But the huge arrogance is what gets me.

Just take your experience in academia. How do these people sleep conscience-free?

Having said that, I'm pretty sure you can stand up for yourself. If you can do it, I'm pretty sure there are many who can call the others out. It takes a lot of standing together...keeping note...challenging.

I did experience a lot of nepotism in teaching, men giving other men jobs that many women were more than able to do, this a religious schools.

Not sure what the situation is now, but when I was teaching, the executive could choose which teachers of their staff could write them en end-of-year appraisal. o prizes for guessing what they did. That's akin to allowing students to correct their own homework.