LAUSR

We are writing this letter to report about our study on the effects of discriminatory job loss (DJL) on professionals and the coping strategies they use to overcome this hardship at the example of the mass purge of academics from Turkish universities and research institutes following political tension in 2016. We studied how the politicization of contemporary universities led to discriminative job loss in academia and how academics are coping with the adverse effects. These scholars were purged because of their world views, affiliations, or associations with certain groups, networks, or individuals. Getting in touch with these academics is difficult, as the trauma of the purge often followed by detention, imprisonment, and lengthy trials created anxiety and distrust to open up to anyone. We were able to get in touch with 41 scholars and received 36 complete email interviews which we categorized, compared, interpreted, and subjected to qualitative content analysis. We can define DJL briefly as the involuntary termination of employment (Bell et al., 2013). Affected employees are subjected to unfair treatment, harassment, and performance evaluations based on race, ethnicity, age, disability, religion, political views, and ideology instead of actual job-related performance. It deprives affected individuals of their financial income, or manifest benefits, and their latent benefits such as social status and networks, time structures, goals, and activities developed in connection with the organization (Jahoda, 1982). It derails their current lives and shatters their prospects for a future, as finding new work is a challenge without positive references from previous employers. Their stigma often deters potential employers from even considering them. This sense of exclusion, dismissal, and inability to find new work triggers physical and psychological problems (Benner et al., 2018). Many studies show that individuals devoid of their manifest and latent benefits have lower levels of physical and psychological well-being when compared to working individuals (Stolove et al., 2017). Raised stress levels provoke relationship problems and increased possibility for divorce, adverse effects on children in the household, and higher rates of mortality among males (Sullivan & von Wachter, 2009). In all, 70% of our interviewees stated that before they experienced DJL and incurred the above-stated hardship, they had good work relationships and enjoyed high social status (41.1%) and high quality of life (32.3%). More than a third of the academics in our sample were motivated researchers or lecturers (35.5%), and 17.5% had a steady record of publications, projects, or lab work. Once they were bereft of their work, social status, financial means, and often freedom, they survived by developing coping strategies. Victims cope, or adjust their behavior according their personal characteristics and their social network of family, friends, colleagues, and voluntary organizations honeycombing them. Spirituality and religion represent another major resource individuals