Five major ones
are: • Having opposed the candidate who ends up winning appointment as one's dean or
chair (thereby looking stupid,
wicked, or crazy in the latter's eyes); •
Being a ratebuster, achieving so much success in teaching or research that colleagues» envy
is aroused; • Publicly dissenting from politically correct ideas (meaning those held sacred by campus elites); • Defending a pariah in campus politics or the larger cultural arena; • Blowing the whistle on or even having knowledge of serious wrongdoing by locally powerful workmates.