Student bullies.

Anne Galloway has an excellent post on contrapower harassment in academia that broaches the subject of faculty and TAs being harassed by students:

In fact, I have never returned marked assignments without at least one student becoming so agitated that I have had to end the conversation. I've had students here crumple up their paper and throw it at me, yell at me, call me a bitch, accuse me of setting them up to fail, and threaten to report me to the chair or dean. But most simply demanded, not requested, better marks--as if good grades are a right and not something that is earned--and then became aggressive when I did not accommodate them.

This is a serious and real problem, and one that requires more discussion and action on university campuses everywhere. Students arrive at university with these learned, bullying behaviours in place, and try them out in their new setting. In most cases, they learn that they can get away with it, and so they do, leaving professors, teaching assistants, and administrative staff to work in an abusive environment that is, for the most part, of their making.

All universities have policies regarding student responsibilities, and the behaviour that Anne describes would certainly put bullying students in violation of those policies. If these students were held accountable for their actions, even suspended or expelled from the institution, it wouldn't take long for people to get the message.

It would not surprise me, however, if in many cases faculty would be unwilling to report this bullying behaviour to the administration. Faculty may fear being accused of abusing their power over students. Students have a tremendous amount of power over faculty, and a fair number of them know it. The mere accusation of wrong-doing on the part of a faculty member will find them fighting to prove their innocence and to clear their name, even if formally they are said to be innocent. It is wrong and backwards, but there you have it. (Of course, this comes out of an organizational history of faculty abusing their power over students, so it is to an extent understandable, even if it is wrong.)

Faculty may also have learned, based on past experiences with similar situations, that the amount of work required to push the complaint against the student through the university's bureaucracy is quite significant, and that in the end the administration won't be willing to take the drastic action necessary to curb the problem. Too hard to prove, as if somehow the word of the professor or TA would not be good enough. Too much grief from the students and/or their parents afterwards (the student who abuses their teachers will have no problem abusing the administrative staff of the university). Too little reward or compensation for the people and units involved to make it worth their while.

Also, let's not forget that for many faculty, teaching is already a chore that siphons away precious time from their core activity: research. Dealing with problem students increases the amount of time drained away, and faculty know that at the end of the day, no one is going to get tenure for disciplining students. (Nor are they going to get tenure by raising or maintaining academic standards and curbing grade inflation, but that's a topic for another post.)

Cynicism aside, there is a real concern for the personal safety of faculty. The faculty member that submits a complaint against a student that causes them to be reprimanded by the university, that faculty member still has to walk around campus, around town. Will the student seek out revenge by harassing them further or causing them physical harm? The abusive student has already demonstrated that they believe in solving problems through aggression. What is to stop them from taking matters to the next level? This is a real risk, and not only for female professors and teaching assistants (although for them the risk is higher).

This mix of apathy and fear turns people's eyes away from the problem. Easier and safer to put up with the frothing, indignant turd then to try to hold them accountable for their behaviour.

And so these bullies get away with it, their infantile notion that if they scream loud enough they'll get what they want reinforced once again. And the cycle repeats.

How to address the problem? Faculty and the administration have to (a) admit that this is a serious problem, and one that is not tolerated at their institution, (b) communicate this reality faculty, administrative staff, students, and their parents, (c) put in place clear, transparent, and efficient policies and procedures for dealing this such inappropriate behaviour, (d) apply these policies and procedure with fairness and vigor.

This is a lot to ask, I agree. The amount of organizational change required to bring this change about would be considerable, and would require a long-term commitment from university leadership. Unfortunately, as is often the case, many organizations will require a tragedy to galvanize people into action, but I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope that universities come to realize that it is their responsibility to not only to bestow credentials and generate knowledge, but to teach students how to be social, responsible, and engaged in their world.