The phenomenon of academic mobbing is finally getting some serious attention within academic circles. Right now, the AAUP is holding an international conference on globalization, shared governance, and academic freedom. And the Chronicle of Higher Ed reports that a session was devoted to the particular ways and means of mobbing behavior in academic space (where, unlike the non-academic workplace, power is decentralized, governance is shared, and unit-level leaders--the ones most likely to encounter mobbing behavior--have little or no training in the kinds of leadership such behavior requires).

Here's the CHE squib:

It probably wouldn't be that hard for faculty members to imagine that academic mobbing--a form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague--could derail their careers. But a discussion of the phenomenon today at the American Association of University Professors' international conference on globalization, shared governance, and academic freedom illustrated that the consequences can be much worse.

The session, based on a paper titled "Mobbing as a Factor in Faculty Work Life," began with a gripping story about how colleagues and administrators had ganged up on a highly productive tenured professor--think of being subjected to a stream of trumped-up complaints, ousted from an office, shut out of departmental meetings and committees, accused of an affair with a graduate student, and more. The professor was eventually fired and almost immediately afterward died of a stroke brought on by the stress of it all.

The story, actually a composite of the real-life experiences of several professors who were victims of mobbing, was written by Joan E. Friedenberg, a professor of bilingual education at Florida Atlantic University who herself has experienced academic mobbing. Collapsing many stories into one, she said, allows her to better communicate "the feelings of bewilderment and dread that victims of mobbing feel."

Ms. Friedenberg and the paper's co-authors, Mark Schneider, an associate professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and Kenneth Westhues, a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo, presented their research at today's session. Mr. Westhues, who discussed his studies of academic mobbing with The Chronicle in 2006, also offered a handout that included a list of 16 indicators of mobbing. Among them: If rumors are circulating about the target's supposed misdeeds, if the target is excluded from meetings or not named to committees, or if people are saying the target needs to be punished formally "to be taught a lesson," it's likely that mobbing is under way.

But victims should not assume that notifying an administrator will help. Evidence suggests that administrators may find it easier to become part of a mob than to try to stop one, Mr. Schneider said. That's because administrators are likely to think it's better to have one person upset with them than a group. And faculty associations, he said, can't really "confront and expose mobbing unless they are very strong."

Ms. Friedenberg added that administrators should be forewarned that mobbing can have a boomerang effect on them: Some victims are "driven by detail and an intense need for justice," she said, and may launch a "significant counterattack."

When I've written about mobbing here before, commenters sometimes question whether, as a category, it isn't a bit of a red herring. Looked at from one vantage point, the thing that is called academic mobbing might also be called "normal workplace behavior" or even "legitimate response to an incompetent or intractable colleague." Some of the commenters at CHE do that. But academic mobbing really is a thing--and a unique, unicorn-like entity it is, given the decentralized, consensus-driven culture and procedure of academic life. Other commenters at CHE recognize this--and many, for the first time, recognize themselves as targets of mobbing. I relate to that. My own experience with the glorious phenomenon began in 2001. But it was not until 2006, when CHE ran an article on Westhues' work, that I had a name for it, and could read about it, and could see how stylized and archetypal my own personal little hell had been. That's one of the fun paradoxes of workplace mobbing--like its premodern ancestor, witch hunting, it's always true to form, even though it arises spontaneously in small communities that aren't necessarily aware, on any level, that there is a form to follow.

I thought for a little while, after reading Westhues' work, that I would write a book about academic mobbing. I read a lot, and gathered cases and made notes on patterns. I thought I'd bracket the meat of the book with a recounting of my own experience with mobbing--but then decided that at least for the time being, I'd rather move on than relive it all by writing about it.

I do think we need more personal accounts of individuals' experiences with mobbing--that's what will make the experiences begin to count, to be real, and to matter within an institutional framework. As Arlo Guthrie put it, if one person complains, they think you're crazy and they don't listen to you. If two people complain, it's not much better. But if three people come forward, then you have a movement.

The trouble with writing about such experiences, though, is that they are kind of unbelievable--even to the person writing them down. You know as you write that your own lived history is not likely to pass the reasonable person standard. You don't want to take the trouble--and the unpleasant trips down memory lane--if there's just going to be a public dismissal or discounting of what you know to be true. You also don't want to whine--and it's tough to figure out ways of writing about an experience such as academic mobbing without either descending into bathos or assuming an arid posture of noble martyrdom. I've wondered if there might be a way to use humor, but I don't quite see it yet. So, I mull on it, and gladly register moments such as the AAUP panel--which I hope will have a hugely legitimating effect on one of academe's ugliest and least acknowledged cultural norms. And live my life, which is no longer bracketed, as it was for six years, by being mobbed in academia, and which is so, so, so much better for it.

By the way: Here's Westhues' list of 16 signs that mobbing is taking place:

1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.

2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: "Did you hear what she did last week?"

3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.

4. Collective focus on a critical incident that "shows what kind of man he really is."

5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, "to be taught a lesson."

6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.

7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.

8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.

9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.

10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to "speak up for" or defend the target.

11. The adding up of the target's real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.

12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.

13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.

14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.

15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.

16. Mobbers' fear of violence from target, target's fear of violence from mobbers, or both.