Image: John Yip / Photopeutic / Dr. Jatinder Mann has stepped down from the UFV due to bullying and harassment from staff members

By Alyssa Conti

A LOOMING PREDECESSOR

UFV South Asian Studies director resigns due to bullying, harassment

Jan 2, 2026 | 9:55 AM

ABBOTSFORD — A U.K. academic’s dream job as director at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in Abbotsford turned out to be a “nightmare” only months after his appointment, ultimately leading to him stepping down from the position.

Dr. Jatinder Mann began working for the university’s South Asian Studies Institute (SASI) to fill the shoes vacated by Dr. Satwinder Bains – shoes that seemingly went sizes bigger than professional boundaries allowed.

“My team saw my predecessor as their mother or older sister,” said Mann. “I found this extremely disturbing to be perfectly honest and it was not a helpful or healthy dynamic for a new Director succeeding them in the position.”

‘Less social capital’

Bains founded the Institute in 2000 and served as its director for nearly 25 years until her retirement in August. SASI completed several archival and community-building achievements during that time, but Mann said his predecessor was also heavily involved in team members’ personal lives.

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“The most disturbing thing was my predecessor said that they had gone over to their then team member’s house to intervene in the domestic incident episode at midnight one day.”

Mann said this impact allowed his predecessor have a larger-than-life presence among staff members. A member of SASI’s Advisory Committee and an external partner once noted during a meeting that he had less social capital compared to Bains.

“I had only been in my position for a few months. How could they expect me to build a level of social capital as my predecessor, who had been there for two decades in such a short space of time.”

When it became apparent that he “could never be [his] predecessor,” he began experiencing several instances of bullying and harassment, with staff members gossiping and failing to respect his authority as director.

“A particular ‘highlight’ was all of them ganging up on me and shouting at me at an open chat that I held with them, which I had begun by asking that we all be respectful of each other,” he shared.

Mann added that the Institute had a very Us vs. Them culture and that his predecessor would remark several times about how the administration outside SASI was “nearly exclusively White.”

“One of my team members said [to] refer to the other research centres and institutes at UFV as the ‘White centres’ – which was factually incorrect if nothing else.”

Failing to find peace

After several attempts at conflict resolution with SASI personnel, the situation worsened when Mann said he found his line manager waiting for him in the small car park outside his office building one morning.

“The whole experience freaked me out and made me feel very unsafe at work, which led to me working from home.”

His last straw was that, during his sick leave, he discovered that a photo of him in the SASI lobby had been replaced with a stranger’s, and that he’d been removed from the list of Faculty Associates.

Mann left the position in December 2025.

“The decision to resign and leave my position was not an easy one, as my family and I made a lot of sacrifices to make the move from the United Kingdom to Canada,” said Mann.

“I truly feel that I was sadly not given a chance in my position, which is a real shame as several colleagues at UFV and members of the community expressed to me that I had so much to offer SASI, UFV, and the broader South Asian community.”

The UFV told Fraser Valley Today that it has no additional information and will not comment further on the situation, as it involves a personnel matter.