Why Colleges Shouldn't Ban Bullying

"It's hard to imagine that academia is more hierarchical than all other workplaces, which typically have far worse inequities of power. And tenure-which protects professors against hierarchical control from their bosses-isn't the cause of bullying problems; it's the solution. We need more faculty to have tenure to prevent them from being bullied, and we need all academic workers to have tenure-like protections of their rights and due process."

"At a moment when the state of Oklahoma is banning tenure, and tenure elsewhere is slowly dying, these false smears against tenure can have a real impact at undermining protections for faculty-which will leave workers on campus even more vulnerable to bullying. The better response to bullying that results from a power imbalance is to give more power to the powerless, not to provide powerful administrators with more arbitrary power to regulate the academic workplace and hope that they will serve the powerless."

"There's a growing movement for colleges to enact new policies against bullying, but I worry that these rules endanger free expression-and can make bullying worse by giving administrators a new tool to silence their critics. To truly fight bullying, we need more freedom of speech in the workplace, and we need to uphold the right to organize. Unions are a key defense against bullies, because they establish rules for fair treatment and protect workers without suppressing expression."

Colleges are adopting anti-bullying policies that can endanger free expression and empower administrators to silence critics. Academia's hierarchical structures can create fertile ground for bullying, but tenure protects faculty from hierarchical control and serves as a defense rather than a cause of bullying. Reducing tenure and abandoning tenure-like protections will leave campus workers more vulnerable. Effective responses should increase power for the powerless through tenure-like rights and collective bargaining. Upholding workplace free speech and the right to organize strengthens protections because unions establish fair-treatment rules and defend workers without suppressing expression. Broader due-process protections are necessary across academic roles.

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