OPEN UNIVERSITY

0310 OUBS 1 - Top  & Bottom of the Popularity Stakes

By the beginning of the 1990s I was in the unusual position of being just about the most popular person in the business school. This was partly due to my work in Ethiopia, though most of that had to be confidential. Only the senior lecturers and professors who taught there really knew what was going on; and they were sworn to secrecy.

But I was also involved in the school social life and was very active on the School Board, not least in reining in Andrew Thompson's most ambitious projects. It was even the case that I was invited to the course managers annual lunch, being the only male in sight there!

Things started to go wrong precisely because I was so popular.  Even worse, partly as a result of my involvement in Ethiopia and partly because I had a finger in most other pies, I was powerful - though that was never my intention. But I also was found myself as a leading defender of OU values.  In the early 1990s we started to have debates about the future of OUBS and in particular about its future values. I fought strenuously for the maintenance of OU values. In particular I opposed those who wanted to reduce standards, at least in terms of image, to those of a supplier of executive training.  I pointed out forcefully that, no matter what we said, people would still know that we were a university department and would accept all the values that implied.  There was no way we could hide that. Indeed, I was one of those who moved to change the name from the Open Business School to the Open University Business School -- or alternatively the Open University School of Management.

As a result of all these matters I was, I later realized, coming to be seen as a threat to the management of the school -- or at least to David Asch -- who was then the new Dean. I first met David -- when he was on the appointments panel which appointed me to be a lecturer.  I remember going home and saying to Pat that I liked everybody who I had met; and the OU was going to be wonderful place to the work. But, as a caveat, I commented that there was just one bastard - David Asch – who I would hate to work for.

 David Asch

It was my own fault, therefore, that in the leadership election at the beginning 1990s I ultimately decided to side with David -- to put him into the leadership, and into the position of being my boss. It was just about the worst mistake I ever made.

It was the only bit of politicking that I ever did at the OUBS.  In essence I had stayed out of all battles for management position, since I had long since learnt that my personal political skills were a disaster.

However, at the beginning of the 1990s the School was setting up 'Centres'.  These were the equivalent of departments, though some in the School wanted them to be cross functional rather than dedicated to one discipline. In fact, at the end of the process, most were discipline based. Each of these required a Head of Centre to be elected.  I reasoned, mistakenly as it turned out, that these would not be political jobs and as such would suit me down the ground. Accordingly, knowing that David Asch was my only other competitor for the Head of the Centre of the Strategy and Policy, I determined to threaten to stand against him. The real reason, however, was that I knew he really needed my support for the Deanship, for which he was also standing. He needed my support to guarantee winning this. The outcome was the David let me stand unopposed for the Centre and I supported him for Dean.

I had forgotten what I had earlier thought of David, but I should have realised that David would, in part, want to get his own back for my arm-twisting and, for the other part, want to get rid of me as the most powerful opponent in the school.

Thus started a period of the most subtle form of bullying.  In the beginning it took the form of David calling into his office and explaining what a bad job I was doing as the Centre Head. This was ostensibly because his mates -- who were still in the Centre -- were complaining to him about me. This was where I made my second mistake, for I never really challenged this. There was an area of doubt, because some of his friends in the centre really were arguing against the things I was doing and I didn't want to just pulverize them, but that was probably what I should have done. Even so I didn't really give in as much as David Ash would have wanted, so we moved on to a less direct form of pressure.

First, I was the subject of an accusation by the girl who I had brought onto my course team as deputy chair. I had done this because, as a trainee, she needed the experience. In addition, as we were coming up to the appointments of the new lecturers, I suggested that for, a while, she took over as Course Chair. I was astonished when she went spare and rushed off claiming that I was pressurising her, bullying her.  I later learnt that David had already promised to give her a lectureship, something he should never have done, and she thought I was trying to take this away from her.

This was godsend to David Ash who then proceeded to use this accusation of ‘bullying’ to harass me for the best part of the next decade; although he well knew what was really going on. Hence, he brought in his cronies, especially Roland Kaye, to put pressure on me and claim that I actually was bullying this girl.  What was even more effective, from his point of view, was that he did this clandestinely.  He called me in and -- as if written by Kafka - accused me, without any evidence, of an unspecified crime.  He then persuaded me that - should I keep a low profile - he wouldn't do anything about it. Of course, as I now know, he then spread rumours which undermined my reputation; even though there was no truth whatsoever in what the girl was claiming. The girl, incidentally, left the school soon thereafter and I discovered that she had made similar claims against the number of other academics - though David Ash had not chosen to inform me of this.

at the time I lay low because I well knew that any exposure, no matter how unfair, might damage my reputation. But that too was a major mistake, for bullies like David Asch take this as a sign of weakness - which of course it was. I was already on the slippery slope. If I surfaced the problem I would immediately be faced by the fact that I had already accepted the guilt.

Accordingly, over the next year or so, David Asch ratcheted up the pressure by progressively accusing me of half a dozen more incidents. There was some justification for this, since, in 1993, each time when I got back from Ethiopia it took me 2-4 weeks to recover from the stresses involved and I was – for this time – more touchy than normal. But there was no justification whatsoever for the accusations David Asch built upon these minor incidents:

1) In a 10 minute telephone call about wrong plane tickets (overnight to Addis Abeba), the temp handling these in central admin refused to do anything and I raised my voice (but nothing else). I had to book my own tickets and – presumably to cover her own shortcomings – the temp complained.

2) My then Course Manager and I  had a very good relationship (so much that it was wrongly rumoured we were having an affair), but she had a breakdown (and couldn't handle the problems arising from a complaint from a residential school about another tutor).

4) My next Course Manager and I also had a very good relationship, but she refused to work on the Futures Observatory, which was a necessary part of B885 so we parted on the best of terms.

5) When a BBC producer refused to meet our demands, the Course Team instructed me that we should withdraw if she refused to follow B885 Course Team spec – which I did. Again, to protect her position she complained.

6) Another ESRC fellow, following her rejection for a lectureship by a panel which I sat on (but on which I didn't oppose her), accused me of exactly the same harassment as Sarabajaya. In fact I had little to do with her, and had no opportunity to harass her. But David Asch strangely gave her a research studentship, and she was subsequently there for 10 years without obtaining her PhD!

The original charges originally launched against me on these flimsiest of excuses, implied racial and sexual  harassment but (as I was a founder of student anti-apartheid movement and later a promoter of the ‘woman's century’), they were later changed to bullying. It is worth pointing out the hypocrisy of this in that, at the same time, David Asch was having a number of affairs with his subordinates (and broke up two marriages, including his own). Once more, on each of these occasions, we went through the farce of my being accused – without any details and no evidence – of being guilty; and, once more, I was persuaded to reduce my profile. Yet again, of course, the rumours – which I could not answer – were spread. Thus was my reputation destroyed – such that, a decade later, even an Employment Tribunal was persuaded that there was some truth in these baseless rumours.

They were brought to a head when another academic announced them to the OUBS panel considering my application for the new Marketing Chair.

 Leslie de Chernatonay, who actually gained the Chair

I immediately started a defamation suit against him. Even though it was a classic case of slander, I eventually decided to drop it since it threatened to damage OUBS (where a similar event in Social Sciences had recently torn apart the Economics Department). Once more I was promised that he and the Dean would tell everyone that the slander was false – and restore my reputation. Of course, once more, nothing was done; and my reputation was ruined for ever. So my mistake then was to consider the good of the OU above my own position.

This was the worst period of my OU life during the 1990s; though even worse was to come later. David didn’t attack me in the same way again, not least since my behaviour was whiter than white, but he didn’t have to; he had destroyed me, or as he said later “You think I have marginalized you, don’t you?” You bet!

Events only came to a head in 1998, when I learned that he was plotting to get rid of a number of academics – including myself. That was the final straw and I submitted a – damning – confidential grievance to the VC. David Asch did not stand again for Dean and soon after left the OU.

 The VC (Vice Chancellor) Sir John Daniels

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