Resources for Administrators

Administrators can be some of the most crucial people in helping a teacher or researcher respond to an aggression event.​ The keys are education, policy, and action, and this guide will help presidents, provosts, deans, and chairs do all three.

Education

Learn What Digital Aggression Is

Long before an aggression event happens, it would be ideal for administrators to learn what digital aggression is so that they understand how serious it is and what kinds of impacts it can have on teachers and researchers. Below are several resources to help administrators on this learning journey.

• ​DigitAggro's own "What is Digital Aggression" page. This resource is made by teacher-scholars, for teacher-scholars.
• PEN America's "What is Online Abuse" section of their Online Harassment Field Manual. This resource is aimed at journalists and other public writers, but the information on digital aggression is relevant and quite comprehensive.
• ​Heartmob's "Understanding Online Harassment" guide. This resource takes a broad look at what digital aggression means for everyday users, including who is most commonly harassed and what the impacts are.
• FemTechNet's "Key Terms/Definitions" page. This resource is a bit outdated, but still provides valuable information on different types of digital aggression.
• Pew's 2020 survey on "The State Of Online Harassment." This resource provides a comprehensive but imperfect look at what digital aggression is, how it manifests, and who experiences it.

Learn where academic digital aggression stems from

It is also important for administrators to understand where some of these aggressive discourses begin. Two organizations in particular emerge as sources of hostility, and many administrators may be surprised to find that they have active chapters or authors on campus. DigitAggro does not endorse either organization and will not link directly to them. DigitAggro would also like to remind readers that hate speech is not protected speech.

• Campus Reform claims that conservative students are marginalized across college campuses. They publish severely biased articles on universities and faculty that they claim exhibit a liberal bias. They enlist student activists and journalists to help with this cause. The Intercept explains the danger they pose to freedom of speech and academic freedom, and Truthout gives insight into the aftermath of their targeted attacks.
• ​Turning Point USA is another conservative organization that claims to support freedom on college campuses. Most of the content they produce is typical of conservative college organizations, but they have also produce a professor watchlist that claims to "unmask radical professors" and keeps track of their research and even classroom behaviors; perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of those targeted are women, people of color, queer, and/or disabled. This list has been linked directly to digital harassment of those listed. Our Generation includes some examples of what lands professors on the watchlist and its implications, and The Guardian highlights examples of professors experiencing harassment as a result of being named on the list.

While these organizations are often directly involved academic aggression events, they are certainly not the only source. Teachers and researchers are often targeted en masse by groups who organize in digital spaces and have little to do with college and university institutions. Some researchers are targeted by digital communities that they have studied, or some by users who find their research online and disagree with it.

Recognize relevant trends

Two relevant trends emerge from the information above:

1. Digital aggression most commonly targets marginalized populations, such as women and gender minorities (such as trans and nonbinary individuals), people of color (particular Black and Latino/a/x individuals), and queer and disabled individuals. Many universities tout their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and are making strategic efforts to hire more diverse faculty, so one way to show their support is to protect faculty from digital aggression attacks.
2. Digital aggression silences voices and threatens academic freedom. It actively shuts out viewpoints by drowning out voices and making people afraid to talk. Actively working to protect teachers and researchers from digital aggression means maintaining academic freedom and upholding higher education institutions as spaces for encountering new ideas and ways of thinking.

Policies and Training

Creating proactive policies and training employees is one of the best ways to prepare for any potential aggression events. DigitAggro has noticed that while most universities have developed policies and resources for students and their digital lives on campus and off, they are severely lagging in developing policy protections and guidelines for their faculty and staff.

Action

If a faculty member has been targeted in an aggression event, they will need immediate support from administrators. DigitAggro encourages administrators to open direct lines of communication and work with them to formulate a response or reaction. The best responses to an aggression event 

• Are collaborative. Often, the target of an aggression is the best resource for how best to respond or react to it. Even if they are not, ensure that they have agreed to any action before it is taken. See below for instances where this advice has not been followed, to the detriment of both the target and the institution. 
• Do not respond directly to the attacks. Aggressors are looking for responses to continue to fuel their attack. If none are given, they usually lose interest and move on quickly.
• Do not punish the target. In most aggression events, the target is innocent and has done nothing wrong. It is not their fault they are being targeted.
• Investigate the merit of the attack before acting. As is explained below, a common aggression tactic is to make false claims and/or give false information. Give the target the benefit of the doubt before taking any action. If it is believed that the claims have merit, conduct an impartial investigation separate from the aggression event.
• Do not advocate for limiting free expression. Examples of this include asking a target to delete their social media or otherwise trying to control how they present themselves in public outside of the institution.
• Do not advocate for limiting academic freedom. Examples of this include limiting the subject matters the target can teach or otherwise trying to control how they operate in the classroom.​

When Administrators Are Involved in an Aggression Event

Depending on the severity of the aggression event, sometimes attackers will also involve administrators by emailing them (sometimes a few targeted emails, and sometimes mass bombardment). Do not respond to these emails. The goal of these emails are often to spread falsehoods or create fear and ultimately to get the target fired or otherwise limited in what they can do in their position at the institution.

False complaints and information

The most comment types of emails administrators may receive include false complaints and false information; both will be easy to spot because they will likely be sent from non-institutional emails. Examples of both include things like complaining about a target's teaching abilities or claiming that they've been harassed. Some accounts have included claims that the target's work has been plagiarized or is not credible. Do not immediately believe what you read without consulting with the targeted faculty member.

Threats to safety

Another type of email will be threats, sometimes physical. In past aggression events, this has included calling in security emergencies or threatening harm to the faculty member or other department members or students. Importantly, there have been no documented instances of threats of harm related to an aggression event against a faculty member coming to fruition. They are often made by anonymous aggressors who aim to create fear but have no intention of following through. However, it is crucial that if threats are made, administrators should talk with the targeted faculty member to assess the best method for ensuring their safety. For instance, with their agreement, the faculty member could teach virtually for an agreed upon period of time. ​

Inflated numbers

Importantly, while receiving hundreds of emails may seem daunting, administrators should keep in mind that each email does not indicate one person. As Crash Override, talking about responses in non-academic workplaces, explains, "Oftentimes, attackers [operate] by inflating their numbers (by recruiting more people or creating many fake accounts), or other hoaxing tactics to make themselves seem like a more significant threat to the company, and to make online harassment falsely appear like legitimate public outcry." As such, while they may receive hundreds or thousands of emails, in reality it could only be a handful of aggressors making themselves seem like a larger group.

​Administrative Failures