Only We Can Protect Us: Labor and Anti-Harassment Organizing within the Neoliberal University

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Not being from the US, the 'Title IX terminology' carries absolutely no meaning for me. It would be useful, helpful, and also add value for non-US readers for you to better clarify what this is and what it means (I've assumed you are referring to Federal US legislation). Otherwise an interesting article.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript! We have added in more context to explain Title IX terminology and the relevance to what we discuss in the paper!

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a well-written and very polished article that I enjoyed reading.  There are, however, a number of issues (all fixable) that require attention for publication:

- The content is currently very US-centric, relying on terms, events, reference to particular Acts, people, etc. that are unlikely to be familiar to non-US readers. 

- While I acknowledge that this is a 'concept' (rather than an empirical) paper, it is nonetheless overly descriptive in parts and weighed down by details that tend to obscure, rather than, illuminate, the core argument. This descriptive content, in my view, is at the expense of more scholarly, analytical (and more interesting) discussion that engages with the 'big questions' it points to.

- By this I mean that the paper connects with larger conversations that the authors signpost but do not engage with in any great depth.  For example, the impact of neoliberalism on universities (the 'neoliberal academy') is alluded to but generally not named as a global issue and the subject of broad debate (i.e. bigger than the particular university that is the focus of this paper, bigger than the US, etc). In this context, the focus on 'workers' as a category - and the division between 'faculty and graduate workers' - risks simplifying the complex and far-reaching impacts of neoliberalism within the academic workplace (and blurring together, for example, diverse experiences of precarity, etc).

- Aligned to the above point, there is little (overt) recognition of the intersectionalities subsumed within the 'we' - i.e. that solidarity notwithstanding, issues of identity, representation, and voice are critical. References to 'our community' (page 6, lines 292-295), thus, warrant some unpacking.

- The question that kept coming up for me, while reading this paper, was the relationship between the union activities described and broader social and structural change. While the authors made reference to structural change, there was little evidence - or exploration - of this in the paper. I wonder also whether there has been some slippage between systemic change and structural change (for example, the emphasis on university-specific processes and (US-specific) things like the Title X office).  Certainly, both are important but they are not the same - and this is a distinction that is especially significant in the context of gender-based violence.

- All of this is to say that the paper would be greatly strengthened by centering its scholarly attention within the context of broader literature and debates. For example, the mention of 'carcerality' (page 5) and its creep into universities is both fascinating and important - and worthy of discussion.

- Finally, pulling out the key insights and implications for readers - across disciplines, sectors and settings - would greatly enhance its contribution to this journal.

Good luck - this paper has great potential! 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our paper! Please see the attachment for our response to each of your comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I acknowledge the effort you have put in to addressing the concerns raised in my initial review. Well done!

Just a side note: When reading your paper I was reminded of a book that I reviewed a year or so ago - which you might find interesting (if you don't already know it):

Reimagining academic activism: Learning from feminist anti-violence activists by Ruth Weatherall (Bristol University Press, 2022) https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/reimagining-academic-activism