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Academic Abuse Survivor Julie Cruse Exposes The Abuse Hidden Inside Universities
2 Playsin 2 hours
Julie Cruse joins Unsolicited Perspectives for a powerful conversation about academic abuse, higher education corruption, Title IX failures, coercive control, trauma, retaliation, and the hidden systems many survivors say exist inside college campuses and universities.
Bruce Anthony sits down with Julie — founder of AcademicAbuse.com and author of The Burn List — to discuss her deeply personal journey through childhood trauma, systemic abuse, and the emotional cost of speaking out against powerful institutions. What begins as a conversation about higher education quickly becomes a larger discussion about power, silence, manipulation, exploitation, and why so many survivors feel trapped inside systems designed to protect themselves first.
Julie explains how universities can create environments where vulnerable students feel isolated, pressured, and afraid to speak up. The conversation also explores the parallels between academic abuse, athletic scandals, institutional protection, and survivor advocacy.
This is one of the most emotional and intense interviews ever featured on Unsolicited Perspectives — raw, uncomfortable, thought-provoking, and necessary. If you’ve ever questioned the systems society tells people to trust, this conversation will stay with you long after it ends. #AcademicAbuse #HigherEducation #JulieCruse #TheBurnList #Academia #TraumaRecovery #SystemicAbuse #CampusCulture #SurvivorStory #unsolicitedperspectives #podcastinterview
Chapters:
00:00:00 - Abuse, Silence, And Systems That Quiet Truths Over Time 🧨🎙️⚖️
00:02:01 - Academic Abuse Feels Distant… Until It Starts Feeling Normal 🏛️👀💔
00:04:25 - Julie Opens With The Night That Changed Her Life Forever 💔🏠😳
00:07:44 - When Running Ends And Speaking Out Finally Begins For Real 🏃♀️🔥🗣️
00:09:29 - Trauma Divided The Family Instead Of Bringing Them Together 🧩💔🏚️
00:14:09 - Success, Siblings, And Pain Of Being The One Who Escaped It 🎓😬💔
00:23:34 - Academia Became Julie's Only Way Out Of Violence At Home 🎓🚪💡
00:26:09 - College Was Nothing Like The Safe Space Julie Imagined At All 😳🏫💥
00:31:24 - 9/11, Survival Mode, And Finding Purpose Through Art Again 🕊️🎭🧠
00:41:39 - The First Signs Something Was Very Wrong In The System 👀🏛️⚠️
00:43:09 - Coercive Control Is The Hidden Engine Driving Higher Ed Systems 🧠🔒🏛
00:51:24 -Julie Finally Understands What Her Mother Truly Endured 💔👩👧🔥
00:59:35 - Writing The Burn List Unlocked Everything Julie Had Buried 🔥📖🧠
01:04:20 - Why Julie Turned Her Private Pain Into A Public Truth 📖💔🗣️
01:14:19 - The Recovering Academic Helps Survivors Rebuild Their Identity 🛠️🎓💡
01:22:10 - Coercion, Power, And The Warning Everyone Needs To Hear Now ⚠️🧠🔥
01:25:49 - The Real Cost Of Speaking Truth To Powerful Institutions 🎓💔🔥
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview of Abuse Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
Abuse hiding in plain sight, careers destroyed for speaking up, and institutions betting you stay quiet. We gonna get into it. Let's get it.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome. First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I am your host, Bruce Anthony, here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcasts, YouTube exclusive content, and our YouTube membership.
00:00:40
Speaker
Rate, review, like, comment, share. Share it with your friends, share it with your family, hell, even share
Introducing Julie Cruz and Her Work
00:00:47
Speaker
with your enemies. On today's episode, I'm talking with Julie Cruz, founder of AcademicAbuse.com and the author of The Burn List. This is a conversation about systemic abuse, retaliation, and what really happens when people speak up.
00:01:01
Speaker
But that's enough of the intro. Let's get to the show.
00:01:12
Speaker
As I said, today I'm going to be talking with Julie Cruz, founder of AcademicAbuse.com and author of The Burn List. This is a conversation about systemic abuse, retaliation, and what really happens when people speak up.
00:01:24
Speaker
Now, when people hear the word abuse, most folks think that they understand it. They picture something obvious, clear lines, clear victims, clear wrongdoing.
00:01:35
Speaker
But the reality is abuse is one of those things that's hard to fully understand if you've never experienced it. And in a lot of cases, it's even harder to understand when you're going through it because it doesn't always look like what people expect.
00:01:48
Speaker
It doesn't always feel the way people think it should feel. And sometimes it shows up in ways that are subtle enough to make you question yourself before even questioning what's happening around you.
00:02:00
Speaker
So when you hear something like academic abuse, it can feel distant, like it doesn't really apply, like it's something extreme or even rare. But what if it's not?
00:02:11
Speaker
What if it shows up in ways that feel normal at first? What if it's tied to opportunity, to advancement, to relationships that are supposed to help you move forward?
00:02:22
Speaker
And what if the same system that's supposed to protect you is also the one that You have to try to navigate carefully because that's where this conversation lives.
00:02:34
Speaker
Julie's work through her platform and her book, The Burn, lists centers on experiences that don't always get named in real time, but leave a lasting impact. And once you start to hear these experiences, once you start to see the patterns, it raises bigger questions about these systems and how they actually operate.
00:02:55
Speaker
And why this matters is simple, because these aren't isolated situations. These are environments people move through every day. Students, faculty, professionals, people trying to build something, grow something, become something.
00:03:13
Speaker
So if there's a gap between what these systems promise and what people actually experience, that's a conversation I'll always believe is worth having.
00:03:24
Speaker
As I said at the top, I'm here with Julie Cruz, author of The Burn List and also the architect of theacademicabuse.com. We're here to talk about academia and the abuse that's in it.
00:03:39
Speaker
Julie, thank you so much for joining the show. I got your information and I was like, ooh, this is an interesting story. story This is an interesting topic, and it's something that I think a lot of people aren't really aware of. So to bring awareness to it, to give, to breathe life into this conversation, I'm really excited to have you on the show to talk about this.
00:04:03
Speaker
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Let's do it. All right. Well, with every interview, I start off a very, very important questions. Let's go back to the beginning.
Julie's Personal Story and Academic Challenges
00:04:14
Speaker
Tell me a little bit about your upbringing, your family life, where you're from. Give me the deets. Oh, wow. i'm I've never done this before, but I'm going to do it. Okay. You're about to hear the opening sentence of the very beginning.
00:04:28
Speaker
Okay. It was Easter Sunday. This this chapter is called Prologue 1984.
00:04:35
Speaker
It was Easter Sunday, so mom had put us to bed later than usual when suddenly the familiar sound of Mike Barrett's fists thundered against the back door.
00:04:47
Speaker
That's how my life starts out. I was three years old and that night was the first of years long abuse where the serial predator in town got into our house and Beat and raped my mother in front of us children for like 10 hours straight.
00:05:06
Speaker
Nearly killed her. And what I say at the beginning of my book is that this book is my attempt to do what I couldn't at three years old. Climb out the window and go get help.
00:05:20
Speaker
So we were on the second story. I was and my sister was. And, you know, you're hearing your mother scream, jump, jump out the window, jump off the roof, go get help, you know, jump off the balcony, go get help.
00:05:32
Speaker
And, you know, when you're three years old, you're like, that's a long fall. And by the time I get there, what if he kills me? That metaphor carried through in a way that I never foresaw in higher education when I encountered a sociopathic professor that was cyber stalking me, had physically assaulted me, had sexually assaulted me, and was threatening me personally, professionally, and threatening my family.
00:06:04
Speaker
And it worked out to be a coercive relationship that went on for at least six years that then derailed my entire career and derailed my life. I fled my field.
00:06:18
Speaker
I fled states. I fled homes. I was on the run. And I found myself in exactly the same shoes that my mother was actually, but far less severe from the physical violence stan standpoint. And so that is kind of what kickstarted all this. I i ended up leaving higher ed entirely 2023 for so many reasons but I'd say the majority of the reason was that the violence that I thought that I was escaping through higher ed never went away. It just continued in higher ed.
00:06:54
Speaker
And I tried so many different institutions. it was It happened when I was a student. It happened when I was a staff member. It happened when I was a grad student, undergrad, PhD student, all the things.
00:07:06
Speaker
And it was always systemic gender-based violence and racism. And, you know, when you think about the fact that higher education was founded by a bunch of white people, specifically white men for white men, it makes a lot of sense that, you know, just because they open the doors doesn't mean that it's safe.
00:07:24
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Now, not everybody has an experience as severe as mine, but I think that's why i became so activated to speak out. There came a point for me when, you know, if you're if you've been running your entire life, running for your life, your entire life.
00:07:44
Speaker
And there's never anywhere safe. At what point do you stop? I really want to say the F word running, you know, at what point do you stop getting running? Like, at what point do you say enough?
00:07:57
Speaker
Like, now you're going to run because I'm going to speak out about what you did. yeah And that's what I've been doing ever since through a variety of channels. yeah First off, I want to say thank you for sharing that very, very personal and emotional experience at such a young age.
00:08:15
Speaker
I know it's written in your book, but to still have to relive that every time that you talk about that. just thank you for letting me and the audience in to that story with you and and take this emotional journey with you because that has to have been a very difficult situation to navigate through as you and your sister were growing up
00:08:50
Speaker
with your mom, knowing that your mom had experienced that and, and growing up in that household. ah hold I want to take a brief second to, to examine that from that incident.
00:09:05
Speaker
How did that bring you guys closer together or because of the pain push you further apart? you know what's up. You know what's up.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, we were all divided. It just led to complete chaos in the home. And I mean, as an adult, I have all sorts of theories about why that is. Most of those are not included in my book, but I mean, you asked and I said, you can ask the hard hitting questions and I'll answer them.
00:09:34
Speaker
This is my my answer. My mother, unfortunately, was very mentally ill. And after the violence became even more mentally ill and herself violent.
00:09:45
Speaker
And she wasn't that way before all of that. and But that's what traumatic brain injury i can do. Right. And undiagnosed traumatic brain injury as well, I believe. But anyway, so the thing was, when you looked at the dynamic of what was happening when Mike Barrett was ah invading our home,
00:10:07
Speaker
My older sister was the one who covered, you know, she was the one who, you know, agreed with my mother, you won't tell your grandfather, you know, and covered for my mother.
00:10:18
Speaker
I was the one because I was too little. You know, i mean, in in this early scene where you where you see what's happening there with Mike Barrett in 1984, my mom, so how he ended up getting in was saying that it was Easter and he and his mom had made Easter baskets for us, for the kids.
00:10:37
Speaker
And, you know, we were really poor. So my mom, she's never stated this, was probably like, you know, okay, well, the kids want Easter baskets. You can come in And even before she even opened the door, I was praying that she wouldn't open the door.
00:10:51
Speaker
Like, I already knew at three years old, this is bad. This is very, very bad. And I knew that and my mom didn't. So I, as a child, judged her.
00:11:04
Speaker
You know what I mean? i resented her for letting him in. Why aren't you protecting us? Why aren't you standing up for yourself? Why don't you hit him back? And I did not i did not understand why until I went through it and understood that when someone has that kind of predatorial nature,
00:11:23
Speaker
ah that kind of violence, that kind of sadism, and they are targeting you that you, you learn to cooperate in order to protect yourself. So once I was in my 30s and I went through all this, my mother and I reconciled. it It was a lot of years before we were, like, actually, it was actually only a couple years before she died that we were totally good. But That set up that early dynamic of like, okay, well, the oldest one is covering.
00:11:51
Speaker
The youngest one won't shut up. You know, the me, the middle child at that point, won't keep her mouth shut about why it's wrong and is, you know, and then and then the baby of the family, my little brother, was actually physically in the room witnessing it and being forced to cooperate.
00:12:08
Speaker
So, you know, if you're the mother in that situation, the oldest one covered, the youngest one covered. is probably going to be messed up for the rest of their life. It is absolutely messed up, right? The middle one is the one that's judging you, right?
00:12:26
Speaker
I definitely was the family scapegoat. i I was definitely the one that the siblings ganged up on. And so... My load ah was one of much isolation and just bullying in the house, abuse in the house, then you know abuse in the community, bullying in the community, violence from the community. And you know you'd never know it from looking at my face. I always joke that I have like a doll bitch face.
00:12:54
Speaker
Like, it's like a doll bitch on the front and it's Chucky bitch in the back. Like, I'm just like, you know, you do not know what is hiding behind this face. There's a lot of scary shit back there. And so...
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, the siblings and i no contact with one of them, minimal contact with another. and that's pretty much about it. We've tried here and there over the years, but you can imagine the demons that are in the room with us every time we're together. It's just like, you're together, this is what you think of. So it's just too painful to even be around each other.
00:13:32
Speaker
I have yeah two more personal questions and then we're going to get into your work. Let's have it. All right. The first the first question is, you said your grandfather, but you didn't say anything about your father.
00:13:46
Speaker
Again, you know what's up. Yeah. Dad was, okay, so how do I summarize my father? My father at this point in time was in the military, specifically Navy SEAL Team 6. Okay.
00:14:02
Speaker
Black Ops and Psy Ops. Yeah. And he was training these guys in hand-to-hand combat. My dad, my mom. Here, a shout-out to my dad. My mom used to call him the White Warlock.
00:14:14
Speaker
Or actually, she said that he was called the White Warlock by people in town because he would go and pick a fight and leave a dozen bodies on the ground and just be gone. Now, there's a reason for that. That's the intergenerational family violence. Military runs in the family.
00:14:31
Speaker
You can take a guess. I probably can't say much more than that for risk of, you know, outing other people's secrets. But I can tell you this. There's a lot of intergenerational violence. And my dad learned at a very early age in his own words, if this is how it's going to be, then I'm going to be the biggest, baddest mother on the block. Mm hmm.
00:14:53
Speaker
And he was. And I would now as an adult, knowing what I know from both my mom and my dad, I would say that their relationship wasn't fully consensual. And so they got divorced and he took off in the military and did his thing. But he he did try to stay in our lives to some degree wasn't financially there. Blame that on my mother's drug abuse and stuff like that. But once I was old enough, we repaired that and he was there in the ways that he could be. And now he's like my ah he's my he's my rock and he's been my rock for a long, long time. So that is that.
00:15:32
Speaker
That's my dad. Oh, I've got so many more questions. But the the final one, and this is going to lead into your work. You said that there's still conflict between you and your siblings. Oh, yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
Obviously, y'all all went through something very traumatic. Yeah. But also. Yeah. You're very accomplished. Right. Are the other siblings as accomplished?
00:16:00
Speaker
you as you are. You're getting your job. You're getting your job, Bruce. Oh my Thank you. I appreciate it. Look at me. I'm adjusting my shirt. I'm like, God, he knows everything. Well, because you bring it up that you you came from a lower economic background. And yeah just the way this country is set up, it makes it extremely difficult for people from a lower economic background to even to get to college, to get accepted to college and then go to college because college is so expensive. And we're the same age. And when I went to the University of Maryland, living in in state, it was $12,000 year.
00:16:37
Speaker
yeah Now it's something like $25,000 a semester. I don't know what the last numbers were. But even $12,000 a year living at endstate in state in 1998 was a lot of money. So I ask that question because you're accomplished, author, website, helping people. Yeah.
00:16:58
Speaker
Master's degrees. Master's degrees. What about your siblings? And could that, if they're not as accomplished, could that lead to jealousy and also the continued reason why there's distance between the three of you?
00:17:14
Speaker
I absolutely believe so, more so from my sister than my brother. My my brother, i think he went and joined the military too and served in Iraq, came back, got married, had five kids, stayed in his hometown and his due you know did well for himself that way. But I also think because he never got out of the hometown really, except for his tour in Iraq and is a brief stay in California and Oregon with dad,
00:17:43
Speaker
I think that, you know, he he feels more of a need to be recognized and kind of achieve things in ways that he can, that he can share, you know. and i And I love that about him. I'm always just like, you know, thank you for your service. Like, you're doing great. You're a so much better father than than what we had. And and I love that.
00:18:06
Speaker
My older sister, i think, absolutely harbors unfortunate jealousy toward me. I really do. But this is interesting because when we were growing up, she was the star.
00:18:18
Speaker
She was the star athlete. She was the most talented. She was the most popular. You know, boys were crazy about her. and And I was just this little shadow following her around kind of annoying her, you know. So I think that when those tables turned, you know, what happened with her is that she became – she actually – and again, i thank her for her service – She joined the Air Force and she was ah in Honor Flight, which is like the best group in the Air Force. And she was also an environmental engineer, which means she worked on the planes, which was like the hardest thing to get into. So she was smart, you know.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I'm not going to share what happened to her, but I will say that she did end up getting, you know, diagnosed with some things that, that led to an inability to continue pursuing that career or any career.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so I do think that it's hard for her, you know, to see me make it out in a way that she did not. And that hurts me, you know, because i hurt for her.
00:19:29
Speaker
No matter how she treats me, no matter how bad it is, I still hurt for her. And I still hurt for me for grieving that relationship with a sister that I wish I had. And you know, like, don't don't we all want our families to be proud of us? Don't we all want them, no matter what kind of hell they put us through, don't we all like just want to be like, look what I did, aren't you proud of me?
00:19:54
Speaker
But I don't get that kind of reception or acknowledgement from anywhere. in my family, nowhere. So, you know, that i i think you you you picked up on a lot. You read between a lot of lines. And I hope if my family hears this, they don't get even more pissed off for me saying it. But like, it's also the truth. That's also part of the byproduct of growing up in a violent home. You know, I think the thing that I had, and my dad says this, the thing that I had that they didn't,
00:20:29
Speaker
is ah what I call clone Julie in my book. Like at some point I learned that feelings were not gonna help me solve the situation, right?
00:20:40
Speaker
So I disassociated and i gave birth to what I call clone Julie. Like I just would just deploy this performance version of myself. She would go out and get all the good grades. She would go out and get all the scholarships. She would go out and get all the jobs and work third shift and second shift and do whatever she had to do.
00:21:04
Speaker
to get out. Like that girl you know was my soldier. Like I didn't join the military, but that girl was was fighting for me every day. the one that I that i just you know deactivated emotionally and sent out into the world to do everything that she did.
00:21:20
Speaker
And, you know, that caught up to me after a while. So and I also think that's part of why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Like, I don't want clone Julie around anymore. I don't need her anymore. You know, i I have a right to my feelings and my life story. And I think they matter. And I think that that I am like a site of evidence of something that's going on in the world. And I think that's why my story matters. And that's why I need to speak out about it.
00:21:54
Speaker
As you said, you stopped running. Bingo. Yeah. c clo Clone Julie was the person that was helping you run. Oh, yeah. You stopped running. But speaking of Clone Julie, he's starting to run.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah. Let's talk about what led you into the world of academia.
Julie's Academic Journey and Realizations
00:22:15
Speaker
Coming from a situation where it sounds like your sister was excelling at school, so you had that example to live up to. Your dad is overseas. I don't remember if you said that he went to college or anything like that, but you but you're growing up in an abusive household. You said your mom was on drugs.
00:22:36
Speaker
Was it your sister that that kind of put that spark in, I'm going to do well? Was there a competition? Well, my sister is a star because she's doing these things. I'm going to do them even for better. Because not only that, you're also the middle child. Yep. Right? so You know too much, Bruce. You know too much. come from one of three, me being the oldest, and I understand the dynamics between the three. So what was it? Was it all those things? Was it something else that you were just like, you know what?
00:23:05
Speaker
I'm a pursue this world of academia. I think it's a few things. i think, like, I loved learning from a very, very early age. I loved it. I loved it. i I loved science. Like, right away, I loved math. You know, I'm pretty bored with history, but, like, I just loved. And I think part of that was that, and this interesting.
00:23:25
Speaker
something I haven't said on any podcast, but ok I remember like as early as I could think thoughts being just absolutely fascinated with the fact that I existed.
00:23:36
Speaker
i didn't know those things in in the words, but I knew them and how I perceived the world. And I just thought everything was like miraculous and magical. And so of course I wanted to understand like, how am I here? Why am I here? And basic questions that I think I really philosophically drove my learning that really didn't like necessarily drive my siblings. i They're very pragmatic people. I was kind of like the head in the clouds one.
00:24:03
Speaker
And then also, yeah, my sister excelling. My mom was really funny. My sister would bring her homework home from school before I was in school and She just dote on her. And I thought that was the way to get love was, you know, to go and and do that. And of course, when I got to school, I didn't get that same reception that my sister did, no matter what I did. So I think that planted a seed to like be competitive. But then also really funny, the kids in my class in school were mostly middle children or younger siblings of like my sister's class.
00:24:37
Speaker
So those guys were all the eldest. And I was in the class with all the like the second borns. And they were very competitive. So it was all around me between like, you know, at home, i'm it's competitive there in school, it's competitive there. I wanted to hear my name called on the honor roll. And then, of course, we're taught. from a very young age, if you don't want to end up at McDonald's, you need to go to college. If you're going to go to college, you need to get good grades. You got to get good grades because that's the only way to get scholarships. And so it was really hammered into my head that like higher education is the way out of a dead end job. It's the way out of, you know, what what I saw going on at home, which was a woman being financially dependent upon a man that is abusive to her and her children.
00:25:22
Speaker
i was like, this is my way out of that. Yeah. yeah Okay. So you enter the world academia. Yeah. And is it what you thought it was when you entered it?
00:25:35
Speaker
Oh, God, no. It was total culture shock. Like, I mean, I thought, i pictured that when I went to to college, and this is going to probably be really funny to your listeners, like, I really, I pictured that it would be a bunch of people like me, you know, with their books and their, like, Tiffany lamps and, like, a nice wooden desk and a really nice dorm room um and Boy, was I wrong. Like, it was just party central. Like, everybody was drinking. Everybody was doing drugs. Everybody was cutting glass.
00:26:07
Speaker
And that was, like, so shocking to me because I had never seen anything like it. And so there was all that going on that hit me upside the head. But at the same time. I want to cut you off for a quick second. ahead. Yeah, you Because this is undergrad, correct?
00:26:22
Speaker
Correct. and And where did you go to undergrad again? Can't read, can't write, can't state.
00:26:32
Speaker
Okay. All right. A very big party school. I've heard the rumors. That's the reason why I brought that up. So you got this shell shock of this party school ah huh that you obviously didn't partake in and high school to prepare you for college. Right.
00:26:51
Speaker
So was it like, oh, I want to go home. This isn't right for me or no, I'm going to stick this out. It was a mess. It was a mess, an absolute mess. Like my roommate was a slob and I was like OCD. And I mean, I had no peace in the dorm. People were knocking on the door at all hours. Let's go party. Let's go this. Let's go that. It was all the time in the morning. If you wanted to to get out the door and go to class, you had to compete with your entire floor.
00:27:21
Speaker
of women for a limited number of shower stalls, a limited number of toilets, a limited number of sinks, and a limited number of washers and dryers that were coin-operated. So everything was like, ah just completely like I thought I had all these survival tools from, you know... On average, in high school, I slept like two hours a week. You know, I was raising my little sisters. I was multiple jobs, 13 extracurriculars, 3.69 GPA, top 0.5% of my class. And I was like, well, I can do anything. And my advisors thought, well, you can you can do anything. So they enrolled me in all these like really intensive, like five credit hour courses that were like hardcore math and science. Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
and And I had nowhere to really study because they just you're just partying all over campus all night. And, ah you know, and then also, like, I had no idea who I was. Like, there was all these people around me asking me questions, challenging my identity, asking me what I valued, what I cared about. Why this? Why are you this? Why do you do that? Why, why, why? And I didn't know i didn't know those things. All I knew was I fought for my life.
00:28:35
Speaker
for 18 years and that's all I knew was like fighting for my life. So when people were asking me these questions and challenging me, it really what that did is it made me ask myself those questions.
00:28:48
Speaker
And the only answer that I could find in myself when I looked was all the pain that I had been blocking out in order to get there.
00:28:59
Speaker
And so that set me on the first, well, maybe not the first, but the first very serious as time in my life in which I was suicidal. And it was a very, so very serious time that I was actively like looking out windows and trying to find a window where no one would find me if I jumped, you know, that they wouldn't find me in time to save me.
00:29:21
Speaker
and Yeah. so I fell off the tracks. i in order to not kill myself, in order to not kill myself, because I lived on the eighth floor of the building and the window was right over my bed. So I would see it right away when I woke up and just imagine like it'd be so easy, just go, you know.
00:29:46
Speaker
But in order to not do that, what I did is I just slept. I slept through all my classes. I stopped going. I only got up to go get like a snack from the vending machine.
00:29:56
Speaker
You know, I was a mess and nobody knew, like I hit it. Nobody knew. And, and so I started journaling and the journaling is kind of what started to pull me out of it. Just like going through these things and, and then, you know, what really snapped me out of it, funny story was actually Hmm.
00:30:17
Speaker
h Yeah, 9-11 happened during that time. And suddenly I realized like we were at war. i was like, well, who's going to be bombed next? I could die today. I could die in an hour. I could die in a minute.
00:30:31
Speaker
What difference does it make? You know, why am I trying to sort all these things out when what I really should be doing is enjoying whatever amount of life I have left? And that's what kind of snapped me out of it. And and that's when I, you know,
00:30:46
Speaker
realized I wasn't happy in the physics department, which was predominantly men. I was tired of that. Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of things. It was, that was the first time I think I encountered the male bias and in from the professor side, like, you know, okay, so when I'm being instructed by a male professor, especially in private, this is where me being a woman is a liability to me. And and I looked around, you know, at different programs. Are there any other physics programs in the country that aren't male dominated?
00:31:19
Speaker
No. So this isn't going to work for me because I knew I didn't want that dynamic again for the rest of my life. And then I wound up going into the arts, the fine arts, and that gave me a whole different lease on life.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. So I kind of went on a little tangent there, but... go on i No, no, because that that was leading me to what my next question was. When was the first time you felt like something was a little off? Not necessarily wrong, but a little off. And and that it seems like the interactions with your physics professors are are what did it for you. At what point did you realize... so you go to define arts. How is that different from physics?
00:32:06
Speaker
It's not dominated by men Oh, not straight men. Not straight men. ok now There were some heteroflexible, heterosexual men, but it was put out in the dance department, which was where I went. And I explored like music and theater and all these other things, but I didn't feel that same, not at Kent State, I didn't feel that same sexism directed at me at Kent State, which was fortunate. And I think when I transferred and went to the next university, which I use as a pseudonym in my book for legal reasons to make sure that I'm not, you know. Yeah. Don't nobody want to get sued.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, because there's a lot in there. That's kind of where the story really, i start, the wallpaper starts melting off the walls and I start to see what's behind it, you know? Okay, before we go there, why did you transfer? If you you found your, sounds like you found your home. It's almost like Clone Julie is is almost, maybe almost, getting pushed to the back burner. Why leave that to go somewhere else? You should be my therapist, Bruce. Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker
Well, ken State was not a good environment for me. The partying, it was just way too much. And i auditioned down at. o I'm letting the cat out of the bag. I auditioned down there because i I saw that they were a multimedia dance program that they had. And I was very, because I came from physics, right? And I always loved science. So I was like, wow, this is an opportunity for me to really innovate by going there. And I auditioned and they let me in on the spot. And I loved the campus. I loved the people. I loved the townies. I loved the trees. You know, it was a completely different little environment that was...
00:33:55
Speaker
much, much, much better for me. Okay. Yeah. So you enter into another school. Right. what At what point did you realize that it was, you were you were being treated differently than at Kent State? And When did you also realize that you're that you're not only being treated differently at Kent State, but it's not just you?
00:34:23
Speaker
hu That it's a bigger issue and it might be something systemic. Yeah, well, what's interesting is that I didn't really have language at that point in time for what I was seeing and experiencing. So, what you know, if you don't have language, it's a lot harder to, like, accept something if you if you don't have, like, a a framework in your mind for it that you can reference against and and look at this and go recognize that. That's this. like I didn't have that. Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
You know, i i was still like high on the Kool-Aid that higher ed is this amazing ivory tower place and everything's safe and No, I knew really early on that I was being treated differently by the professors, but I attributed that to the fact that I started as an adult. I started dance as an adult. Like, so I made that a personal failing of my own. You know, I was just like, well, i you know, these kids have been training all their lives. I have to earn my place. You know, I have to earn.
00:35:24
Speaker
and maybe there's some truth to that, but there's a difference between, you know, you accepted me into the program, right? And so then there's a difference between me, you know, feeling like I'm ah behind my peers in training and having, you know, a professor throw a paper in my face and give me a poor grade on it for no reason. You know what I mean? Like there's there's a difference between me feeling like I'm behind my peers and feeling like, why did the tour bus leave me in the parking lot when I was there on time?
00:36:03
Speaker
And I had to get in my car and chase after it, right? When I'm chasing after the tour bus, why then do they stop on the bridge a half a mile away for a male student that never even showed up to the meetup point at all?
00:36:17
Speaker
So they stop in traffic for him. But leave me stamped stranded in the parking lot. Why? You know, I started to see stuff like that. I started to see, you know, the accompanist staring at me intrusively during class, trying to talk to me in the hallways, ah and professors looking at me like I was the problem, you know, instead of...
00:36:43
Speaker
And I didn't know anything about what was happening. I really didn't. i My first time, you know, like I i thought violence and sexism stayed ah at home. I thought it it was there. That's where it was. And I left it and I'm safe in the rest of the world. Well, did I find out the hard way?
00:36:58
Speaker
That was not true at all. And that was in year one. Those things that I just said were year one of the program. And then I also started seeing, yeah, like I had come to college with a full scholarship and the department gave me $500 instead of continuing my scholarship.
00:37:17
Speaker
And then I started to outpace my peer students in my work, so much so that the department was using my work to advertise for their program and only my work and asking me to speak, you know, to parents of auditionees and the president for the campus tours. They were asking me to do that.
00:37:39
Speaker
But then they they they gave me no scholarships, none, not even the $500 they gave me in year one. So that was when they started putting me in student loan debt in order to be there. Right.
00:37:52
Speaker
And then, and so I, at first I noticed it directed at me and then I started hearing my peers complain about it, especially peers of color and it And professors, even. There's a lot of turnover. People, they were leaving. They were talking about dynamics in the department as the cause.
00:38:13
Speaker
And it's this right here that I'm talking about, I know I named But guys, if you're listening, it's an open secret. I have heard about the dirty laundry and your department at other campuses from other faculty who have brought it up for themselves. That's how far word travels when there is a systemic, racist, sexist,
00:38:34
Speaker
classist culture that harms people. You know, you think you're getting away with it behind closed doors, under the table. You're not. You're not.
00:38:45
Speaker
You're exposed. And everybody knows. Sorry to tell you. But yeah, it sucks that that people like me, who are the most vulnerable there, the first first generation at risk, completely like financially crippled students, are the ones paying the heaviest toll for for for that sort of abuse and that no one stepped in to interfere, no one stepped in to to correct the problem. I had professors come up to me and pull me aside and say, Julie,
00:39:15
Speaker
I don't know why they're doing this to you. Or Julie, you know, I know why they're doing this to you. It's because they see you as a threat. You're too good. You're too smart. They feel like they can't teach you. As in like, you're teaching them things.
00:39:31
Speaker
Or you're asking questions that make them feel like they don't know what they're talking about. Right. I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to ask a question in a classroom. That was news to me too. i was like, oh, i I thought if something didn't make sense, we were having a discussion, that we were supposed to have a discussion about that. No.
00:39:51
Speaker
So I started to learn. About the politics and I learned the absolute hard way, like, you know, nosebleeds kind of way, like, like accumulating tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt that you'll be shackled with for the rest of your life kind of way. Yeah. You know, yeah. And and having, you know, your work be appropriated and exploited for their benefit.
00:40:18
Speaker
all while they're subjugating you and closing doors to you and trying to hinder your career instead of enable it. That kind of way is how I learned. It's almost as if there's a parallel between your experiences and experiences with academic abuse in college to the athletic abuse Oh, yeah.
00:40:45
Speaker
oh yeah it from what you're describing to me it it seems airily similar to what basketball players and football players lacrosse whatever sport that you play in college experience is this the same way as what you're doing what you're talking about with academic abuse so a lot of people don't realize that athletic scholarships are have to be renewed every year.
00:41:08
Speaker
Just because you signed a letter of intent and got an athletic scholarship, doesn't mean that you're going to have it your sophomore year, or your junior year, senior year. So this is to find out. this is I'm learning it first time.
00:41:20
Speaker
that the academic abuse is parallel to what a lot of athletes are facing in college as well, which is eye-opening. Why do you think so many people experience these things but struggle to name it while it's happening? Because you said you had that problem as well. Is it just the power structure of you are students?
00:41:45
Speaker
It's so many things. I think the most adept two word explanation is coercive control. So coercion is a foundation of higher education.
00:42:01
Speaker
Let's look at it. OK, so what other industry makes its buyers compete with each other for the luxury of buying what they're selling.
00:42:18
Speaker
Why is it that I, as a consumer, have to compete with other consumers to be allowed to buy your product? That's already coercive. that's already That's already coercive. like how How is that not cult-like?
00:42:35
Speaker
Like, I have to... ah Bruce, you and I want to go buy the same pair of sneakers, okay? Why do I have to be better than you to be allowed to buy that pair of sneakers?
00:42:48
Speaker
Why? What is that about? What is the purpose of education? What are they selling? okay And if if education all right it's supposed to be about upward economic and social mobility, that's what they're selling, right? That's the dream.
00:43:06
Speaker
Okay, that's one piece of the dream. The other thing that they've been selling, which I don't think they're gonna get away with selling for much longer, is their like branded stamp of approval. Like, oh, you came from Harvard. you know Oh, i'm I'm from Harvard, so I'm gonna get whatever job I apply for because I'm in Harvard. you know They sell, that's what they're selling. They're selling an image and there's so there' there's gatekeeping your ability to get a career, essentially.
00:43:36
Speaker
Now, they'll say, they'll say, how well, you know, the liberal arts education is important for people to be active civically and to be able to, you know, knowledgeably vote and whatever. And like, okay, that's great, Karen.
00:43:55
Speaker
But then why are you making me compete for that ability? If it's supposed to be about equity, right? And it's supposed to be about civic action. Then why do I have to compete to buy what you're selling me? And why do I have to buy it?
00:44:08
Speaker
All right? Okay? So like, hold on. So right there is already an element of coercive control because let me explain this. Let me walk you through this, right? So once you get that coveted spot that you had to compete for to achieve, right, to obtain, you're suddenly in a department with a bunch of other competitors who beat out other competitive competitors and now feel Like being there itself is still a competition, right? So that the buyers are still competing with each other once they get in, once they're allowed, once they're been approved as buyers of the product, they still have to compete with each other to keep the product.
00:44:54
Speaker
they They haven't been delivered the degree. They haven't been delivered the education. They haven't been given the letters of recommendation that they're going to need to go out and get the next degree or the next job. You're still on the hook, right? Okay. And what exactly are you on the hook for? Now, here's where the power comes in.
00:45:12
Speaker
Oh, well, you know, like that that professor. God, I would love to name her. i would love to name her. Please don't get in me sued. If you're listening out there, hi. I still see you. I still see you. Like, I remember that day you threw my paper in my face and gave me a C- minus on it, even though I had so many other people review it from the library and make sure that it was ah aligned with your assignment criteria, because I knew that you didn't like my opinions, that, like, you know, Dan's I'm not going to get into it. Okay, no, anyway. Off air, I can tell you about my experience, my freshman English class when I wrote a paper, The Inequality of Drug Laws. But but we're we're talking about you. So yes you said power.
00:45:54
Speaker
Right, so then you don't like my opinions, ma'am. I'm not gonna call you doctor at this point, ma'am. You don't like my opinions, so you lower my grade, not because I'm not allowed to have my own opinions, but because my opinions and the degree of excellence with which I argued them is a threat to your opinions. In other words, it's a threat to your territory.
00:46:21
Speaker
I have become a liability to the territory that you, ma'am, claim to be a PhD of.
00:46:29
Speaker
That you are out there presenting on at conferences. Who is this girl to come over here and take a piece of my territory? C minus. Paper in the face. Out the door. That's what's really going on. It's territory. It's territory that they're fighting over. It is intellectual territory that comes at a price point.
00:46:51
Speaker
Right? So you think when you're going into higher ed, you're like, oh, I'm going to go get a degree and I'm going to go get a job. and then you find out that the departmental politics are not unless you kick up.
00:47:06
Speaker
Help me expand my territory and I might open a door for you. I might. That's the coercion. It's implied the whole way through.
00:47:18
Speaker
And not only that, you've paid a price for a product that you haven't obtained yet. They have your money, but you don't have what you bought yet. So you have to cooperate with them every step of the way. Now, if you're a predator, you're a bad actor, you see a cute young thing that you want to sleep with, how easy is that to exploit? Hmm.
00:47:41
Speaker
Especially if they've gone into debt like I did. Especially if they came from an abusive home like I did. No network of support. Nobody's going to help them file a lawsuit.
00:47:53
Speaker
Who are they going to tell? no one's going to believe them.
00:47:59
Speaker
Because everyone in the department is playing the same game. Power.
00:48:06
Speaker
Do you...
00:48:09
Speaker
trying to think of a delicate way to ask this question. Because now we're getting to your abuse. okay
00:48:20
Speaker
Do you see parallel isn't the right word. I'm going to get there, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to get there to the question the way want to word it. I get to sip my coffee while you do that. OK.
00:48:33
Speaker
So all of those things. You come from a poor background. You get a scholarship. They take away your scholarship. Now you're in student debt.
00:48:46
Speaker
he's That had to have made you more susceptible to the abuse. But do you think the re that there's any connection with the resentment with your mother that led there to let that led to that as well?
00:49:04
Speaker
and i'm trying to I'm trying to frame this question in a way that there's a connection from... do you think there's a connection with the anger you felt towards your mother?
00:49:18
Speaker
The kind of... m
00:49:24
Speaker
It's almost like you you stopped respecting her because of what happened. not Not because of what happened, but because of the lack of fight.
00:49:38
Speaker
Was there something that when it was happening to you that you recognized, oh, this is what my mom was going through, i understand it better now?
00:49:49
Speaker
Or was it just, no, I don't understand it any better Oh, I absolutely understood my mom so much more, so much more, so much more, especially because, you and the older I get, the more I understand her. The more I think, wow, women weren't even allowed to open a bank account until the eighty s you know, or, you know, women were the last people to get the right to earn income in this country.
Reflections and Parallels in Abuse
00:50:15
Speaker
You know, like I, the more I learn, the more i regret my naivete and my initial relationship with my mother, know, But also, i think I'm going to come back to clone Julie.
00:50:29
Speaker
Once I got to higher ed, right, and i i survived this horrific train accident of an upbringing, right, and and did ah so what nobody else could have done to get those scholarships to college, I i thought that I had the space To be my whole authentic self.
00:50:57
Speaker
I thought that I had the space to love what I was doing enough to question things. You know, to love what I was doing enough to excel at it. And boy, did I excel.
00:51:10
Speaker
I mean, I was... stuff that I was doing as an undergrad was being discussed internationally. you You know, everybody uses AI now. By the way, my senior capstone in 2007 was simulated AI software for dance. I did that by myself. I taught myself how to do it.
00:51:29
Speaker
Okay. But I wasn't worthy of scholarships. Oh, really? Okay. So let's see. You know, and There's more to that story, too, because even though my entire undergraduate department didn't give me a single scholarship except for that $500 one, right? I got one from the College of Fine Arts in that school. So like some dean saw my work and was like, throw her a scholarship, right? So but my own faculty wouldn't do that.
00:51:55
Speaker
And then, you know, I got accepted into the number one department for dance in the world on a full scholarship and TA ship. Right. So why was it that that the number one department on the planet was like her and pulled me in with full funding? But these people over here didn't want to fund me. Why is that?
00:52:15
Speaker
Going back to Clone Julie. Like I said, and my mom and these questions that you're asking.
00:52:24
Speaker
I thought, I was under the delusion when I went to higher education that it was a merit-based system. So the more I figured out, not mentally, but just through experience, like experientially, that it that it was not merit-based, the more angry i got, you know? And at a certain point, realizing that there was a zero-sum game, that no matter what I did,
00:52:56
Speaker
I had been blacklisted. Like, ah and then I left. So I invested at that point, like, to say eight, how many years was it?
00:53:09
Speaker
three, seven, 10 years in a degree that I ended up having to completely walk away from because I was blacklisted by these faculty that exploited me, stole my work, blackmailed me, sexually harassed me, you know? So it's like, you know, yes, absolutely. I thought of my mom. And, and also during that time, my mom published her own memoir, which you guys are going to love this. Hang on.
00:53:40
Speaker
This is my mom's memoir. oh wow. For those that are listening to the audio, first of all, jump on the YouTube page, check out the video. But this is her mom's book. I can't zoom in because of the glare. I can't see the title. But Julie, can you tell the audience what the title is?
00:53:59
Speaker
Crazy people can be very dangerous. Am I? Mm. And it is, let me tell you how many pages her her book is. 500 plus pages, okay? And this was part one of three that she wrote.
00:54:17
Speaker
And reading her book at the time that it came out, I was in grad school. And that yeah, absolutely. I... i started to seeing my mom in a whole different light. Like, you know, and and and I remember thinking like, well, maybe i should be grateful that I had these terrible experiences because now I can relate to her better. But I don't see it that way. I see it as me and my mom were
00:54:43
Speaker
both a couple of hood bitches that got put through a hood life. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I'm going to say. Like, it was not
00:54:53
Speaker
We were both, so let's say, casualties, you know, of like kind of mass sexism and gender based violence. And so eventually she knew I was going to learn that. You know, why do you think she was like, you you know, Julie, you think, you know, everything. OK, college girl.
00:55:07
Speaker
oh you want to call the cops? What are the cops going to do? You know, like. I had to find that out the hard way as an adult. And unfortunately, higher education was a part of that learning experience for me, very sadly. But you know what? I'll tell you something, Bruce. It's not uncommon. And I'm going to show you another book right now. I'll tell you the title for people at home. I just started reading this book.
00:55:29
Speaker
It was published, i want to say, November of 2025. I'm going to confirm this real quick to make sure I didn't get it wrong. It's by a woman named Nicole Badera. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that right. 2024. Oakland, California.
00:55:40
Speaker
It is called
00:55:43
Speaker
it is called on the wrong side. There's a blur here. Okay. How universities protect perpetrators and betray survivors of sexual violence.
00:55:57
Speaker
And I'm not even going to get into all the things that I've read so far, but let me just tell you this. Underneath that book is another book called Broken Record, Gendered Abuse in Academia.
00:56:08
Speaker
And this one was published in 2025, late compiled by some academics. fifty after the Me Too movement.
00:56:19
Speaker
Do you think there's a direct correlation? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Me Too and the now people coming forward with academic abuse? Oh, absolutely. And we talk about that. It's both of these authors, or excuse me, both these texts talk about Me Too, post Me Too in the book. And I relate to that too, because I remember like looking back and being like,
00:56:45
Speaker
God, we weren't talking about this back then. It was all swept under the rug. And like, it's that's part of why it was so hard for me to realize it was happening because we didn't even have a cultural language for it.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah. know Yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker
I don't want to give everything about your book away because we want people to go buy your book. But with your opening line that you read at the top of the interview, your book is very personal, very emotional.
00:57:26
Speaker
What was that experience like for you writing this book? Yeah, I actually, i didn't plan on writing a book when I started writing it. I had just reached the end of my rope with higher ed and left and was sick for a few months and needed to to start unpacking things and thought writing would be a good place to start. And I just never stopped writing. And i I can't believe that. But the I wrote 180,000 words in six weeks. That's how much I was unpacking.
00:57:56
Speaker
And so there are chapters that unfortunately are not in this book that you guys will never read, never hear about. Things that are far more graphic than I have let on.
00:58:11
Speaker
But what it was like. awesome. It was so awesome. I remember telling people I felt like I was on fire. And it's part of why I got, that's part of where the title comes from, is I really felt like I'd be up until four in the morning. I'd sleep for two hours. I'd get up, I'd keep writing.
00:58:30
Speaker
And it felt like, you know, I, I very much felt up until the point that I left higher ed, like I was in this little cage, that I was in this invisible cage of threats and abuse and coercion and silence and retaliation and fearing that if I ever spoke out, harm would come to me or my family. Right.
00:58:54
Speaker
And I was on the run. Blinds were closed, you know. And so as I started writing, i for the first time, so remembered so many things that I had blocked out and like named so many things that I didn't have language for, validated things that I had gaslit my own self out of even believing over the years. like You'd think like after everything that I went through that I was angry about it the whole time. No, that's not how that works. I stuffed it down.
00:59:24
Speaker
And I was in denial, like big time denial about everything that I went through. And I i could because it was so shocking. I couldn't even believe the shit was happening to me. I i couldn't even believe it. It was like happened to somebody else, you know.
00:59:40
Speaker
So sitting down and writing it all out, it was like moving the bars. Like I started to push the bars out and get up and walk around and look at them and see where the bolts were screwed in and and be able to start loosening them. and And at some point during the writing process, I started to realize there is a way to flip this cage inside out.
01:00:03
Speaker
so that I'm on the outside and the people that built this cage are in it. Like they're in my narrative now. Like I control my victim's story.
01:00:16
Speaker
I control this. And boy, is that powerful. That is so powerful.
01:00:25
Speaker
And i think the other thing that writing this did for me is help me realize something that most people that have gone through what i've so what I have will never, it'll never even occur to them to think.
01:00:41
Speaker
I now know that I was sexually trafficked in higher education. It was trafficking. Because most people don't know that sex trafficking
01:00:53
Speaker
ah for those who are not minors, right? Happens because of force, fraud, coercion. Those are the three, force, fraud, coercion, and the fourth, debt coercion.
01:01:08
Speaker
And it's so easy to see now how much I was labor trafficked and sex trafficked through higher
Julie on Trafficking in Higher Education
01:01:16
Speaker
ed. And I do believe that higher ed has a trafficking issue, and I am working on my next book. As a result of that, it's going to be called Ivory Cuffs, Human Trafficking in Higher Education, and I'm going to be looking at cases that that I track on my dashboard at AcademicAbuse.com. I'm going to be looking at cases like OSU and University of Michigan. and by the way, there's something like 20 more athlete cases that have come out in the last couple of years where athletes are accusing their coaches and ah directors of various forms of abuse.
01:01:45
Speaker
I'm going to start looking at all these cases and I'm going to start analyzing them like a lawyer would looking for force, fraud and coercion and identifying the cases where victims were actually trafficked knowingly and unknowingly, meaning that the environment of higher education itself provided the force, fraud and coercion necessary to pressure the victims into cooperation or subordination or whatever was happening.
01:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's my next project. Wow. And yes, I'm pissed. Yeah. I mean, that's, there's a reason to be pissed about that. yeah Let's, let's go back to your first project.
01:02:21
Speaker
And as you're writing this burn list, as you're describing it to me, I think back 18 year old Julie at Kent State journaling.
01:02:32
Speaker
And it just seems like journaling is your release. So as you're journaling, as you said, you weren't planning to make it a book.
01:02:42
Speaker
Right. But at some point, you decided, I'm going to make all this personal stuff, very personal stuff, public. Yeah. Two questions. Yeah.
01:02:55
Speaker
When in the writing process did you decide that? And did your mom, being a published memoir author, have any influence on on that decision?
01:03:08
Speaker
I'll answer the last question first because it's the easy one. i It actually had nothing to do Love my mom. I think I'm just an apple from her tree, i think is what that really is. I think somehow the call in us, like I think when you go through so much abuse, you need an outlet for it. Like you want to tell your story. You want it to matter.
01:03:27
Speaker
You know, you don't just want it to be in vain. And my mom, let me tell you, was a very, very gifted musician, ah visual artist, writer, you know, she was gifted and I've seen a lot, right? She was gifted.
01:03:43
Speaker
And so I think she was trying to reclaim her artistic voice in the same way that I was trying to reclaim mine. and i and and as women from the same family tree, it's like, wow, how powerful is that, right? And I do reference my mom's book in my book and, and I'm hoping that people follow that legacy and go back and read her book too. She's no longer with us. So she doesn't even know that I've published, but I like to think that she's up there in the next realm, like, uh, you know, smoking a joint.
01:04:14
Speaker
like yeah I'm proud of your kid, you know, listen to the Beatles, but, uh, The first, the other question, the former question, like, at what point did I decide I was going to publish? Boy, that was tough. My partner was the one who kind of nudged me because I just, one morning I'd been up all night and he's like, well, what were you doing?
01:04:35
Speaker
And I was like, well, I was writing. And was like, I wrote, like 20 pages last night. And he was like, well, if you get to 30, you got a book. And i I didn't think that I would get there. I was just like, but I couldn't stop.
01:04:50
Speaker
And the next time I talked to him, because I had go pet sitting across town, i came back and I was like, I wrote, I can't remember, it was like 60,000 words or something like that. It was a lot while I was there.
01:05:03
Speaker
And he was like, Julie, you might have a trilogy. And within weeks, I had more than enough for a trilogy. But I, i you know, i still wasn't thinking I was going to write a book at all. at that point, I was still just sorting out my books.
01:05:22
Speaker
I was tagging the bodies on a post-war battlefield and sending them home for a proper burial. That was what I was doing. I was not trying to write a book.
01:05:32
Speaker
But I will tell you that as part of that process, once the writing got to a certain point, you know, almost 200,000 words, I had decisions that I needed to make about what part of this battlefield I was going to clean up next, you know. And so I had to go back and really look At all the bodies. Right. And like be like, okay, so where do I want to go next? Like who who gets shipped first? And that was when I noticed the theme that i that most of my story, you know, involved so much abuse in higher end.
01:06:07
Speaker
Like that that what happened up to 18 is not what keeps me up at night. I don't have nightmares about watching my mom get beaten and raped. I don't have nightmares about sexual abuse and physical abuse growing up. I don't have nightmares about, you know, the two by fours to the back of the head, the being creeped on in the middle of the night. I don't have nightmares about those things.
01:06:32
Speaker
I have nightmares about what happened to me in higher education. I have nightmares about specifically the first professor to coercively rape me. He's the one I have the most nightmares about.
01:06:46
Speaker
And there's only one explanation for that. You know, it's that we're taught so much that this is a safe place. we're We're told that to put our futures in these people's hands And when you do that, specifically in this environment, they have the power to completely crush you.
01:07:11
Speaker
And in my case, they did. They crushed me. And I've been climbing up through the rubble ever since. Like, just, you don't want to know. i Like I said, doll bitch on the front, Chucky bitch in the back. Like, you don't want to know what it looks like on the inside. It's a good God bloody damn mess. Like,
01:07:28
Speaker
so
01:07:31
Speaker
at At that point, when i realized that the focal point was higher ed, it became a matter of public concern. i was like, this is something that people need to know about.
01:07:43
Speaker
Now, what are the risks to me? And I spent months thinking about the risks. Who are the bad actors that could find this out and want to harm me or harm my family? How do I indemnify myself against those threats?
01:07:56
Speaker
I hooked up a very expensive surveillance system on my home that is monitored twenty four seven I have changed my name. I have changed my address, like changed business names and entities. I've transferred copyright and intellectual property ownership out to business names that are anonymous withholdings companies. I've got a lot of different layers to protect myself.
01:08:18
Speaker
a And I used pseudonyms in the end, right, to do this. But And i even I even took it through a literary attorney to review the text and help me work through legal concerns. Like I did a lot. I spent a lot of money on protecting myself in this process.
01:08:38
Speaker
That being said, you know what happened, Bruce?
01:08:42
Speaker
It became a situation where living in silence was so painful. Running was so painful that it was killing me.
01:08:54
Speaker
e And I was like, well, if I'm going to be living this way anyway, to the point where I don't care if I live or I die, then what the is the difference? And you can bleep that out. Like, what the is the difference?
01:09:07
Speaker
Like, if if they're going to kill me, if they're going to abduct me, if they're going to threaten me, then go on ahead and do it. come and get me. Like, come and get me. I'm going to come for you, is what I'm saying. And I don't mean you, the people in my book that are under pseudonyms. I don't mean them.
01:09:24
Speaker
I mean the entire rotten to the core system. like because this is what is going on. And I am no longer willing to be silent about it. And I know that I have a bunch of people in my newsletter, the hundreds of them that open it and read all the stories of like all the different latest abuse cases. And they don't say anything because they're all scared to lose their jobs. And I'm just like, You know, and you're part of the problem. You're the bystanders that are part of the problem. You know, so like, I don't I don't care anymore. I just know this.
01:09:52
Speaker
Me fighting higher ed. OK, like. It's not on me to do it and I can't do it by myself. But my issue is this.
01:10:04
Speaker
It is the very most important stop on a person's pathway to social and economic upward mobility. It is the most powerful stop on that pipeline.
01:10:21
Speaker
And for them to be doing what they're doing, why is it that 38 universities have Epstein ties in my dashboard? Why is it there that there's like 20 different college athletics scandals of sexual and physical abuse?
01:10:39
Speaker
Why is it that there's so many Title IX allegations in the news? I've got over 8,000 stories in my dashboard. Half of them are Title IX and harassment.
01:10:50
Speaker
The other half are discrimination. What the fuck is going on? That's a lot. And those are only the cases that are being reported. So I'm looking at this as it's really, it's a public crisis. I think it's an epidemic. I think we have a huge problem on our hands. And you know while people are are very fired up with moral outrage over the Epstein files right now, I'm just like, okay, okay.
01:11:16
Speaker
But that's the island, right? That's what happened on Epstein's island. Okay. Look at what's happening on campus right here, right here.
01:11:28
Speaker
Like, so that's, that's what, that's what bothers me is I'm like, I see it as trafficking. I see it as labor trafficking. I see it as sex trafficking. And I think the most vulnerable are women and people of color, period dot.
01:11:40
Speaker
And that's a problem. And that's the reason why you decided to publish it, even though yeah it's very personal and very emotional. And that's yeah it's noble.
01:11:52
Speaker
That's noble. So thank you. Before I get you out of here, I want to talk about your website. Because you you're not just, you didn't just write a book about
Initiatives for Recovery and Empowerment
01:12:01
Speaker
it. You're actively trying to help people. And when I was on your website, I saw something that I was really about.
01:12:08
Speaker
interested in and that's the recovery academic. Can you explain to me what that is? or Explain to me and the audience what that is and how that's helping people. Okay. So the recovering academic workbook is a new resource that I've been building for the last couple of months and it draws on cult recovery.
01:12:28
Speaker
So like if you've been, if you've watched, you know, so for everyone who's listening at home, if you've been in a high control environment, whether that's a religious institution or a gang or just a family shitshow.
01:12:48
Speaker
There are things that happen. There's like identity erosion that happens. There are tools that are wielded against you in order to get you to comply and be subservient and reward the system that is working. right I recognize that higher education is also a high control environment.
01:13:08
Speaker
And that, you know, if you if you talk to any professor, they'll use a fancy word. They'll call it indoctrination. That when you go to college, you get indoctrinated with whatever their professors' ideals and beliefs and opinions are.
01:13:25
Speaker
That's true. I call it cult. I think it's a cult. I think it behaves like a cult. I think it operates like a cult. I think the coercion is the same. I think the power dynamics are the same. I think the identity erosion is the same. I think the trauma is the same.
01:13:42
Speaker
So I worked on adopting methods for recovering from high control environments and ported them over to toward higher ed. And the workbook is really, it's not designed to kind of like educate you about all of that. That's not what it's there for. It's designed to get to you to ask questions, just to ask questions that You probably haven't asked if you if you're in higher ed or you're you working there or you've you know got your grad degree or whatever. You know, it's just like a basic question. Like, you know, who were you when you first enrolled? Like the day that you drove up and unpacked your your dorm?
01:14:23
Speaker
Like, what were you hoping for? What did you love? What was your personality like, you know? And just think about that. Just think about that. i i don't know if this is pushback, but are you saying that you believe college is a cult?
01:14:46
Speaker
Oh, no, I'm saying it's a high control environment that is cult-like in the way that it operates. I could also call it a mafia. You know what I mean? For that matter. It's definitely a mafia. yeah Because the only reason why I was thinking because and and I can only know what my experience is. Right. So I don't know if this is a general experience of everybody or is it just specific to groups of people.
01:15:11
Speaker
yeah I went to college and I am somebody who thinks that the greatest growth that you have as a person is going to college because it takes you out of an environment where everybody essentially is the same and puts you in an environment where there are so many differences that if you take the time can learn from and then not necessarily change your personality but evolve your whole being yeah into developing the true person that you... the most authentic version of ah of yourself that you can be. Because how can you...
01:15:50
Speaker
how can you be something that you've never seen before, right? Like how can you learn and grow from things that you've never experienced for before? So that's what I think in college. But I do kind of also agree that there are a lot of students who this is, they they get good grades because they learn a material, they memorize the material, they regurgitate it for a project, a paper, a test, and then they go on to the next thing and they don't sit and critically think about the material that they're receiving.
01:16:20
Speaker
So I just just wanted to to see if that's what you were saying is that you thought college was a cult, but it has cult-like qualities.
01:16:32
Speaker
yeah And yeah, that's something i i mean I do agree with. I think a lot of things have cult-like qualities, a gem. I mean, corporate America, yeah know what I mean? like Let me put it this way. Like there is a difference between encountering material and encountering other people and choosing to grow from that and being stripped of your cultural identity, yeah that it's not allowed.
01:16:58
Speaker
Right. Like there there's a difference. There is. I'm talking about the latter. You know, there's a great essay called Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents. i forget who it's by, but you you see where this is going already. It's kind of about how women of color are allowed in the room, but only when they erase the signs of their cultural legacy. Assimilation. Only when they perform whiteness or white maleness you know or white upper-class maleness. you know And ah I've had to learn that.
01:17:37
Speaker
you know And and ah honestly, I'll be honest with you guys, I'm not very good at it and I don't like it and I think it's bullshit. And so I would be the person in the room that would be like, okay, so we want to talk about DEI.
01:17:50
Speaker
Let's talk about DEI the way that I would talk about DEI, okay? Let's talk about it from the standpoint of me being a woman from an abusive home, right? Like from a first-gen, at-risk background, you know,
01:18:06
Speaker
I'm different. I'm a different person at this table than people who are not first generation, whose parents paid for their college, who are white, upper class. You know, I'm i'm different.
01:18:19
Speaker
So why do i have to learn to talk like you in order for my thoughts to be valid? You know what I mean? And I did. I had to do it. I had to send out another clone, Julie, just to be allowed in the room.
01:18:33
Speaker
Right? And that's... That's cultural erasure. You know what saying? Like, it's not okay. You can't just have affirmative action is not just like, let's have a token woman and a token black person in the room. And then we fulfilled our quota as so long as we treat them like shit afterward.
01:18:51
Speaker
You know what i mean? That's not it. That's not the point. That's not the point. You know what i mean? You don't culturally erase people when they're in the room. Right.
01:19:02
Speaker
So, Learn from me. I've learned from you. I have the two master's degrees. I can reiterate all the, i can I can regurgitate all the literature. I can tell you all the fun facts that I've learned. I can tell you about all the people that I've met that challenged me and made me grow.
01:19:17
Speaker
What about me is challenging you? What about me is helping you grow and learn? Or am I just expected to swallow the Kool-Aid again and again? I'm not doing that.
01:19:28
Speaker
And that's, again, why I left and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because... I've, I've swallowed enough, Bruce. I've swallowed enough. I've swallowed enough in my life and there's no room anymore. Yeah. That's what happened. I exploded. We're done. can understand that.
01:19:43
Speaker
If there was one thing that we've talked about a lot, there but if there was one thing that you want to hammer home to our audience, what would it be?
01:19:55
Speaker
One thing. That's a tough one.
01:20:01
Speaker
One thing on this whole topic. Yeah. I probably would say
01:20:10
Speaker
familiarize yourselves with the workings of coercion. And you really look into what force, fraud, and coercion mean. Learn to recognize it when it's happening so that you can get around it.
01:20:27
Speaker
Yeah. And I know that's I wish I had like a punchier one liner for you, but there's but the most dangerous thing that's operating in higher ed right now is absolutely coercive control combined with systemic racism and misogyny. That's the most dangerous thing in higher ed right now. It's bad.
01:20:44
Speaker
yeah And I know it. I can tell you I know it, especially from reading On the Wrong Side, this book by Nicole Badera, How Universities Protect Perpetrators and sort of Betray Survivors of so Sexual Violence, like and this book, Broken Record. like I'm like, i'm I'm studying this stuff. I'm not just talking out of my ass about my lived experience, which would be one thing, and that would be enough. Right.
01:21:06
Speaker
But I have a ton of literature on academic abuse dot com. You can go read about it. I'm adding stuff to it all the time. You can subscribe. i talk about stuff there in my newsletter. But, yeah, I think if you really want to get down into it, like if you really want to know how coercive control works, I'm.
01:21:22
Speaker
I include a pretty serious section on it in my memoir, The Burn List, a memoir of abuse from home to higher education, where I'm actually doing a look back on the abuse that I went through and I'm comparing it to these types of mechanics of control and abuse that I studied and found out about. So you you'll get to see the play-by-play of how the coercion kind of like tumbled out, right, without it being named.
01:21:54
Speaker
yeah And then you get to go back and go, and then you tag the bodies on the post-war battlefield, and you go, that was this. That was identity erosion. That was indirect persuasion. That was an indirect threat.
01:22:06
Speaker
That was gaslighting. You know, i teach you the tools of how these kinds of coercive control play out.
01:22:16
Speaker
Oftentimes it's with plausible deniability. Keep your eye out for that one. Yeah. Julie, I want to thank you for not just coming on the show.
01:22:29
Speaker
for being so open and answering some of the personal questions where I detoured, but you gave me the space to and to ask them and I answered them with humility and a true emotion and honesty.
01:22:48
Speaker
And I just want to thank you for that because I know that the audience learned from this conversation, and so did I. So I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and your work with us.
01:23:04
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. I'm taking that with me. I'm going to write that on my wall. It was absolutely my pleasure. First, I want to thank Julie for coming on the show and being so open, so honest, and so vulnerable with us.
01:23:21
Speaker
Because this wasn't a conversation about policy, not solely. It was not just a but ah conversation about academia. Julie led us in the parts of her personal life, her family history, her trauma, her work, and more importantly, her purpose.
01:23:37
Speaker
And that takes a real level of courage that deserves to be acknowledged and praised. So Julie, thank you for being so open, so honest, so candid, and helping us learn and grow.
01:23:52
Speaker
Her book, The Burn Lists, her platform, AcademicAbuse.com, and her workbook, The Recovery Academic, are all connected to the same mission. And that mission is helping people recognize what happened to them, name it, and start finding a way back to themselves.
Addressing the Broader Societal Issue of Abuse
01:24:11
Speaker
But here's the uncomfortable part that people don't want to talk about. A lot of abuse does not survive because nobody sees it. It s survives because too many people see pieces of it and decide it's safer, easier, or more convenient to look away.
01:24:29
Speaker
And it's not just an academic problem. It's a people problem. It's a workplace problem. It's a family problem. It's a societal problem because when someone is inside of a system that holds their future, their reputation, their income, their education, their ah opportunities, speaking up, it's not so simple.
01:24:52
Speaker
It's not just tell the truth and everything will work out. Sometimes telling the truth is the very thing that costs you everything. and that's what makes this conversation so important because before people can fight a system, they have to be able to name what's happening to them.
01:25:08
Speaker
They have to be able to recognize coercion. They have to be able to recognize manipulation, recognize when opportunity is being used as control, recognize when silence is not peace,
01:25:21
Speaker
It's survival. And maybe the hardest part in this, when people finally do speak, our first instinct should not be to ask, why did it take so long?
01:25:32
Speaker
Maybe the better question is, what kind of system made silence feel like it's the safest option? Because power doesn't show up in who gets to speak.
01:25:45
Speaker
Power shows up in who gets believed, who gets protected. who gets punished, and who gets told to move on while the system keeps moving exactly the way it always has. That's the reason why Julie's work is so important.
01:26:02
Speaker
Because this isn't an about one person's story. It's about what happens when people who are supposed to stay quiet start putting language to what they survived.
01:26:13
Speaker
And once people have language, they have power. And once they have the power, cycle stays the system has a problem.
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:26:26
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for watching. And until next time, as always, I'll holler.
01:26:39
Speaker
That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise.
01:27:02
Speaker
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01:27:27
Speaker
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01:27:56
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for listening and watching and supporting us. And I'll catch you next time. Audi 5000. Peace.