An appendum: I acknowledge "thriving" is not the ideal word to use. However, bullying within academia exists and is increasingly more common than people release. Often because it's something that goes unsaid and unreported, in part out of fear of repercussions for the reporter rather than the bully because the academy protects the latter.

> bullying ... is increasingly more common than people release.

How can you make this statement if it’s unsaid and unreported?

Great point. Through observations and field work in multiple institutions, over an extended period of time (years).

> but it absolutely does exist and is unfortunately thriving

I'm sure it exists. I may be wrong since it's based on personal experience, but I can't believe it's thriving (at least, in my field, computer science). These things are taken more and more seriously. If anything, I can only imagine they occur less and less frequently.

It’s not thriving in computer science because that field is competing against a tight supply of labor. Compare that to a field where you have an oversupply of PhDs, and I’m sure you’ll find different average experiences.

If people know they can walk out and get a job tomorrow making good money they are a lot less likely to tolerate abuse of any kind. That’s true in CS, most Engineering fields, Economics, a few other places. If you’re in a field like English literature or Anthropology with 10-100 applicants per tenure track job and shag all industry demand for your skills your exit options are substantially worse. And culture reacts to incentives. In the end people will treat others like garbage if they can with no consequences. Good labor conditions always come down to having a good BATNA, a good exit option.

I agree, but in practice this is rarely the case for multiple reasons depending if we're taking about PhDs or postdocs.

For PhDs, they've commited to a long project, so might feel defeated for quitting.

For postdocs, it's true that they could likely get a job if they left, bit at the same time, the may be half way through a role and want to pursue a job in academia. Switching careers is not an easy thing to do, and that's essentially what you're doing when leaving the academy.

In addition, it's worth noting that computer science is very diverse, including broad subfields such as HCI, so it's not necessarily correct in your framing of CS.

In my experience, and that of my colleagues within a UK institution, also in computer science, the university does indeed take it seriously. We've had external auditors come in and ultimately do nothing.

The problem is that the university is setup to protect itself when such reports are made, so rarely is anyone fired or such. It's a much worse situation for the student than academic.