Academic bullying.

As I found out after I finished my degree, people should know about the existence of workplace and academic bullying, as well as the existence of a healthy literature on it.

Something "clicked" after I graduated, and somehow I recalled a vague and passing reference to the phenomenon, and then I googled and the more I found out, the more I realized that the last year-and-a-half of my doctoral program was a textbook case of an extended bullying situation, and scattered moments and experiences prior to that were, too.

As I've spoken to people about this, it's interesting how a lot of academics recognize the phenomenon, but can't call it "bullying."

And, it's also interesting that one guy I spoke to agreed on everything, and he said he'd once noticed someone trained at my program engaging in similar behaviors with students at another degree program he was at; as he described it, they'd neglect students, then interact with them only to hostilely criticize everything they did and humiliate them.

As I understand that social phenomenon, "It's catching."

How sick.

A sad part is, if you actually look at what an academic bully says, a lot of it doesn't even really make that much sense, even though they self-describe what they say as profound and deep.

And, they get away with that behavior since they're tenured, just like sexual harasser does.