Harassment as a consequence and cause of inequality in academia: A narrative review

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that over the past 30 years, policies aimed at tackling harassment in academia have had little discernable effect. How can this impasse be overcome to make the higher education sector a safe space for everyone? We combine the areas of harassment and inequality, intersectionality, policy-practice gaps, gender sensitive medicine, as well as corruption and whistleblower processes to identify lacunae and offer recommendations for how to apply our recommendations in practice. We have been searching the most influential, relevant, and recent literature on harassment and inequality in our respective fields of expertise. By studying conceptual overlaps between the different fields, we were able to create insights that go beyond the insights of the most recent reviews. Our synthesis results in three concrete recommendations. First, harassment and inequality are mutually reinforcing. Failure to adequately tackle harassment contributes to perpetuating and reproducing inequality. Further, the intersectional nature of inequality has to be acknowledged and acted upon. Second, enforcing anti-harassment policies should be a top priority for universities, funders, and policymakers. Third, sexual harassment should be treated as institutional-level integrity failure. The higher education sector should now focus on enforcing existing anti-harassment policies by holding universities accountable for their effective implementation - or risk being complicit in maintaining and reproducing inequality.

Funding: We have received no funding for this research.

Keywords: Corruption; Higher education; Inequality; Integrity; Intersectionality; Sexual harassment.

Figure 1

An illustration of the different actors and forces affecting harassment and inequality in academia. Institutional factors, strategies used by bullies and enablers, as well as currently neglected factors provide insight into the most pressing current lacunae. If unaddressed, these lacunae contribute to the mutual perpetuation and reproduction of inequality and harassment in academia.