This past week, the Bearing Witness Symposium fostered many discussions around hate and harassment pertaining to public scholarship. The Bearing Witness team of Professor Natalie Coulter, and Communication and Culture PhD students, Marion Grant, Alex Borkowski and Anna Young coordinated speakers, panels, workshops, an art exhibit, and a documentary screening to center the stories of graduate students who have encountered harassment in response to  research dissemination. Along with these discussions, panels and workshops covered topics such as researcher safety in digital spaces, resources for students, and next steps for institutions. The documentary Bearing Witness: Hate, Harassment and Online Public Scholarship can be viewed online.

The Bearing Witness team also wrote an article for The Conversation, Trolling and doxxing: Graduate students sharing their research online speak out about hate, discussing the impacts of harassment and the inadequate support that many researchers encounter. They discuss experiences of harassment, and identify resources that may assist researchers who are experiencing it.

To learn more, please visit the project website.