About Inside Academia

We started this page as a means of fostering community and solidarity amongst marginalised people in the academy: which includes academic staff (at all levels, on all contracts), PhD and postdoctoral researchers, teaching practitioners, and professional services staff. The hostility the academy shows to anyone deemed Other can be really isolating, and the cultures of fear and “professionalism” can often prevent people sharing their experiences. Equally, in many academic environments, some discrimination has become normalised and seen as ‘just the way things are’. Inside Academia serves to challenge that mode of thinking and provide an inclusive, accessible forum for anyone who wishes to share. We hope it will bring visibility to experiences of injustice within academic settings and act as a public testimony that sheds light on the (sometimes daily) challenges that are faced when living and working in academia. We have borrowed the framework put forward by Laura Bates in her Everyday Sexism Project, but expanded it to include any experience of marginalization or discrimination in the academy, including (but not limited to):

• Gender and sexuality
• Race and cultural heritage
• Religion
• Disability
• Mental / physical health
• Class
• Parenting and childcare

These issues might range from larger and more public forms of discrimination to smaller microaggressions that create a general feeling of unease and discomfort. All are welcome here. However, please note that this is not a site for doxxing, whistleblowing, or reporting illegal behaviour. Please see our community guidelines and FAQs section for more information on this.

At present, the site seeks to spotlight the experiences of individuals in UK Higher Education. Therefore, we kindly ask for submissions that focus on the experiences of working with higher education institutions, organisations, and societies in the UK.