This chapter offers an auto-ethnographic account of my experiences of working as a critical social work educator and trade unionist in contemporary academia. In doing so it provides insight into the increasingly neoliberalised higher education sector, and some of the challenges this context can pose for academics who adopt a critical stance and conceptualise education as having the potential to contribute to a more socially just, equitable and democratic society. The chapter reflects on a managerial system that is wholly implicated in supporting and normalising bullying. The paper seeks to contribute to critical scholarship on higher education by theorising a considered, ethical response to neoliberal managerialism within universities. Critical pedagogy, collective action and collegial solidarity are suggested as practices of agency and resistance.