If abusive lawyers can be banned from practising, why not academics?

While I understand the inclination to create the equivalent of a professional status for professors, as are already in place in professions in healthcare, law and engineering, this comes with implications that might not be much appreciated. These other professions are regulated, and respond to professional bodies. These bodies sometime create immense hurdles for membership in the profession, including periods of "apprenticeship" before somebody is accepted, which create problems for newly established programs where there is a lack of licensed professionals. Beyond this, they become gatekeepers of the profession, which constrains program delivery, and start to impose quality control requirements for maintaining licensure. Given all this (and much more), I would think twice about this proposed strategy.

@ jim.nicell - are all of these 'hurdles' not already present and causing problems for a workforce that has a 70% rate of precarious employment, and is solely at the mercy of a cadre who are evidenced by huge studies as committing all sorts of harmful wrongdoing? Many would argue that the external quality control you mention is long overdue.

@NicholasRowe - I can only say, based on more than 30 years of experience as an engineering professor working within an accreditation system that requires engineers to be licensed in our local jurisdiction, that you need to be very careful in granting authority to an external body to adjudicate quality control. In my experience, this leads to constraints, bureacracy, academic freedom, and interference in the autonomy of higher education institutions. I can only begin to imagine the consequences of charging an external body (even one that is run by academics) with responsiblity for quality control, gatekeeping of the profession, and the mandate to investigate and then decide on who (and under what circumstances) must be excluded (perhaps permanently) from the profession. I predict that it would rapidly evolve into a system that is risk averse and that takes no action, except in extreme circumstances, because of disagreements that would arise in matters that are rarely black and white, and the liability that such an organization would inherently assume. Finally, I should note that, even in professions like medicine, engineering, law and others, the equivalent of "disbarment" rarely happens except under the most extreme or aggregious circumstances. In short, I am not a fan of the idea of establishing a centralizing authority to solve systemic issues like the ones we are confronting.

Lawyers are LICENSED UNDER LAWS. University faculty and staff are not. There are binding ethics, standards and laws for attorneys. There are none for university employees. The analogy is false.

The title of the final submitted version of this article was ‘Harm, abuse and self-interest: has a ‘desensitized academy’ lost its right to self-governance?’, with a byline of ‘Nicholas Rowe pushes the need for the effective external registration and governance of members of the academic profession’ – a pre-print version will be published online, and a link provided in these comments. The function of the article was firstly to outline the harm that is done to students and staff by ‘the academy’ as a non-regulated profession, and then, in light of the figures and studies referred to, argue that we do not effectively self-regulate, even to the extent where we conceal crime and wrongdoing, and use strong-arm legal and financial means to suppress dissent. So, for me, every respondent in these studies is someone that has suffered harm, and allowing over 100 students per day to suffer harm is not conscionable. Extend this to the 30/40/50% rates of evidenced staff harm (including bullying, exploitation, sexual predation, etc.), then this is clearly a case of individuals acting to the known and purposeful detriment of others, at a level that is now being increasingly recognised in court (see recent THE article). The original article went on to name specific bodies such as the OfS who fail to fulfil specific areas of their stated policy in terms of safeguarding students (as evidenced by studies of documented harm). It also went on to look at the way that autonomous self-governance in universities acts in the interest of the institution, and not in the interests of the rights and reasonable expectations of the individual (again, evidenced by large population studies and reports). So, the way I see it, things like widespread moderate-to-severe poor mental health, rape, sexual violence, suicide, coercion and wage theft transcend any claims that regulation would 'compromise academic freedom and autonomy’ - it is not true. I was professionally regulated for 20 years in UK healthcare, and although I did have to demonstrate fitness to practice and meet certain criteria for registration (which are easily addressed by those with qualifications and good standing), not once did the regulating body tell me how to practice in the clinical setting or tell the hospital how to run its business – it is not what these bodies are for, yet it is often claimed as a reason for avoiding regulation. But it does ensure that people have and maintain clean records of conduct, have knowledge and skills suited to practice, and importantly are held to account for their personal conduct. If you look at the published adjudications of bodies like the GMC, NMC and HPC, numerous people are struck off or placed under sanction every year, so although it is not a guaranteed fix, it at least introduces accountability, which is what those suffering harm deserve. Autonomy and to the main degree self-governance are important, but so are the reasonable expectations of students and staff not to suffer predictable harm. One of the founding principles of our society is that we are governed by consent, and that we demonstrate our fitness to govern. The degrees of long-documented harm and wrongdoing call this into question.