jerry Becker and Elisabeth Reichert in board

 

  THE HAMMERLY LECTURES

 1. Joan Friedenberg2. Hugo Meynell

 THE HECTOR HAMMERLY MEMORIAL SITE

 *NEW*Top Ten Films about Ganging Up

  The Rubber Room: Internal Exile in New York City Public Schools

presentation at SIUC

Stephen Berman is ousted from University of

Saskatchewan

At Sheffield, Aubrey Blumsohn is forced out,

starts blog

Student Seung-Hui Cho goes postal at Virginia

Tech, 33 dead

Firestorm over Ward Churchil at University of

Colorado

Suicide of David Clarke at Southern Illinois

(Carbondale)

At last, Jean Cobbs vindicated at Virginia State

Dramatist George Cron is ousted from Missouri

State

Shiraz Dossa goes to conference, is mobbed,

keeps job (St. Francis Xavier University)

Christopher Dussold 's resistance at Southern

Illinois (Edwardsville)

Mohammed Elmasry retires at Waterloo —

mobbing aborted

Jews mob a Jew: Norman Finkelstein gone from

DePaul

Howard Fredrics seeks redress from Kingston

University (UK)

Redress for Joan Friedenberg at Southern Illinois

(Carbondale)

Ouster of Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer at

Southern Mississippi

Biswanath Halder cybermobbed at Case

Western Reserve, goes postal

Hector Hammerly (Simon Fraser University) is

dead

Donald Hindley survives administrative attack at

Brandeis

Filmmakers John Hookham and Gary

MacLennan suspended from QUT for newspaper

article

Harassment of Gabrielle Horne continues at

Dalhousie

K C Johnson alive and kicking at Brooklyn

College

Biology professor Robert J. Klebe files suit

(UTHSC San Antonio)

David Mullen suspended for words at Cape

Breton University

Physician Nancy Olivieri still battling in court

(University of Toronto)

Lethbridge administrators attack Tom Robinson

for his website

John Soloski fighting back at University of

Georgia

Successful mobbing of Harvard President

Lawrence Summers

Medaille College settles with Therese Warden &

Uhuru Watson

James D. Watson broken for breaking a taboo

(Cold Spring Harbor Lab)

Supreme Court victory for Wanda Young

(Memorial of Newfoundland)

 

Academic mobbings

are reported from

time to time by:

Foundation for

Individual Rights in

Education

Committee A of the

American Association

of University

Professors

Canadian Association

of University Teachers

Inside Higher Ed, the

online magazine

Chronicle of Higher

Education

National Association of

Scholars

Scientific Misconduct

Blog

UTMB Galveston

Chapter

Preface

As a researcher of mobbing in academic institutions, I

follow up on cases I have analyzed and keep an eye out

for apparent new ones, gathering thereby more data

for suggesting and testing hypotheses about this

momentous social process. Studying the news reports

below and following the links is a good way to gain a

grasp of academic mobbing as a field of scholarly

inquiry and practical concern. Anyone looking for

additional cases can search through the sources linked

at left.

Given how politicized higher education in North

America has become, I should emphasize that

mobbings may occur from the left (commonly for

alleged transgressions of political correctness), from

the right (for allegedly immoral or unpatriotic acts), or

from local coalitions that have little to do with broad

political currents. I should also emphasize that few

mobbing targets (indeed, few humans) are wholly

innocent of mistakes and faults. Many victims of

lynching in the old South were guilty of serious crimes,

but that does not alter the fact that they were lynched.

Web surfers who reach this page without prior study of

the field of workplace mobbing may want first to visit

the parent page of this website .

Suggestions and links for additional reports on

academic mobbings for summarizing here are

welcome, and best sent to me by email.

University of

South FloridaJury refuses to convict Sami Al-Arian (University

of South Florida), but he is eliminated anyway

For accounts of Al-Arian's troubles with the United

States government and with the University of South

Florida in 2002-2003, see the websites on Academic

Free Speech and the family ordeal . See John

Sugg's analysis of the conclusion of the case against

Al-Arian in 2006: the prosecution's humiliating failure

to persuade a jury of the serious charges brought

against the professor, Al-Arian's plea of guilty to minor

misdeeds, and a judge's sentence of still more jail time.

At last report, Al-Arian he should be released from

prison about the end of 2007, and then deported from

the United States. Al-Arian's case lends credence to the

view that if professionals in the academic and court

systems want badly enough to get rid of a mobbing

target, they will not be deterred by juries that disagree.

Southern Illinois Jonathan Bean on guard, surviving at Southern

University

(Carbondale) Illinois (Carbondale)

Historian Jon Bean's prolific scholarship is well received

and most students have great respect for him, enough

to have won him a teaching award, but leftist

professors in his department ganged up to discredit

this more conservative scholar in 2005. The effort

backfired, and Bean has continued in his position. A

good example of lateral, horizontal, or collegial

mobbing. For more about the campaign to run Bean

out of his job, see John Gravois's 2006 article in the

Chronicle of Higher Education and my supplement

to that article, The Story behind the Story.

Southern Illinois

University,

Carbondale

Jerry Becker and Elisabeth Reichert in Board

Presentation at SIUC

In an impressive initiative for educating a university's

highest authority on the reality of mobbing in

academe, four senior professors at Southern Illinois

University, Carbondale, made a collective

presentation to the Board of Trustees (pp. 22-33

of PDF ) at its March 2005 meeting. The group was led

by Mark Schneider (Sociology). Joining him were Joan

Friedenberg (Linguistics), Elisabeth Reichert (Social

Work), and Jerry Becker (Education).

In his 2006 article in the Chronicle of Higher

Education , John Gravois described at some length the

troubles of math educator Jerry Becker, and referred

also to Elisabeth Reichert's case. I refer to them as well

in my Story behind the Story .

University of

SaskatchewanStephen Berman ousted from University of

Saskatchewan

The Canadian press reported in February of 2006

that an arbitration tribunal had upheld the dismissal of

Stephen Berman, a 32-year faculty veteran at the

University of Saskatchewan. Berman is arguably the

most distinguished mathematician in the province. The

grounds for dismissing him were that he had posted

fake ratings to the popular website,

ratemyprofessors. Close reading of the tribunal

documents persuades me that this dismissal was a

remarkably clear case of academic scapegoating. My

analysis of the Berman dismissal on the basis of

the official documents has been available online since

December 2006; published with it are critical responses

by professors in Berman's former department. Berman

is one of a number of mobbed mathematicians who

have come to my attention.

Sheffield University Aubrey Blumsohn is forced out, starts blogging

Should a scientist get to inspect the raw data

underlying a research report published under that

scientist's name? Does a scientist control the writing of

which he or she is shown as author? Obviously yes, in

the view of Aubrey Blumsohn, pathologist, specialist in

osteoporosis, and former Senior Lecturer at the UK's

Sheffield University. Procter & Gamble, a major source

of research funds at Sheffield, and the sponsor of

Blumsohn's tests of the effectiveness of its

osteoporosis drug, Actonel, took a more collaborative

view. P&G saw itself as a "true partner in scientific

endeavors," and would therefore analyze the data for

Blumsohn and assign one of its own employees to

ghostwrite his research reports.

In 2004, Blumsohn complained about P&G to the

university administration, arguing that "no self-

respecting scientist could ever be expected to publish

findings based on data to which they do not have free

and full access." Blumsohn's complaint and his

readiness to give the matter public airing triggered an

episode of administrative mobbing, with him as the

target. He was suspended from his university position

on grounds that his "conduct over these past months

amounts to and constitutes conduct that is quite

incompatible with the duties of office." Click here for

the account in The Observer at the end of 2005, and

here for the account in Times Higher; see also

Jennifer Washburn's article in Slate.

Blumsohn resigned from Sheffield University in 2006. In

July of that year, he began his Scientific Misconduct

Blog, which gives detailed documentation on the P&G

dispute, wide-ranging evidence of the corruption of

science by corporate interests, and rich insight into the

subtle techniques by which universities and scientists

are bought off.

Virginia Polytechnic

and State University Seung-Hui Cho goes postal, killing 32 and himself

Very few mobbing targets go postal, but when one

does, condemnation of the perpetrator's flawed identity

tends to displace understanding of the tragedy in terms

of background and context. Click here for a contextual

analysis of the massacre at Virginia Tech in the spring

of 2007, perpetrated by a graduating student in the

English Department, Seung-Hui Cho.

University of Colorado

BoulderFirestorm over Churchill

Professorial mobbings may be instigated by

administrators, colleagues, students, people off-

campus, or any combination thereof. The campaign

against Ward Churchill, Professor and Chair of Ethnic

Studies at the University of Colorado, arose initially

among right-wing journalists and political groups far

from his home university. A firestorm of outrage swept

across US media in January of 2005, over an essay

Churchill had written after the 9/11 attacks, in which he

called the businesspeople who died in the World Trade

Centre "little Eichmanns." To all patriots, Churchill

quickly became a leftist witch to be eliminated from his

job and from all respectable company. As the witch

hunt progressed in following months, Churchill was

accused of plagiarism, research fraud, and falsification

of his claimed Indian identity. The campaign to dismiss

him from the faculty of the University of Colorado

followed a long and tortuous route, succeeding only in

2007. Churchill then appealed to the courts, winning a

jury verdict but to no avail.

In the inaugural issue of AAUP's new Journal of

Academic Freedom (2010), Ellen Schrecker published a

thorough, trenchant analysis of the Churchill case,

commenting also on those of Sami Al-Arian and

Norman Finkelstein, and finding all of them

reminiscent of the McCarthy era in American academe.

One voice of reason in the fanatic anti-Churchill

campaign belonged to Thomas Brown, a sociology

professor at Lamar University. Brown circulated a

sober, factual paper documenting egregious

mistakes in Churchill's historical scholarship. To that

extent, in a well-timed academic intervention, he

joined Churchill's mobbers. Brown also, however,

published an essay of remarkable breadth and balance,

"Is Ward Churchill the New Michael Bellesiles?"

wherein he cast doubt on Churchill's competence while

at the same time agreeing "that the assault on him is

politically motivated, and is part of a broader assault

on the institution of tenure and academic freedom."

Brown appears to be a more careful scholar than

Churchill, more aware of life's complexity, more

tolerant of ambiguity, more able to keep political

ideology from intruding on the search for truth.

In an opinion piece on academic freedom in March

of 2005, I pointed out similarities between the cases of

Ward Churchill, University of Waterloo Engineering

Professor Mohamed Elmasry, and Harvard President

Lawrence Summers.

For the May 2006 verdict of a faculty panel on the

administration's effort to dismiss Churchill, see the

summary in insidehighered or better yet, read the

full report. Gary Witherspoon published a pointed

critique of Churchill's formal dismissal from the

university in 2007.

Southern Illinois

University,

Carbondale

Suicide of David Clarke

My first book on academic mobbing, Eliminating

Professors, was published in late 1998. Four years

later, on November 5, 2002, I received an email from

David S. Clarke, Editor of Knowledge, Technology,

and Policy: "I have just finished your book. Parts of it

started dribbles of sweat down my back as it described

exactly the hell I went through. Your carefully built

composite of PITA fits me to a 'T' unfortunately." The

social elimination inflicted on Clarke had been

unusually thorough: he had been dismissed from his

professorship at Southern Illinois University, convicted

(wrongly, he insisted) of assaulting his wife, and

divorced by her (she was an SIU senior administrator),

all as a package. Clarke and I were in touch

occasionally over the next three years, during which he

relocated from Carbondale to Guidel, a Breton village in

western France. Our association culminated in my

inclusion of his essay, "Leaving Luzerville," in my

edited book, Winning, Losing, Moving On. On

November 6, 2005, shortly after returning to me the

corrected page proofs for his chapter, three years after

his first email to me, David Clarke took his own life. His

friends in Carbondale gathered for a memorial service

on December 16. During my lecture on academic

mobbing there in March of 2006, I invited those in

attendance to join me in a moment of silence in

Clarke's memory.

Virginia State

UniversityAt last, Jean Cobbs vindicated

The Envy of Excellence devoted a page to the

"pariahs of VSU," the professors (mostly white or

African) at this historically black institution who ran

afoul of the administration of Eddie N. Moore, president

since 1993. By 2000, the courts had ordered the

university to pay well over $2 million in damages to

wrongly ousted professors. Then in Workplace

Mobbing in Academe , Carey E. Stronach, Professor of

Physics at VSU since 1965, wrote a detailed history of

the terror at his institution entitled, "The Campus CEO,

State Politics, and the Mobbing of Exceptionally

Competent Professors." That chapter concluded with an

account of the unbelievable harassment inflicted on

Sociology Professor Jean R. Cobbs since 1994, when

she was forced out as chair of her department. Cobbs's

offense appeared to be that she was on the one hand

proudly African-American, with deep roots in the South,

but on the other hand proudly Christian and

conservative, with connections to the Republican Party.

After publication of Stronach's chapter, things at VSU

went from bad to worse, the administration going after

dissident faculty at will. It dismissed two senior,

respected, tenured, veteran professors after precooked

post-tenure reviews. First, in May of 2004, was Sikiru

Olusoga, Professor of Marketing, who had been at VSU

since 1992. Then in January of 2005, Cobbs herself was

dismissed. She had taught at VSU since 1971.

VSU's persecution of capable faculty was so egregious

it earned anathemas from professors' organizations on

both the right and left sides of the political spectrum. In

April of 2005, Stephen Balch, on behalf of the National

Association of Scholars, strongly condemned Cobbs's

dismissal, saying, "This extraordinary instance of

administrative fiat ought to arouse the deep concern of

anyone who cares for the future of intellectual freedom

and academic due process." Then in June of 2005, the

American Association of University Professors placed

VSU under official censure .

Jean Cobbs sued VSU for wrongful dismissal, and

settled for $600,000 in January, 2007.

Missouri State

University Dramatist George Cron ousted, goes to court

Any professor who declines a colleague's overtures

toward becoming a special friend risks becoming that

colleague's special enemy. The colleague may

thereafter spend months or years carefully spreading

doubt about the ingrate's competence or probity,

leading to formation of a mob bent on getting rid of

him or her.

To judge by documentation on the Turner Report, this

is what happened to actor and director George Cron,

who taught at Missouri State University, Springfield,

from 1999 to 2004. Although the Tenure Committee of

the Department of Theatre and Dance voted 6-2 in

favour of giving Cron tenure, the department chair was

opposed. Internal appeals went nowhere. At last, in July

of 2005, an external arbitrator ruled in Cron's favour.

Amazingly, the school's Board of Governors refused to

accept the arbitrator's judgment, and Cron was out of a

job.

Cron sued for wrongful dismissal and defamation, only

to have the suit thrown out by a magistrate in

September of 2007. The magistrate ruled that under

the United States constitution, an individual cannot sue

the state, and the university is part of the state. A

curious ruling on the face of it, since even on this

website are many cases of professors bringing, and

sometimes winning, lawsuits against state universities.

Authoritarian univesity administrations spend lots of

money fending off court challenges to their decisions.

Their universities become little worlds of their own,

where dissenters are routinely banished. Missouri State

University seems to be that sort of place. The

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has rated

the institution red , on account of numerous assaults on

freedom of thought and speech there in recent years,

in particular the punishment of social work student

Emily Booker for her political views.

St. Francis Xavier

University Shiraz Dossa mobbed for attending conference,

keeps job

When word got out that political scientist Shiraz Dossa

was attending a conference on the Holocaust in Iran in

December of 2006, about a quarter of his colleagues at

St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia,

went into a panic and signed a petition against him.

The school's administration seemed poised to punish

him. Globe & Mail columnist John Ibbitson called for

him to be fired. CAUT, on the other hand, came to

his defense. Thankfully, St F X President Sean Riley

kept his cool, and the mobbing ended as quickly as it

began. Debate continued, as it should.

In June of 2007, The Literary Review of Canada

published Dossa's own analysis of the conflict. Editor

Bronwyn Drainie was perceptive in her comments to

Maclean's: "“But I would say he was definitely ganged

up on, and that to me goes beyond what I would call

healthy intellectual debate. Debates occur between

individuals, maybe between groups, but when you

have sort of 100 versus one, it’s a gang-up, and it went

on not only at his university, but at the Globe and

Mail." Another perceptive take on the mobbing was

from St F X English professor Phil Milner, in an opinion

piece in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, unfortunately no

longer available on the web.

Southern Illinois

University,

Edwardsville

Ouster and Lawsuit of Dussold

To judge by Thomas Bartlett's long, detailed, absorbing

account in The Chronicle of Higher Education (issue

of 10 February 2006), the formal dismissal in 2004 of

Christopher Dussold, an assistant professor of finance,

from Southern Illinois University (Edwardsville campus),

was but the culmination of a bizarre, multifaceted case

of workplace mobbing. An unfounded rumor in the fall

of 2003 that Dussold was having sex with a student led

to an investigation by the provost. The accused was

unaware of the investigation until he learned that he

was cleared. His dean, however, Gary Giamartino, was

apparently not satisfied that Dussold was innocent.

Over spring break of 2004, Dussold decided to leave

Southern Illinois at the end of his current contract,

which had one year left to run, and he so informed his

dean and department chair. Later the same day, the

dean summarily fired him for plagiarizing from the

internet part of a statement of his teaching philosophy.

The due-process investigation mandated by university

policy did not occur.

Dussold subsequently sued his dean and half a

dozen colleagues for defamation. As of late 2007, the

case has not yet come to trial.

What is still more noteworthy, a group of Dussold's

supporters set about unearthing evidence of plagiarism

in the writings of SIU administrators. Dean Giamartino

was among the first. He defended himself in The

Alestle , the campus's student newspaper, only to be

ridiculed in an editorial for saying he didn't know who

wrote the official dean's message to which his name

and photo were attached.

Styling themselves the "Alumni and Faculty Against

Corruption at SIU," the group trying to rescue Dussold

exposed one after another SIU administrator for

plagiarism between the spring of 2006 and the fall of

2007. The campaign culminated in the news that

Glenn Poshard, president of the SIU system, had

plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis. The Chicago

Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as well as the

Chronicle of Higher Education and insidehighered, gave

the story extensive coverage. Editorial boards,

columnists, and faculty groups called for Poshard's

resignation, while the SIU Board of Trusteesto gave him

continued support. More than one commentator said

that SIU had become a laughing-stock.

The amazing thing at SIU is that instead of taking time

to understand and correct the unfair treatment of

Dussold, administrators at SIU have dug in their

heals and demonized him, even at the cost of their

institution's basic credibility. It is a tragic case study in

the perverse psychological mechanism, inability to

admit error, analyzed in the insightful 2007 book by

Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made

(but not by me).

For an analysis of plagiarism that is rare for its good

sense and balance, see Brian Martin, "Plagiarism: a

Misplaced Emphasis."

University of

WaterlooMobbing of Elmasry aborted

As he had planned for years, Mohammed Elmasry

retired from the engineering faculty of the University of

Waterloo at the end of 2005. He could then devote

more time to his work as President of the Canadian

Islamic Congress. Elmasry's deservedly honorable

retirement nicely illustrates that cool, reasoned

administrative action can sometimes bring an incipient

mobbing to a halt, without long-term harm to anyone.

That is how things turned out at the University of

Waterloo in the fall of 2004. On October 19,

engineering Professor Mohamed Elmasry took part in a

TV talk show aimed at defining terrorism. A prominent

researcher and Fellow of the Royal Society, Elmasry

appeared on the show wearing his other hat as head of

the Muslim organization, well known for his devotion to

his religion, his adopted country, and to peace. The

National Post and other Canadian media seized upon

sentiments Elmasry expressed on the program

and portrayed him as a dangerous defender of

terrorism. Elmasry apologized for ill-chosen words

and clarified his views. Debate raged pro and con, as is

normal and healthy in the public discourse of a free

society.

On October 26, however, Waterloo President David

Johnston announced to the Board of Governors

that he had appointed Science Dean George Dixon to

investigate the comments Elmasry had made on TV,

with a view to possible discipline. Contentious words

were thereby transformed into a "critical incident" that

could have led to Elmasry's official humiliation by his

home university, even his dismissal from the faculty.

Had Dixon joined the incipient mob and gone after

Elmasry's job, the harm done to a responsible leader of

Canada's Muslim community, to freedom of expression,

and to the cause of interreligious and interethnic

tolerance would have been severe and enduring.

Instead, less than a month later, Dixon had the good

sense to accept Elmasry's apology and close the

case . After a few months of being shunned by the

media, Elmasry returned to his earlier, respected role

as political commentator, regularly quoted on Islamic

affairs.

Len Guelke, a leader of the Faculty Association of the

University of Waterloo, subsequently published a

clearheaded analysis of the Elmasry case (PDF,

pp. 4f) in the association's newsletter. I offered my

take on the conflict in an article in The Record

(March 3, 2005) .

DePaul University Norman Finkelstein gets the boot

As a Jew, a son of Holocaust survivors, but nonetheless

a critic of the Holocaust Industry and Israeli politics,

Norman Finkelstein is among the most controversial

public intellectuals in America. Nothing wrong with

that. Free, vigorous, impassioned debate does not

imply mobbing. On the contrary, it is a corrective and

preventive. Having heard Finkelstein lecture, I know

from personal experience what is obvious in his writing,

that he is brave, no shrinking violet, that he gives as

good as he gets.

Altogether apart from constructive debate is an

impassioned campaign to do an accomplished scholar

out of his job. Alan Dershowitz, one of Finkelstein's

intellectual adversaries, was among the leaders of such

a campaign in spring and summer of 2007, to prevent

Finkelstein from receiving tenure in his academic

home, the Department of Political Science at DePaul

University.

To its everlasting shame, the DePaul administration

caved. So did the governing board. By any standard,

Finkelstein is an outstanding scholar, more than

deserving of tenure at any American university. The

great majority of his colleagues at DePaul, in particular

those in his own department, recognized his worth.

This was a case of mobbing by forces outside the

target's university, and it achieved its goal. One small

consolation was that in the final settlement, after fierce

and widespread conflict, the DePaul administration

acknowledged Finkelstein as "a prolific scholar and an

outstanding teacher."

Kingston University Howard Fredrics seeks redress at Kingston

University (UK)

The bureaucratized university plays havoc with bright,

creative minds. In July of 2006, Diana Winstanley, a

45-year-old professor in the School of Human Resource

Management at Kingston University, hanged herself. As

at many other universities, a significant number of

faculty have been on leave in recent years for

occupational stress.

American-born Howard Fredrics, a senior lecturer in

music at Kingston until his formal dismissal in 2006,

has published a well-documented multi-media

website on the conflict that led to his ouster and his

efforts since then for redress, and on similar conflicts

involving other faculty at Kingston. The website is also

useful for its critique of British employment law, in

particular the easily abused "some other substantial

reason" for an employee's dismissal. Of particular

interest in Fredrics's own case is the ganging up of

eleven colleagues and their filing a collective grievance

against him, apparently with the administration's

encouragement, following his own formal complaint of

administrative ill-treatment. The mire of legal twists

and turns since then is deep, involving charges of

witness intimidation, anti-Semitism, and much else.

 

Southern Illinois

University,

Carbondale

Redress for Friedenberg

Mobbing targets rarely get redress. An exception is

Joan E. Friedenberg, now Professor Emerita of

Linguistics at Southern Illinois University. Friedenberg

recounted and analyzed her case in a powerful chapter

of my edited volume, Workplace Mobbing in

Academe (2004), "Political Psychology at Southern

Illinois University: the Use of an Outside Consultant for

Mobbing a Professor (pp. 259-289). With tenacity and

courage, she also took legal action. After prolonged

legal wrangling, the case was settled out of court in

mid-January 2006. The following five articles from the

campus newspaper, The Daily Egyptian, describe how

the case was resolved:

The detailed news story by Reporter Zack

Quaintance;

The public statement by the university

administration;

An insightful editorial on the case;

Some tributes to Friedenberg from her

students;

Friedenberg's response .

A line from the editorial deserves emphasis: "the real

problem is the campus culture that tolerates such

conduct."

See also " psychologistethics.net ," a website about

"political psychology," that is, the use of psychologists

to further the political agendas of client employers.

I recount elsewhere on this website how

Friedenberg was the maven behind the anti-mobbing

movement at her university in 2005-06, reflected in

John Gravois's article in the Chronicle of Higher

Education.

In 2007, President Glenn Poshard denounced

Friedenberg as a "terrorist" for seeking constructive

resolution of the controversy over plagiarism at SIU,

and for appealing for fair treatment of Dussold.

By terms of the 2006 agreement to settle her claims

against SIU, 2006-07 was Friedenberg's final academic

year on the SIU faculty. She has since moved to the

Faculty of Education at Florida Atlantic University. One

can imagine her relief to have escaped so poisonous an

academic environment.

University of

Southern MississippiOuster of Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer at

Southern Mississippi

The dismissal in 2004 of sociology professor Frank

Glamser and English professor Gary Stringer by

President Shelby Thames was about as clear a case of

administrative mobbing as I have come across in

recent years. It is truly remarkable that their

elimination held — according to press reports at the

time, they should each have completed two years of

paid terminal leave in 2006. Basically, Thames got his

way, despite enormous opposition on and off the

campus.

When a campus climate goes out of control, usually

from authoritarian administration, the result is often a

spate of mobbing cases. The Glamser/Stringer scandal

is not the only one at Southern Mississippi; see the

usmnews website, and the account there of the

troubles of business professor Chauncey DePree.

Case Western Reserve

University Biswanath Halder is cybermobbed, goes postal

Retard, moron, loon — such were the labels applied to

this India-born adult student at Case Western, in

guestbook messages left on his website in 2000. His

tormentors created a website of their own:

haldersucks.com Someone hacked into his computer

that year and destroyed thousands of files Halder had

spent many years working on, files he intended to be

his contribution to history and his way of getting rich.

Halder sought redress through university channels, but

got none. He sued in public court, but his case was

thrown out in April of 2003.

The next month, Halder went berserk and put the

campus under siege for seven hours. He shot and killed

a student he did not know, and injured two others.

In December of 2005, Halder was convicted of murder.

Early in 2006, he was sentenced to life imprisonment

without parole.

The most detailed account I can find of this case on the

web is from MSNBC, called "Terror in the

Afternoon." The emphasis there, as in coverage of

most school shootings, is on the killer's crimes and

personal pathology, rather than on the precipitating

circumstances.

To say that Halder was mobbed at Case Western in no

way mitigates his guilt of horrific crimes, nor does it

deny the disordered state of Halder's psyche, ample

evidence of which was presented at trial. The simple,

emprical fact remains: he was ganged up on,

collectively humiliated, his life's work illegally,

immorally destroyed, and this was a prelude to his

crimes. For an analysis of a school shooting similar in

some respects, see the cluster of webpages on

Seung--Hui Cho.

Simon Fraser

University Hector Hammerly is dead

In a letter in the campus newspaper in 1997,

Hector Hammerly, Professor of Linguistics at Simon

Fraser University and a charter member of its faculty

since 1965, described his efforts at administrative

reform and declared, "The larger struggles I shall

pursue until I become mentally incapacitated or die."

Later that spring, the administration pounced full force

on Hammerly. He was publicly humiliated and forced

into early retirement. His fight then became mainly to

clear his name. He fought tenaciously, quixotically,

year after year, in and out of court, but his health failed

more and more.

On March 4, 2006, Hector Hammerly died of a massive

heart attack or stroke, alone in the Ramada Inn in

Coquitlam, British Columbia, where he had fled by taxi

from an assisted-living lodge.

As of December 2006, I have made a cluster of files

in Hammerly's memory available online.

Brandeis University Donald Hindley survives administrative attack at

Brandeis

In a blog entry in November of 2007, University of

Pennsylvania English professor Erin O'Connor was the

first to apply the word mobbing to the campaign

launched earlier that fall against Brandeis politics

professor Donald Hindley. Triggered by one or two

students complaining that Hindley had used the word

wetback in a lecture, the campaign was led by Provost

Marty Krauss, Department Chair Steven Burg, and

officials in the Human Resources Department.

Following a secret investigation, Krauss found Hindley

guilty of violating Brandeis's anti-discrimination policy,

assigned an assistant provost to monitor Hindley's

class, and ordered the 46-year faculty veteran to

attend sensitivity training (see the account in

insidehighered).

Hindley had the good sense to make the actions

against him public. Student and faculty groups at

Brandeis, as well as FIRE, the Massachusetts ACLU,

and numerous outside commentators came to

Hindley's defense. By late January of 2008, Krauss was

declaring that she considered the matter closed — a

common statement from administrators after an effort

to mob a professor has backfired and they are feeling

heat themselves. Click here for the follow-up story in

insidehighered.

Queensland John Hookham and Gary MacLennan suspended

University of

Technologyfor public dissent

With amazing prescience, the late Susan Sontag

captured the emergent postmodern Geist in her 1964

essay in Partisan Review," Notes on Camp". Now forty

years later, this Geist is an hegemonic force in many

universities. Accordingly, a documentary entitled

"Laughing at the Disabled" was approved as a doctoral

project in a major Australian film program in 2007.

Two members of faculty, leftist but not postmodern,

found little humour in the project. On April 11, after

their objections on campus had been ignored, they

published an article in The Australian, "Philistines of

Relativism at the Gates ." In consequence, they were

accused of disrespecting and abusing the student.

Vice-Chancellor Peter Coaldrake summarily suspended

the two academics, reciting the common mantra in

cases of administrative mobbing, that the "university

supports the right to academic freedom on the basis

that it comes with responsibility...."

Coaldrake's precipitous punishment of Hookham and

MacLennan for publishing their honest views brought a

vigorous backlash on the QUT campus, with rallies in

support of the suspended faculty. Not surprisingly,

since the protagonists are filmmakers, the conflict

played out in part via youtube clips. For Hookham and

MacLennan's viewpoint, click here. For a response

from doctoral student Michael Noonan, click here.

When an academic mobbing proceeds to the point of

formally excluding the target from the campus

community, as by suspension or dismissal, the

mobbing is rarely reversed. Once off the payroll, a

target is rarely put back on. In November of 2007,

Hookham and MacLennan accepted buyouts and

resigned their jobs. Here is MacLennan's explanatory

email.

Dalhousie University Harassment of Gabrielle Horne Continues at

Dalhousie

See the CAUT file for detailed information on the

kafka-esque torment of Gabrielle Horne, a cardiologist

and assistant professor of medicine at Dalhousie

University. A mobbing that appears to have originated

in professional jealousy has continued for years by a

kind of bureaucratic inertia, as the administrators and

lawyers of the Capital District Health Authority dug in

their heals. By late 2006, CAUT Director James Turk

was begging the provincial premier to intervene.

Brooklyn College K C Johnson alive and kicking at Brooklyn College

The crusade against prolific historian K C Johnson

when he came up for tenure at Brooklyn College is

almost an archetype of academic mobbing in our time,

revolving as it did around political correctness. The full

documentation was still available online in November

of 2007. By a mixture of cleverness, determination,

outside support, and luck, Johnson survived, and he

continues to make waves. Among numerous

contributions to insidehighered, his 2006 article on the

perils of academic unions is especially trenchant.

Perhaps because personal experience had sensitized

Johnson to the reality of fanatic collective persecution

in human social life, he was able to detect this

horrifying process in the indictment of three Duke

University lacrosse players on false charges of rape

in March of 2006. Johnson began a blog about the case,

Durham-in-Wonderland, which proved to be a

reliable source of the truth of what was going on. In an

entry on August 11, Johnson explicitly applied the

mobbing conceptualization to the lacrosse players'

plight. The attorney general for the state of North

Carolina dropped all charges and declared the players

innocent on April 11, 2007. Later in the year, Stuart

Taylor and K C Johnson published their much praised

book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness

and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse

Rape Case.

University of Texas Biologist Robert J. Klebe sues for constructive

Health Science

Center, San Antoniodismissal

In The Goose-Step (p. 300), Upton Sinclair quotes John

Jay Chapman's comparison of professors to rabbits:

"The average professor in an American college will look

on at an act of injustice done to a brother professor by

their college president with the same unconcern as the

rabbit who is not attacked watches the ferret pursue

his brother up and down through the warren to a

predestinate and horrible death."

In my studies of academic mobbings, Chapman's

characterization often rings true. Even faculty

associations often fade into the woodwork when a

professor is collectively attacked, especially if the

association includes some of the attackers in its

membership.

But this is not always the case. Occasional professors

are amazingly adroit and brave in their efforts to

rescue a targeted colleague. If some faculty

associations are compliant servants of collective will

and administrative power, others are public defenders

of professors' individual rights and bulwarks against

abuse of power.

The Texas Faculty Association, led for many years

by executive director Charles Zucker, belongs in the

latter category. So does the blogmeister of the

association's UTMB Galveston Chapter, who has

publicized and analyzed there a number of recent

cases of apparent mobbing.

Study, for instance, the 2007 statement of claim

against the University of Texas system by Robert J.

Klebe, a tenured biology professor at the medical

school in San Antonio. This account of administrative

actions against him (not yet proven in court, of course)

reads like a primer on mobbing techniques: redefined

job expectations, negative performance evaluation,

drastic cut in salary, damage to plans for patents and

publications, precooked post-tenure evaluation (much

like sham peer review), and assignment to teach a

course in gross anatomy, "a course he has never taken,

and is not qualified to teach. This course involves the

dissection of human cadavers; activity defendants

know plaintiff is personally averse to performing."

The last item reminds me of a report from another

university where administrators sought to get rid of a

professor in the School of Agriculture. Knowing he was

Muslim, they reassigned him to the swine farm.

Cape Breton

UniversityDavid Mullen suspended for words at Cape

Breton University

In Eliminating Professors, I identified a type of

professor called DR. PITA, an acronym for Pain In The

Ass. The honest, outspoken, truthful, but conservative

historian at Cape Breton University, David Mullen,

appears to fit the bill. By his vehement opposition to

politically correct nostrums in 2006, he brought down

on himself the university's anti-harassment

bureaucracy. To the chagrin of the Cape Breton

administration, Mullen published on his website the

full documentation, including the remarkable findings

against him made by a Halifax adjudicator. Mullen was

suspended without pay in the summer of 2006. As part

of a negotiated settlement of the dispute, he removed

the offending documentation.

University of Toronto Nancy Olivieri still battling in court

The lesson from this medical researcher's troubles in

Canada is similar to the lesson from another medical

researcher's troubles in the UK: the roof is likely to

fall in on your career if you fail to show deference to a

corporation that provides the university with lots of

money. Colleagues and administrators who show the

expected deference will accuse you of misconduct, you

will be shamed and puinished, and in the longer run,

you will lose your job. Even after your exit, unless you

repent, you are likely to be mired in legal proceedings

for years to come.

For understanding this case of administrative mobbing,

the single best source is the documents on CAUT's

website.

On account of her fearless and sustained resistance to

the influence of "Big Pharma" on her university, Olivieri

has become a hero to critics of the penetration and

corruption of academic research by large-scale

corporate interests. She has received honourary

degrees from Simon Fraser University and the

University of Winnipeg. Among her adversaries at

Toronto, on the other hand, mere mention of her name

raises eyebrows, and she is still seen as a

troublemaker; see, for instance, Miriam Shuchman's

book, The Drug Trial (2005), and then read the

review of it by David Healy of Cardiff University, a

researcher with his own experience of career

disruption, for refusing to kowtow to the interests of

pharmaceutical corporations. The review is an

exceedingly informative account of how things go in an

academic mobbing.

The good news is that despite many years of stress and

ongoing court proceedings even in 2007, hematologist

Olivieri continues her research.

University of

LethbridgeTom Robinson threatened with suspension for a

website

Lethbridge is among the smaller universities in Canada,

with about 8,000 students. Yet even here, education

suffers from administrators' adoption of a legalistic,

bureaucratic mode of governance, an approach to

problem solving that undermines the trust essential to

teaching and learning — and that occasionally results

in the mobbing of an academic who resists.

Religious studies professor Tom Robinson has

published on his website the documentation about

how a very minor administrative issue in the fall of

2005, escalated into a dean's recommendation in 2007,

that Robinson be suspended without pay for two

months. Administrators handled the need to change

instructors for a course in mid-semester in a way that

was legalistic, overly bureaucratic, and unfair to the

students enrolled. Robinson politely cried foul. As

months passed, the administrators decided to go after

Robinson.

Insistence that all issues be resolved internally and

abhorrence of public exposure are intrinsic to the

bureaucratic mode of governance. To see how

administrators at Lethbridge responded to Robinson's

public airing of the matter, study in particular the

dean's letter to him of October 24, an exemplar of

legalese.

University of Georgia John Soloski fights back at University of Georgia

See the insidehighered and vdare accounts of how

Professor John Soloski, Dean of Journalism at the

University of Georgia, got squeezed out of his

administrative position in 2005 — ostensibly on

grounds of sexual harassment but more likely because

he had failed to toe the administrative line. News came

in June of 2006, of Soloski's lawsuit against Georgia

President Michael Adams on grounds that Adams used

the sexual harassment charge to settle a longstanding

grudge. Here is an analysis of the case sympathetic to

Soloski's claims.

This may be one of the many cases of administrative

mobbing in which an aggrieved person in a protected

category — a woman, visible minority, aboriginal or

disabled person — becomes a tool wiith which able-

bodied white male administrators pursue an agenda of

their own.

January 2005

Harvard UniversitySuccessful Mobbing of Harvard President

Lawrence Summers

University presidents are known for speaking

platitudes. Harvard President Lawrence Summers got

mobbed out of his job when he departed from

convention in his "Remarks at the NBER

Conference" on January 14, 2005. The hypotheses he

offered for why women are underrepresented in the top

echelons of science deeply offended a member of the

audience, MIT Biology Professor Nancy Hopkins. An

article in the next day's Boston Globe reported

that Hopkins said if she hadn't walked out, she would

have either blacked out or thrown up. In suggesting,

even if tentatively and as part of a multifactor

explanation, that the best scientists are

disproprotionately male on account of sex differences

in innate aptitude for science, Summers challenged an

almost sacred tenet of the feminist movement.

Nationwide feminist outrage over his comments

merged with other complaints about his conduct of

office. His profuse apologies were not enough to

forestall a faculty vote of no-confidence in his

leadership. The furore swept Summers out of office.

Most commentators were so focused on issues of

sexual equality and brain chemistry that they

overlooked what appears to the mobbing researcher as

the basic reality: that the president of America's

premier university was turfed by a fanatic, impassioned

crowd, after he expressed his honest views politely,

reasonably, on the basis of evidence, and with

openness to further research. Following are four

commentaries that addressed this basic reality. First on

the list is a Montreal columnist's explicit application of

the mobbing research to the Summers affair.

Barbara Kay, "Mob Rule at Harvard," National

Post (2005).

Doreen Kimura, "Hysteria Trumps Academic

Freedom," 2005.

Christina Hoff Sommers, "Who Stole Harvard?"

American Enterprise Institute, 2005.

Kenneth Westhues, "Punishing Academics for

Speaking Out Harms Us All," The Record

(2005).

A demonized conception of a mobbing target endures

for years in the public mind, long after the target has

been eliminated from the position that was initially at

stake. In late summer of 2007, 300 professors signed a

fanatic petition that resulted in cancellation of a

speech Summers was scheduled to give to the

University of California Board of Regents. The petition

described Summers as "one who has come to

symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia."

Medaille College,

Buffalo, NYSettlements with Warden and Watson

There are enough grains of truth in the accusations

made against most mobbing targets that the outside

analyst breaks into laughter only after lengthy and

thorough study. In two cases at Medaille College, an

immediate laugh could hardly be suppressed. On

February 8, 2002, Acting President John Donohue

formally dismissed tenured Professor Therese Warden

for turpitude. On April 26, 2002, he dismissed tenured

Professor Uhuru Watson for the same horrific offense.

Neither professor had done anything wrong. Watson

had not even done what was judged to have been

turpitudinous, namely put minutes of a meeting in a

colleague's mailbox. I analyzed the Medaille mobbings

in a paper circulated electronically that fall

(PDF) , subsequently published in Workplace

Mobbing in Academe (2004) . For a more detailed

account of the Medaille mobbings and an explanation

and defense of the research methods used in that

project, see The Remedy and Prevention of

Mobbing in Higher Education (2006).

The good news is that following publication of a

damning report on the dismissals by the American

Association of University Professors in the spring of

2004, and under imminent threat of formal censure by

that organization at its meeting of June 2004, the new

President of Medaille College, Joseph Bascuas, reached

mutually agreeable settlements with both professors,

reinstating Watson to his faculty position and

compensating Warden monetarily. Regrettably, despite

giving redress to Warden and Watson for the enormous

harm to them, the Medaille administration did not

regain much trust from the faculty, and conflict

continued into 2006. A new president, Richard T.

Jurasek, took office in 2007, giving promise of a

healthier campus climate.

Cold Spring Harbor

LaboratoryJames D. Watson broken for breaking a taboo

As in Galileo's time and all other times, there are

certain scientific positions that must not be publicly

espoused, even tentatively and with qualifications, and

notwithstanding evidence in support of them, for fear

of inciting moral panic and being hounded even from

a job that is formally secure. Lawrence Summers's

ouster from Harvard in 2006, is an apt recent

example. Another example is the ouster of James D.

Watson in 2007, from the research institution on Long

Island, New York, that he had led since 1968.

Watson's mobbing unfolded with breathtaking

suddenness, speed, and finality. In an article in the

Sunday Times on October 14, 2007, Watson said of

Africans that “all our social policies are based on the

fact that their intelligence is the same as ours –

whereas all the testing says not really." This remark

sparked widespread outrage among professors and

pundits. Watson was denounced in the media

throughout the English-speaking world, and several of

his speaking engagements were cancelled. Watson

apologized a few days later, but to no avail. On

October 25, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory

announced his retirement as chancellor. Steve

Sailer wrote a perceptive assessment of this

humiliation of one of the greatest scientists of our time,

joint winner of the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine

in 1962.

Memorial University

of NewfoundlandSupreme Court Victory for Young

The School of Social Work at Memorial University

seems to have been an unusually troubled workplace in

the mid-1990s. In a chapter of Workplace Mobbing

in Academe (2004), Kathleen Kufeldt, former holder of

the Chair in Child Protection there, describes how she

escaped with her life, though not her job, from her

dealings with an administrator she calls "Dr. Teflon." In

a chapter of Winning, Losing, Moving On (2005),

Kufeldt's colleague Ross A. Klein tells how he has

managed to survive and even win a promotion in a

hostile environment. Kufeldt and Klein have drawn

from painful experience lessons worth heeding by any

professor under the gun.

While of no direct benefit to either of these professors,

a decision of Canada's highest court on January 28,

2006, should give both of them vicarious satisfaction.

The decision was in favor of a student target of

administrative aggression in the same workplace. The

Supreme Court of Canada upheld an award of more

than $800,000 to Wanda Young, who was wrongly

reported to the provincial authorities in 1994, on

unfounded suspicion of child sexual abuse. Her name

was placed on the Child Abuse Registry. Young did not

learn she had been reported until two years later, by

which time her aspirations for a career in social work

had come to nought. She sought an apology from the

university and was rebuffed. She then sued the

university. A jury found in her favor in 2003, but the

university won on appeal. Young then appealed to the

Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in her favor:

Decision of the Supreme Court of

Canada, Young v. Bella et al. , 2006 .

For background on the case, see the news archives of

the The Muse (student newspaper) and of The

Gazette (official newspaper) at Memorial University of

Newfoundland, or the file from injusticebusters, a large,

informative website created in Saskatchewan by the

late Sheila Steele, that has publicized the cases of

many people wrongly accused or convicted of crimes:

Injusticebusters file on the case of

Wanda Young .