“UCL is a toxic place”: Has UCL been overlooking a history of workplace harassment?

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Praised for its excellent education, UCL has been a well known and respected institution for many years, even ranking 8th in the world in the 2022 QS World University Rankings. However, this positive reputation may be in harm’s way as reports of ongoing workplace harassment have recently been revealed.

Several universities around the world, including UCL, have anti-bullying and harassment policies in place to help minimise any incidents that may occur within the work environment. These policies are meant to make students and employees feel safe and protected by their institution if reports are made. However, that is only true when the reports are actually acted upon by the university, which isn’t always the case. 

Arthur Loureiro worked at UCL in the Astrophysics Group of the Physics and Astronomy Department as a Research Fellow, and was a part of the UCL community for seven years before leaving in September of 2022. On his last day at UCL he tweeted a heartfelt message describing the environment he had been in for the past seven years—and it was everything but praise.

When reading the message it did not take long to realise that working at UCL was one of Loureiro’s biggest regrets. While working in his department he explained how he was a “victim of bullying, harassment, and intimidation.” He continued stating the measures he had taken to report the various incidents and warned any students wishing to join the Astrophysics department to “stay away,” even going as far as calling the school a “toxic place.” 

Even though UCL has a zero tolerance policy towards harassment, this policy failed Loureiro as it, reportedly, has a “high threshold.” Meaning the multiple requests that were made to the school as a cry for help regarding the negative treatment he faced were ignored because they did not qualify as being important enough. By following the steps of the school’s “Report and Support” system he was led down a long and winding road of bureaucratic procedures. UCL did very little to help protect their employee against his perpetrator and it took almost two years from when the first complaint was made until a disciplinary hearing was finally held—a shockingly long time frame in which Loureiro still had to encounter his perpetrator at work. 

He also emphasised that the issue at hand was not just a reflection of the Astrophysics Department but of the university as a whole, stating: “The problem isn’t the astrophysics group at UCL; it is the University and its culture to protect perpetrators at all costs.” 

Unfortunately, this is not the only case at UCL where an employee was a victim of harassment and where little was done to prevent it. Take the case of Erica Smith.  

Smith is a physicist and a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University in the U.S., and she was harassed for months by Christopher Backhouse, a former research fellow who worked at none other than the Physics and Astronomy Department at UCL. A statement released from the High Court has said that, “Dr Smith’s home address, email address and phone number were used to sign her up to various unwanted services and groups, including far-right hate groups, fetish websites and to arrange for unwanted goods and services to be supplied, including the delivery of adult diapers and baby proofing services.” 

Other than these already atrocious acts, Backhouse also falsely portrayed Smith as a sex worker online, causing her to receive several unsolicited sex requests. Twitter accounts had unknowingly been created in her name and were brought to her attention as the accounts followed some of her colleagues, which then led to Smith reaching out to a lawyer to have Twitter and Google subpoenaed. They were then able to detect an IP address in London and a “disclosure order allowing information to be obtained from third parties” led to Backhouse being exposed as the perpetrator behind the address. 

Smith had previously worked with Backhouse on an international research project in the U.S. at Fermilab, where she reported him due to alleged sexual assault. However, according to The Guardian, no finding of fact was made against him,hus indicating that the harassment she faced derived from the reports she had made against him. Smith’s solicitor, Adham Harker, has stated that these actions were made to humiliate her and were a “gross intrusion” of her private life. 

Backhouse now has to pay Smith almost £50,000 in damages for the harassment. Although, this does not repair the mental and emotional damage that she has been through. Not only was she the victim of threatening messages, she also had to have a portable lock on her front door. Notwithstanding how long this will continue to affect her down the road and throughout the course of her career. UCL’s only public statement on the matter is that Backhouse is no longer employed by the university.

Incidents like these cannot simply be ignored. In both the case of Loureiro and Smith it is not only the fact they both faced harassment from their colleagues, but also the fact that reports had been made that were either ignored or excessively drawn out, allowing more damage to be done in the meantime. Bullying and harassment takes a large toll on a person’s mental health and wellbeing, and when reports are not taken seriously or drawn out by extensive paperwork, it only makes it more difficult for the victim. 

It is clear that UCL needs to be taking their harassment cases more seriously and that they need a new system in place when doing so. Not only to save any potential victims, but also to save their own reputation down the line as students have already been warned to “run away as soon as [they] can.”