False accusations regarding mental health -- common in postgrad situations?

[Spanky]

Long story short, my uni in Australia got backed into a corner after my supervisor resigned unexpectedly. Legally, they were still obligated to find supervision. Unfortunately, the head of the school already didn't like me because I kicked him off of a committee the year before. He was out for some revenge.

The solution he came up with was to brand me a psychopath and to claim that it was "against the university's health and safety policy" for him to find supervision for me. This was utter bullshit, but upper-management didn't care because, apparently, no evidence was needed. Health and safety is a loophole. Only the opinion of the head of school is needed, and if he says I am a risk, then that was the end of the story. Nothing else was needed in order to get out of the legal obligation to supervise.

Has anyone else heard of a story like this?

[Parasaurolophus]

No. But I also haven't heard of a grad student kicking people off a committee, let alone the head. What happened there? Can you appeal higher up the food chain? Are graduate students unionized, and can someone in the union back you up?

Also: merely being or being branded a psychopath surely isn't enough to qualify someone as a threat. I'd imagine they'd also have to point to problematic actions of yours. Were they able to point to anything?

[AJ_Katz]

Long story short, my uni in Australia got backed into a corner after my supervisor resigned unexpectedly. Legally, they were still obligated to find supervision. Unfortunately, the head of the school already didn't like me because I kicked him off of a committee the year before. He was out for some revenge.

Because you're talking about a situation in Australia, I lack experience to know if what you describe as committees and supervisors are the same as they are in the U.S.  So, please consider that in reading my response, which is:

If I were a committee member, I wouldn't care that a student kicked me off of the project.  It would mean less work for me.  I join committees not for a desire to inflect the direction of the student or garner some personal gain, I agree to serve on committees as a service to the student, in support of their research and goals.  I basically get little to nothing in return for serving on a student's committee.  So, I'm not seeing how in this equation one can assume that the head of the school would not like a student for removing them from the committee or have motivation to seek revenge.

[Tenured_Feminist]

Are you a graduate student or a postdoc? Grad students often have two sets of options relating to their status as students and as employees.

[mamselle]

For the record, yes, it is possible (in the humanities, anyway...) to talk a venomous reader out of staying on a comittee--slowwwly and sweeeetly--by gradually increasing ones commiseration with them at how difficult the task of a reader-at-a-distance is.

It is also possible to locate a different advisor after it is clear the first is actively antipathetic to ones work (as well as clueless about its significance.) Not ones first choice or best strategy, but when trying to make progress and waiting two years for chapter feedback, well--you can only remind a person so much.

M.

[mouseman]

I do not think that, even in Australia, a non-professional is permitted to take action based solely on their own diagnose of a mental health issue in a subordinate. A "psychopath" is a psychological diagnosis that can only be made by a professional. I cannot see that it would be legal for the head of a school to take action based on heir own unqualified diagnosis of you having a mental illness.

There is no difference between the head of a school doing this and the head declaring that a person cannot come to work because the head decided that the person has an infectious disease, or for the head to demand that a person with 20/20 vision have prescription glasses all the time, because the head has decided that they need them.

Again, I cannot believe that this is legal, and, moreover, wouldn't this also be considered libel, and grounds for a lawsuit?