Faculty and university staff report being bullied through two main channels: by colleagues and supervisors, and by students pressing for better grades, according to an international study conducted by Jason Walker of Adler University together with colleagues Zahra Moradi and Deborah Circo.

Researchers define workplace bullying as harmful acts of mistreatment between people that go beyond incivility and cross the line into intentionally causing harm — in other words, behavior any reasonable person would recognize as unacceptable. By that standard, everyday disagreements or tough feedback fall outside the label, while conduct intended to cause harm falls inside it.

The study found that junior faculty and staff faced more bullying from peers, and that faculty and staff who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color were targeted more frequently. Senior faculty were more likely than younger educators to report being bullied by students over grades. While workplace bullying typically flows down the chain of power — from a boss to an employee — grade bullying reverses that dynamic. Researchers call it contrapower harassment: when someone with less formal power targets someone with more.

More than 30% of adult workers in the U.S. and Canada experience bullying, harassment, or sexual abuse on the job at any given time, harming both individuals and organizations. In academia, the rate is more than double: bullying reaches as high as 68% at some institutions, far exceeding general workplaces and aligning with high-stress fields such as emergency services, according to the peer-reviewed findings published in the October 2026 Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Practice.

Why It Matters

Academic bullying undermines both the well-being of faculty and staff and the integrity of higher education institutions. Thirty percent of survey respondents reported that students pressured them for a better grade. Tactics included threatening grade appeals, filing malicious complaints, posting negative online reviews, emotional manipulation, and intimidation. Women and minority faculty are particularly affected.

Over time, bullying creates a toxic environment that damages relationships between faculty and students and hurts the quality of education for everyone. Such pressure can lead to mental health issues like anxiety and depression, decreased job satisfaction, and reduced productivity. These dynamics affect not only individual faculty members but can also cause long-term damage to institutional reputations and negatively impact students' educational experiences.

How the Study Was Conducted

The researchers surveyed 189 faculty and staff members at colleges and universities in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. Anonymous respondents reported how often they had faced 22 common forms of mistreatment from colleagues and supervisors, while a separate set of questions addressed pressure from students over grades. The 189 responses span three countries, but they remain a narrow slice of academia overall — one reason the researchers themselves call for larger studies to test whether these patterns hold across different kinds of institutions.

The most common issues involving colleagues were not shouting or threats. They were subtler and easier to dismiss: unmanageable workloads, withheld information, and impossible deadlines. Pressure from students over grades was reported more frequently than bullying from colleagues.

What Still Isn't Known

Gaps remain in understanding the root causes of faculty bullying. Studies that follow the same faculty over several years could show how grade bullying builds over time, and whether it pushes people to leave or lose trust in their institutions. One likely pattern is that grade bullying escalates when it works, wearing faculty down until they either give in or leave their jobs.

Researchers still need to test what actually works to stop bullying, and whether those fixes hold up at different kinds of colleges and universities. Bigger studies would help, as would sitting down with faculty to hear their experiences in their own words — context a survey cannot capture. Future research could also explore interventions to mitigate bullying and measure their effectiveness across diverse educational contexts.

The authors stress that bullying at work is a form of violence: the harm is psychological rather than physical, but it is real. Change starts with higher standards of conduct for everyone, from first-year students to senior administrators, and with leaders committed to enforcing respectful rules.

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Jason Walker, Associate Professor of Psychology, Health and Wellness, Adler University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.