Tag: bullying

  • The Silent Crisis: Bullying Among Nurse Educators in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

    The Silent Crisis: Bullying Among Nurse Educators in Higher Education – Faculty Focus

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  • COLUMN: Trump is bullying, blackmailing and threatening colleges, and they are just beginning to fight back

    COLUMN: Trump is bullying, blackmailing and threatening colleges, and they are just beginning to fight back

    Patricia McGuire has always been an outspoken advocate for her students at Trinity Washington University, a small, Catholic institution that serves largely Black and Hispanic women, just a few miles from the White House. She’s also criticized what she calls “the Trump administration’s wholesale assault on freedom of speech and human rights.”

    In her 36 years as president, though, McGuire told me, she has never felt so isolated, a lonely voice challenging an agenda she believes “demands a vigorous and loud response from all of higher education. “

    It got a little bit louder this week, after Harvard University President Alan Garber refused to capitulate to Trump’s demands that it overhaul its operations, hiring and admissions. Trump is now calling on the IRS to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

    The epic and unprecedented battle with Harvard is part of Trump’s push to remake higher education and attack elite schools, beginning with his insistence that Harvard address allegations of antisemitism, stemming from campus protests related to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza following attacks by Hamas in October 2023.

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education.

    Garber responded that “no government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue” — words that Harvard faculty, students and others in higher education had been urging him to say for weeks. Students and faculty at Brown and Yale are asking their presidents to speak out as well.

    Many hope it is the beginning of a new resistance in higher education. “Harvard’s move gives others permission to come out on the ice a little,” McGuire said. “This is an answer to the tepid and vacillating presidents who said they don’t want to draw attention to themselves.”

    Harvard paved the way for other institutions to stand up to the administration’s demands, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, noted in an interview with NPR this week.

    Stanford University President Jonathan Levin immediately backed Harvard, noting that “the way to bring about constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s capacity for scientific research, or through the government taking command of a private institution.”

    Former President Barack Obama on Monday urged others to follow suit.

    A minuscule number of college leaders had spoken out before Harvard’s Garber, including Michael Gavin, president of Delta College, a community college in Michigan; Princeton University’s president, Christopher Eisgruber; Danielle Holley of Mount Holyoke; and SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. Of more than 70 prominent higher education leaders who signed a petition circulated Tuesday supporting Garber, only a handful were current college presidents, including Michael Roth of Wesleyan, Susan Poser of Hofstra, Alison Byerly of Carleton, David Fithian of Clark University, Jonathan Holloway of Rutgers University and Laura Walker of Bennington College.

    Speaking out and opposing Trump is not without consequences: The president retaliated against Harvard by freezing $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard.

    Related: For our republic to survive, education leaders must remain firm in the face of authoritarianism

    Many higher ed leaders think it’s going to take a bigger, collective effort fight for everything that U.S. higher education stands for, including those with more influence than Trinity Washington, which has no federal grants and an endowment of just $30 million. It’s also filled with students working their way through school.

    About 15 percent are undocumented and live in constant fear of being deported under Trump policies, McGuire told me. “We need the elites out there because they have the clout and the financial strength the rest of us don’t have,” she said. “Trinity is not on anyone’s radar.”

    Some schools are pushing back against Trump’s immigration policies, hoping to protect their international and undocumented students. Occidental College President Tom Stritikus is among the college presidents who signed an amicus brief this month detailing concerns about the administration’s revocation of student and faculty visas and the arrest and detention of students based on campus advocacy.

    “I think the real concern is the fear and instability that our students are experiencing. It is just heartbreaking to me,” Stritikus told me. He also spoke of the need for “collective action” among colleges and the associations that support them.

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to abolish the Education Department, and more

    The fear is real: More than 210 colleges and universities have identified 1,400-plus international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed by the State Department, according to Inside Higher Ed. Stritikus said Occidental is providing resources, training sessions and guidance for student and faculty.

    Many students, he said, would like him to do more. “When I’m around students, I’m more optimistic for our future,” Stritikus said. “Our higher education system has been the envy of the world for a very long time. Clearly these threats to institutional autonomy, freedom of expression and the civil rights of our community put all that risk.”

    Back at Trinity Washington, McGuire said she will continue to make calls, talk to other college presidents and encourage them to take a stronger stand.

    “I tell them, you will never regret doing what is right, but if you allow yourself to be co-opted, you will have regret that you caved to a dictator who doesn’t care about you or your institution.”

    Contact Liz Willen at willen@hechingerreport.org

    This story about the future of higher education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • OfS free-speech absolutism allows abuse, harassment, and bullying

    OfS free-speech absolutism allows abuse, harassment, and bullying

    • By Professor Sasha Roseneil FAcSS PFHEA, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex.

    On 26 March 2025, after a three-and-a-half-year long, deeply flawed, investigation into freedom of speech and academic freedom at the University of Sussex, the Office for Students issued the unprecedently high fine of £585,000, and decreed a form of free-speech absolutism as the new golden rule for universities.  Henceforth, it would appear that universities can only control a very narrowly defined version of unlawful speech that ignores our broader legal and ethical obligations to students and staff. It is an unworkable and highly detrimental decision for the whole higher education sector.

    The investigation was initiated in October 2021 in the context of protests against gender-critical philosopher Professor Kathleen Stock, around the time that she decided to resign from her position at Sussex. Much of the media and public reaction to the OfS’s decision has seen it as vindication of Kathleen Stock, and indeed the OfS itself gives as a reason for publishing the decision, that it would be ‘likely to make Professor Stock feel vindicated and may also vindicate her in public perception’. Indeed, the only person interviewed in the investigation was Kathleen Stock. This is despite the OfS acknowledging that it did not have the power to act on behalf of any individual, and that it has not investigated the circumstances relating to Kathleen Stock.

    Many commentators also regard the outcome as vindication of the gender-critical beliefs that Kathleen Stock professed during her time at Sussex and since. But again, the investigation was not a judgement in the toxic disputes about sex and gender, and the identities and rights associated with each. It is not the OfS’s role to make such judgements – in its own words it is ‘viewpoint neutral’ – just as it not the role of a university, or a Vice-Chancellor, to do so.

    Universities are arenas in which the most controversial ideas of the day are contested – and recent years have seen waves of protest and unrest on campuses across the world about a number of fiercely disputed issues. It is the job of university leaders to facilitate and contain that contestation so that it serves to advance the purpose of universities – the education and development of students and the advancement of knowledge and understanding. Continual efforts to promote and protect overlapping but not identical liberties – freedom of speech and academic freedom – are vital in this. So too are actions to ensure the absence of intimidation and bullying, and to create inclusive, supportive, and respectful learning and working environments, in which people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and identities can succeed as individuals and come together in productive dialogue, however vehemently they might disagree. Indeed, the exercise of academic freedom and freedom of speech depends on this. Freedom of speech cannot mean the ability to shout the loudest or to abuse and frighten less powerful opponents into silence.

    The OfS’s has just made this work of universities infinitely harder, if not impossible. The single short offending document identified by the OfS, on which the weight of its findings rest, was designed to protect the welfare of trans and non-binary staff and students, a student group the OfS itself identifies as at particular risk in relation to access to and participation in higher education. When adopted at Sussex in 2018 – around the same time as at many other universities across the country – thinking about how best to support trans and non-binary people within universities was just beginning, and gender-critical beliefs had not yet been recognised as ‘protected philosophical beliefs’ under the 2010 Equality Act.   

    If the OfS is ‘viewpoint neutral’, its findings about a policy statement seeking to support trans and non-binary staff and students must be understood to apply to all staff and students – whatever their beliefs and identities. A thought experiment helps make the point: replace the trans and non-binary people with whose protection the offending document is concerned with members of other minoritised and marginalised groups – Jewish, Black, Muslim or Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, disabled people, or lesbians and gay men, for instance.

    The implications of the OfS decision are wide ranging and highly corrosive of attempts to create diverse, inclusive, and equal working and learning environments, and threaten university autonomy. Under the OfS’s ruling, it would seem that universities cannot seek to prevent our curricula from relying on or reinforcing stereotypical assumptions about (for example) Jews or Black people, because to do otherwise could limit lawful speech. Universities cannot, from now on, remove antisemitic or racist propaganda from campus unless what it says is unlawful – again, extremely narrowly defined. And universities should not discipline anyone who engages in abuse, harassment or bullying unless that abuse, harassment or bullying meets the legal definition of harassment or hate speech – even if it breaches a range of other duties and obligations.

    In effect, the decision implies that universities cannot have policies that aim to reduce abuse, bullying and harassment – whether motivated by transphobia, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, or sexism – beyond simply reproducing existing restrictions in law (which restrictions the OfS appears not to understand – for example, it does not appreciate that abuse, bullying and harassment are restricted by the Public Order Act 1986).

    It is, I fear, a charter that risks giving free rein to antisemitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-trans speech and expression in universities, as long as it stays just on the right side of the law.

    Moreover, the decision could be significantly at odds both with the wider legal obligations of universities in relation to equalities, and with the OfS’s own regulatory expectations regarding equality of opportunity for students, the quality and standards of the academic experience, and the soon to be introduced requirement to take steps to protect students from harassment and sexual misconduct.

    The OfS’s regressive and dangerous decision threatens the cohesion and governability of each of England’s diverse and vibrant universities, and it must be set aside. Today Sussex is publishing our pre-action protocol letter, which sets out the grounds of our legal challenge. I invite the OfS to respond positively, and to become a regulator that seeks collaboration and open dialogue with universities rather than punishment.

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  • At the Institute of American Indian Arts, criticism of school officials is ‘bullying’

    At the Institute of American Indian Arts, criticism of school officials is ‘bullying’

    Criticism of government and public officials is at the core of First Amendment protections. But the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico is ironically using its anti-bullying policy to browbeat student critics into silence. 

    Last spring, David McNicholas, senior editor of the Young Warrior student magazine, published two student submissions reacting to recent news of the abrupt resignation of Karen Redeye, a beloved student success advisor at IAIA. 

    The first submission was an anonymous editorial urging students to speak up against IAIA’s “oppression” and accusing Redeye’s supervisors of bullying her to the point that “good people have no choice but to leave or sacrifice their own mental, emotional well-being.” The second submission, also from an anonymous student, was an image of a flyer referencing rumors that Nena Martinez Anaya, the dean of students, misappropriated grant money meant for food aid. The flyer read, “Karen Redeye keeps pantries full[.] Nena Martinez robs them[.] Redeye Redemption[.]” 

    Immediately after the magazine’s publication, IAIA Provost Felipe Colon told McNicholas he was being investigated over complaints that the publication constituted bullying. Specifically, he was told that the “damaging and defamatory content” and “derogatory and unfounded misinformation” violated IAIA’s expansive anti-bullying policy — which bars everything from “teasing, name-calling” and “taunting,” to “telling others not to be friends . . . with someone” and “offensive text messages or emails.” 

    Institute of American Indian Arts Anti-bullying policy

    A third complaint, filed by Lorissa Garcia, interim director of the Student Success Center, echoed the others but added a new accusation. Namely, that in his role as public relations officer for the student government, McNicholas used its Instagram account to “promote and distribute derogatory and unfounded misinformation and rumors” concerning Garcia’s role in Redeye’s resignation. 

    Garcia based this allegation on the claim that the student government’s account “liked” a student’s post sharing an image of the “Redeye Redemption” flyer. 

    Colon found McNicholas responsible for bullying, placed him on probation through the end of the 2024–25 school year, suspended him from student housing, and ordered him to issue written public apologies to Garcia and Martinez Anaya — and publish retractions in the Young Warrior and on the student government Instagram account. 

    Redeye then emailed IAIA President Robert Martin to explain that she had indeed resigned from IAIA due to “maltreatment” and “bullying from direct supervisors.” Despite Redeye corroborating the editorial’s factual assertions, an appeals panel lifted the other sanctions but upheld the probation. 

    FIRE wrote IAIA last month, urging it to rescind the remaining sanctions and revise its overbroad and vague anti-bullying policy:

    The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press to publish vehement criticism of government officials (including college administrators) like that contained in the anonymous editorial submissions printed in the Young Warrior. In fact, such criticism is at the core of the Constitution’s guarantee of expressive rights. . . . As the Supreme Court has explained, “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and . . . may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

    IAIA cannot ban “teasing” and “offensive text messages” simply by labeling them bullying. In order for so-called “bullying” speech to be punishable, it must rise to the level of actionable harassment — that is, it must discriminate based on protected status and be severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, among other criteria. An anti-bullying policy expansive enough to cover “taunting” and “telling others not to be friends . . . with someone” is unconstitutional.

    But IAIA refused to rescind the sanctions or amend its policy. According to the school, its actions did not violate the First Amendment:

    Mr. McNicholas was not disciplined because he published critical commentary about IAIA officials, as you state; he was disciplined for publishing harmful, hurtful, unsubstantiated and damaging statements about the persons and reputations of members of the IAIA community. There is a big difference between critical commentary and the spreading of unsubstantiated and injurious statements claiming illegal activity. 

    Contrary to IAIA’s assertion, constitutional protection for speech and the press extends to criticism that is “harmful” or “hurtful.”  The Supreme Court has been clear: “Criticism of [public officials’] official conduct does not lose its constitutional protection merely because it is effective criticism and hence diminishes their official reputations.” 

    Nor does the published material lose First Amendment protection simply because it contains unproven claims. Even false or misleading statements are protected unless the expression meets the high standard for unprotected defamation. Here, that means IAIA would need to show that the published claims about Garcia and Martinez were not only false, but that McNicholas published them despite knowing — or with a “high degree of awareness” — they were false.

    IAIA cannot do so. Despite throwing around a lot of terms like “misinformation,” “libelous,” “defamation,” and “slander,” IAIA has not offered any evidence to show the allegations are false, let alone that McNicholas knew they were false. Indeed, the available evidence shows he had good reason for believing the truth of the published allegations. 

     

    FIRE defends the rights of students and faculty members — no matter their views — at public and private universities and colleges in the United States. If you are a student or a faculty member facing investigation or punishment for your speech, submit your case to FIRE today. If you’re faculty member at a public college or university, call the Faculty Legal Defense Fund 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734).

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