In my eight-plus years at Stanford, I experienced many forms of quiet firing, which, according to Michigan State University professors Ayalla Ruvio and Forrest Morgeson, describes the intentional creation of “a hostile work environment that encourages people to leave voluntarily.”
In their Harvard Business Review article, Ruvio and Morgeson identified a variety of indicators of quiet firing, from changing work responsibilities to changes in communication, to changes in work conditions.
Of their list, here are a handful of the dignity violations I have experienced while an employee at Stanford:
- Reassigning important job responsibilities to other employees;
- Not assigning promising new opportunities;
- Preventing an employee from receiving a well-deserved promotion;
- Not providing expected yearly bonuses or raises;
- Increasing workloads to unreasonable or unmanageable levels;
- Taking away “perks” such as an office or parking spot;
- Not discussing career trajectory or providing performance feedback;
- Evaluating an employee unfairly, providing excessively harsh feedback, or constantly criticizing their work;
- Not providing critical information related to an employee’s work and responsibilities;
- Not giving an employee credit for their work, or even worse, giving the credit to others.
Another type of dignity violation that I have experienced has come through the editing process of my writing. Now, as someone with four degrees (including two MAs and a PhD) and who has written a book as well as hundreds of articles, I love being edited. Writing is a truly collaborative process. Even ask my book editor, since I would frequently ask her for more and more edits!
But I experienced a different kind of editing at Stanford Social Innovation Review — one that destroyed my voice by whitewashing (I’d say, castrating) my language.
When the former EIC Eric Nee asked me to take over the Last Look a few years ago, I took on the responsibility with glee. Of course, it wasn’t Vogue‘s Last Look (which doesn’t contain a lot of words!), but it still was an incredible opportunity for me to put forth a lasting image, accompanied by my words, that represented the magazine’s mission “to advance, educate, and inspire the field of social innovation.”
But not only was my photo choice rarely accepted, my words were always edited by the deputy editor in a way that made me feel that it was pointless for me to author the piece in the first place. What ended up in the magazine often embarrassed me — it wasn’t my voice, or my perspective on the photo, so why was I writing it? (Perhaps, it was because I am a lesbian, and there was a performative element to having the queer, feminist killjoy write the Last Look?)
Case in point, my final Last Look for the Summer 2025 issue.
Here is what I originally wrote:
The Whirling Protest
Dressed in homage to the Sufi whirling dervishes, a protester whirls in defiance of the police during a protest on March 23—the day Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was jailed for alleged corruption and terrorism, in Istanbul, Turkiye. Imamoglu’s pro-democratic politics have positioned him as the leading challenger to authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the country in protest of Imamglu’s arrest and Erdogan’s intensifying crackdowns on dissent. However, it was the protester dressed as a whirling dervish, faced shielded from police pepper spray through a Cold-War-Era style gas mask, who most powerfully captured the meaning and symbolism of the moment: “The act of protest, particularly when embodied through rituals such as the whirling of the dervish, exposes a deep tension between the autonomy of the individual and the forces of control exerted by the state,” explains anthropologist Beliz Yuksel, who notes that the “whirling protest” originated in the Gezi Park protests of 2013.
The whirling protester represents a profound truth and necessity of this moment: We must keep turning—keep going, keep struggling against the gravity of state power—if we are to overcome the rising powers of authoritarianism and fascism worldwide. — Marcie Bianco
And here’s the final product:
The Whirling Protest
Dressed in homage to the Sufi whirling dervishes, a protester defies police during a protest on March 23 in Istanbul-the day Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was jailed for alleged corruption and terrorism. Imamoglu’s pro-democratic politics have positioned him as the leading challenger to authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The act of protest, particularly when embodied through rituals such as the whirling of the dervish, exposes a deep tension between the autonomy of the individual and the forces of control exerted by the state,” explains anthropologist Beliz Yuksel, who notes that the “whirling protest” originated in the Gezi Park protests of 2013.
The whirling demonstrator represents the revolution of the individual, the bedrock of democracy and civil society, against the gravity of authoritarianism and fascism worldwide. — Marcie Bianco
Editing is a type of quiet firing when it makes a person feel like they don’t matter, because their words don’t matter. Because their writing — which, emergent from one’s body, is always in part an expression of the self — ends up looking unrecognizable. Their words are erased, and they are erased.
Sure, the lack of bonuses, lack of communication and 1-1 meetings, and the absolute failure to provide me any upskilling opportunities was immensely frustrating, but being editing in this way cuts me to my core. I consider it the worst dignity violation of all.