Might that academic community respond by buying more Steem and launching a "bidding war"?
This is similar to what I speculate as well:
Since it takes STEEM Power to perform vote negation, this will have the side-effect of creating additional utility for STEEM Power, which could translate to more demand. If a user decides they want to negate another user, but they still want curation rewards, they'll have to get more STEEM Power.
https://steemit.com/steem/@inertia/creating-demand-for-steem-power-vote-negation
I do think we have seen that happen in practice with some of the "flag wars" of the past. One time I remember in particular, I was assuming that Steem's value was going up because two parties were both powering up to downvote each other. It's ironic that when that happens, the competitors strengthen each other by bidding up the value of their stakes.
OTOH, sometimes the target doesn't fight back, but instead they pack up and leave. That's harder to do when they're tied to an on-chain endowment, though.