'I’m mostly out of the gender wars now. I certainly did my time in the trenches.' (Credit: Greg Blatchford/CLICK NEWS AND MEDIA.)
Wheels of justice grind slow but grind big fine, as Sun Tzu once almost said. The Office for Students has now completed its three-and-a-half year investigation into free speech violations at Sussex University, hitting my former employer with a record penalty of £585,000. The fact that this is apparently only half of the sum first mentioned by the university regulator doesn’t seem to have cheered the Vice Chancellor up much.
“The… so-called investigation into the University I represent was flawed and politically motivated,” a furious Professor Sasha Roseneil wrote for Politics Home, shortly after the findings of academic freedom director Arif Ahmed were leaked to the Financial Times. Her experience of the investigation had been “Kafkaesque”, she said, and the “implications for the higher education sector could be dire”.
As it happens, I have some experience of Kafkaesque investigations at Sussex myself, so I can sympathise with Roseneil’s frustration. Under prolonged official scrutiny at various points for what I felt sure were fairly innocuous statements about sex and gender, I too felt a bit like Josef K at times. But the OFS’s investigation did not concern such stressful moments for me directly, nor did it deal with the equally surreal period of campus protests and harassment — posters and banners saying “Fire Stock”, manifestos in buildings telling people to “get angry” — before my resignation in 2021. Focusing instead on regulatory matters, its main conclusions relate to the university’s former “Trans and Non-Binary Policy”. As far as I am concerned, the findings are very welcome; I hope the sector finally pays proper attention.
In 2018, when this policy document was first published, something like it was mandatory for any organisation that wished to climb Stonewall’s then sought-after workplace rankings. The more radical you were prepared to be in eliminating traces of biological sex from your organisation, the better your chances of getting a virtual gong. Among other things, such policies were supposed to cover what bathrooms and changing facilities trans-identified people were entitled to use (typically, almost any of them); and what words would be tolerated about trans-identified people in classrooms (typically, a heavily restricted set). Many such policies were adapted from inherited templates, presumably originating with Stonewall, with the same clauses reappearing on university websites time and again. In my view, Sussex’s particular version set the tone for nearly everything that would then happen to me over the next few years, emboldening those at the university who were already against me, and enfeebling the morale of the rest.
The most egregious bit of the Sussex policy, in my eyes, was a clause which required that “any materials within relevant courses and modules will positively represent trans people and trans lives”. This seemed to me more like an instruction from a client to an advertising agency than a serious pedagogical commitment. Certainly, nothing like it existed for any other protected group, either at the time or since. This clause made it practically impossible to discuss with students what I saw as the severe detriments of defining “woman” in terms of inner feelings of gender identity, not biological sex: cases such as the trans-identified male prisoner Karen White, sexually assaulting female fellow prisoners in 2018, while “her penis was erect and sticking out of her trousers”, as was reported in a court trial shortly afterwards.
I tried to raise the matter with superiors but to no avail. Once, in a fraught meeting with a member of the senior management team, I was asked with some anxiety if my focus on male sexual assault statistics in relation to single-sex facilities implied I actually wanted to represent trans people negatively. Staggered at the stupidly Manichean terms being offered, I protested it did not, but did not feel believed. Over time, my teaching about sex and gender in feminist philosophy grew increasingly cautious, and most of my criticism of the sudden sanctification of gender identity took place elsewhere.
Still, in other ways I tried hard to raise the alarm to colleagues about the effects of trans policies on free expression, long before large fines on offending institutions were ever in the offing. I published letters in national newspapers, and gathered anonymous testimonies from colleagues across the country about how, in practice, academic freedom on sex and gender was being chilled. For a while, I was possibly the UK’s leading expert/biggest pub bore on the subject, collating a huge list of the most ludicrous clauses in university trans policies, circulating them to journalists, and writing about them in the press myself.
There was UCL’s policy, for instance, still online as I write this, which effectively turns lecturers into deferential intellectual lackeys, insisting that “If a trans person informs a staff member that a word or phrasing is inappropriate or offensive, then that staff member should take their word for it, and adjust their phraseology accordingly”. Or how about the University of Leeds’ version, also still up, which amalgamates two of the clauses found in breach at Sussex: “The University will strive to ensure that its curriculum does not rely on or reinforce stereotypical assumptions about trans people and that it contains material that positively represents trans people and trans lives.”
Academics who supported the introduction of these policies liked to pretend they only outlawed the truly “bad” sort of speech — you know, where bigoted, transphobic things were really being said — and not innocently meant or harmless statements. But how anyone was supposed to know the difference remained unclear; and especially not where Stonewall had taken the HR reins and was decreeing that “transphobia” now included “denying” someone’s gender identity “or refusing to accept it”. I have written or spoken variations upon that last sentence literally hundreds of times in the last five years, and so have lots of other people. I can’t tell you how bored I am of making such remedial points, obvious to anyone not educated into this level of stupidity. Yet many of these dim-witted, claustrophobic policies are still in place in universities across the land, right now.
Sussex, on the other hand, changed its policy to something more sensible a while ago, shortly after I left. The original one was published under then Vice Chancellor, Adam Tickell. Despite occasionally showing some awareness of problems caused by the old text’s wording, he seemed powerless to deal with them. Eventually, Tickell left to lead Birmingham University in 2021, just as I resigned. For this reason, I have been surprised by Roseneil’s combative response to the OFS judgement. I would have thought there was an opportunity here to regretfully concede past mistakes on someone else’s watch, then move on.
But in any case, I am afraid it is wishful thinking on her part to say of my time at Sussex that “the University has never wavered from its position… that her academic freedom and freedom of speech should be protected”; nor that “it has consistently and publicly defended her right to pursue her academic work and express her lawful beliefs”. Prior to her arrival in 2022, in my recollection there was indeed some wavering, not to mention rather patchy public defending. It would seem to me risky and expensive to hash out this evident difference of opinion in the glare of a high court legal challenge, but then again, what do I know: I’m just a former lecturer now, thank God.
Aside from her complaints about process, Roseneil also argues that the OFS’s ruling now makes it “virtually impossible for universities to prevent abuse, harassment or bullying, to protect groups subject to harmful propaganda, or to determine that stereotyped assumptions should not be relied upon in the university curriculum”. Leaving aside the daft idea that “stereotyped assumptions” can never be true — just think of the stereotypes about academics, for a start — I also think this complaint isn’t right. All university managers need to do is stop defining concepts such as “abuse”, “harassment”, or indeed “harmful propaganda” absurdly loosely, in order to pander to rapidly expanding notions of student victimhood and the crazed demands of moronic campaigners. This is not cold fusion or Fermat’s Last Theorem.
In any case, while I’ll never back down on saying sex matters more than gender identity, I’m mostly out of the gender wars now. I certainly did my time in the trenches. And I also gladly renounce the title “Professor”; I’m a former professor at most. In truth, no academic title means much to me anymore, such is my disgust for my former profession. Really, I’m a civilian now, with nobody looking over my shoulder. “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight”, is another Sun Tzu aphorism. And I really hope my former employer gets the hint.
Given Roseneil’s background and academic focus hardly a great surprise she just doesn’t get it. Strange appointment by Sussex showing they almost doubled down on their stupidity, and stupidity probably the most benign description of how they behaved. One hopes the size of the fine indicative the OfS realised how much of a shake back into reality they needed to give them.
Well done the Author, and well done too on Unherd giving her an outlet. One of the more consistently impressive contributors
I looked her up and she does seem to be a real piece of work, a person of limited ability who has manage to ride the gender/outrage train to the top.
Her claims that the “so-called investigation was flawed and politically motivated,” that her experience of the investigation had been “Kafkaesque” is itself Kafkaesque. Right our of the Bolshevik playbook.
Another superb piece by Kathleen Stock. It was particularly disingenuous of Roseneil to describe the judgement as preventing the university from acting against harassment or bullying. A common-sense definition of harassment or bullying applied to all without fear or favour within its policies is a simple first step.
In fact, this judgement highlights the current impossibility of an institution acting against harassment and bullying with any procedural sanity, impartiality or accountability. Currently it is literally impossible for anything to be legitimately expressed that a bad actor can’t claim to have been offended by and therefore be a victim of harassment.
It also means that for all practical purposes an employer can act with impunity by simply ignoring its obligations to observe the Equality Act 2010 and case law. An establishment can, if it chooses discipline or dismiss an employee for expressing himself in a way it disapproves of. This can easily include specious accusations of “bringing the establishment into disrepute” or breaching its “values”. The internal complaints system is just another example of an institution marking its own homework.
Faced with action against it, most students or academics at a Higher Education institute simply do not have the financial means or legal know how to contest it. Ideologically savvy activists know this, and as a result have no difficulty in themselves mobilising actual harassment in response to speech or behaviour they don’t like. They know what buttons to press and what approved HR jargon to employ. It also means they don’t face consequences in initiating their own brand of retribution.
Nor is membership of a trade union any insurance in the event of a tribunal or similar mechanism. A union member may easily find that his union is as ideologically captured as the employer bringing disciplinary action and feels no obligation to defend its members’ rights to freedom of speech.
Kathleen Stock deserves considerable credit for handling herself so admirably against the ideological mob and enabling this investigation to happen. This judgement by the Office for Students is a very welcome and hopefully a much needed turning of the tide in defending students or staff within universities to legitimately express themselves.
After news of the fine and censure for the University of Sussex emerged earlier this week, i was expecting this to be the topic of her next Unherd article.
She doesn’t disappoint.
After climbing towards the summit of academic prowess in the UK i’m pleased to read that she can let go of her Professor status with equanimity. Recognising the ultimate vanity of such positions against retaining and enhancing her personal integrity in the cause of intellectual freedom is an object lesson for the entire edifice of the academic world.
Would any of the down-tickers care to explain their action – or should we just assume it was an act of blind religious conformity on their part ?
They never do
The answer is simple, avoidance of adult responsibility, put another way infantile cowardice (with apologies to infants).
Because she should shout out she is a Professor still and always and the insane and hate filled Troon Industry is persecuting her – instead of giving in.
Watch ”Salty Cracker” on Rumble to see his mad rants against the Trans crazies, haha, really – give him a go.
Firstly I just love your “Peaky Blinders” picture heading this article, and secondly I do hope that when Sussex appeal this decision their fine can be increased commensurate with the injustice to you as an academic, women and feminism by allowing the trans lobby to persecute you out of your position.
If any of our lefty friends are looking for a handy way to understand “injustice,” they need look no further than the monstrous treatment suffered by Kathleen Stock at the University of Sussex.
Nothing particularly rightly or lefty about any of this. If anything the trans lobby is a kind of libertarian cause.
As Saul Bellow once said: ‘A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep’. This is precisely the problem at Sussex – they’re too far down the trans/’progressive’ rabbit hole to retreat. My bet is that they’d rather pay a £1m fine than back down on their ‘values’. The institution has been thoroughly corrupted by progressivist ideology. Only a root and branch clean-out and total de-politicisation of the place could possibly hope to affect change. Obviously, this is not going to happen. These people really do believe they’re fighting against some all-pervasive evil (i.e., mythical ‘systematic injustice’, Trumpism etc.), and that history will judge them kindly (after all, they believe they’re on the ‘right side’ of history) if they fight to the bitter end. How do I know? Because I work in a university and understand just how rotten they are! There is little likelihood of changing them without extremely punative measures, such as sacking and fining VCs and senior HR personnel. This might have an effect. But just don’t expect a £500k fine to change Sussex.
Well said.
I was particularly taken aback at the quote, “any materials within relevant courses and modules will positively represent trans people and trans lives”.
This must have come directly from one of Stalin’s memorabilia.
Re: your “I work in a university and understand just how rotten they are!” – Agree. Having worked in universities for four decades I feel confident in asserting that most of the idiots I have encountered in the world have PhDs.
I do not work at a university but do know a number of people with PhDs and I 100% endorse this statement.
The joke is: PhD stands for “piled high and deep”
One of the more self-aware PhD holders that I know said to me that getting a PhD basically meant “he knew more and more about less and less”.
The word “progressivist” or “progressive “is entirely wrong in any discussion of this type. The views described are the exact opposite & more accurately resemble the ancient “inquisition” attitudes in which any disagreement – or even suspected disagreement – with prescribed views are tortured out of you for the good of your soul!
Naturally, this treatment is always justifiable by the fanatical believers.
There are so many current affairs issues on which strong arguments can be made on both sides. The gender debate is one of the few areas where any sensible person, reading a bit around the subject, can only come to one conclusion: trans ideology and its founding article of faith – the existence of ‘gender identity’ independent of social constructs on the one hand and biological sex on the other – don’t make any sense at all. It doesn’t speak well of so many academics, BBC journalists, Guardian journalists and politicians, among others, that (1) they don’t appear to be intellectually capable of understanding the argument and (2) they are able to support an ideology that makes no rational sense and decry anyone who points that out.
There is a rational sense. If you value, say, ‘kindness’, or group loyalty, or being ‘on the right side of history’ more than truth – then you can support almost anything.
Well done fighting off the mob, congratulations, and good luck going forward. We are on your side.
PS I like the pun on the first line.
# me too. Nearly choked on my breakfast coffee. There is a word for it in German but being white, working class man ((shame & horror) I can’t remember it.
Delighted to see this result. You were treated appallingly and l hope the outcome, while much too late, gives you some closure and a feeling of having been vindicated.
You are being too kind to these people. They actively wished to cause you physical and emotional harm.
Looks like Sussex has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
I see their VC “has played a leading role in establishing the interdisciplinary fields of Gender Studies and Psychosocial Studies.”
No further comment needed.
I understand their medical teams are at the forefront of research into chest feeding for men. I’m not sure how far along they are with the men actually giving birth before feeding said baby.
Can there be such as ‘Gender studies’?
Looking through the web for Oxford I can find no such studies.
Though maybe the New University of the Midlands (previously Wigan College of Catering and Hospitality) offers one.
Kathleen Stock’s disgust at her former profession is justified. It seems the only way to preserve freedom of speech is to disassociate from institutions. She is certainly making the most of her newfound freedom and her insights are so welcome.
Things are dire in Australia. Our universities are becoming more rigid by the day.
This past few days we have seen Billboard Chris ordered to move on from where he was standing at the edge of a Brisbane mall, wearing his well-known billboard and waiting for conversation with anyone who wanted to engage with him. A council official and four police officers stood reprimanding him for ‘obstructing the public’. At the end of March he will appear in court to challenge the ruling of our extremely pro-gender-ideology e-Safety commissioner that a post of his was to be removed from X.
Australia really is severely lagging, rigid and behind on so many issues in society. Even to the point they confiscated my tiny nail scissors at security in Sydney airport, something abandoned by other countries years ago. It’s a small thing, but it’s indicative of the mindset.
Someone suggested it’s down to the origins of the white man in the colonies designated as convicts. Australia and New Zealand start from the premise everyone’s up to no good.
There was UCL’s policy, for instance, still online as I write this, which effectively turns lecturers into deferential intellectual lackeys, insisting that “If a trans person informs a staff member that a word or phrasing is inappropriate or offensive, then that staff member should take their word for it, and adjust their phraseology accordingly”.
My alma mater, oh dear.
In truth, no academic title means much to me anymore, such is my disgust for my former profession.
I was never an academic, but I have landed in the same place – mainly through acquiring ever more life experience and realising that the smartest people I know aren’t those who have spent record amounts of time in the university library and have fancy letters before or after their names. They’re the ones who can solve problems and get stuff done in the real world. The overlap between these two groups is small.
I am a ‘professor’ in a leading UK university. In my view, the title is utterly worthless, indeed quick becoming a mark of shame. I look around my own department at those who have obtained this ‘status’ and simply laugh. ‘Professor’ once meant something, now it means less than nothing. Like most things in modern hyper-inflated society, it has lost all currency.
Unfortunately, along with the police, the judiciary, and an awful lot of politicians most of the public lost any respect for these institutional figures a long time ago.
DEI apppointments?
I am genuinely sorry to hear that, it must be very demotivating for you. I hope you have enough things outside of work that gives you a sense of meaning.
… I should add that ‘promotions’ are no longer made on merit basis. This disappeared about 10 years ago. Now it’s done on protected characteristics: who has the most, and who can best exploit/manipulate the grievance and ‘social justice’ cultures that pervade the modern university sector.
… if this were not enough – wait for it – promotion processes in many UK universities now require an ‘EDI statement’. Yes, you read it correctly! It’s the same for hires. This is just how corrupt the sector has become. EDI statements are a naked political purity test, and everyone knows it. What all this means is that unless you can rehearse, chapter and verse, from the bible of woke, you have no chance of getting hired, no matter how good you are. I have actually witnessed a case where someone was turned down for a hire for a much less qualified candidate simply because he (and it’s always a ‘he’) did not genuflect enough to the woke gods. This also means that our universities are in a state of terminal decline, as standards continue to plummet.
The PhD, too, has lost most of its currency, and for the same reason. Then again, if people around here want to start addressing me as “Dr Skell,” I might find it flattering.
Agreed – that’s why I’m going for my LittD, simply to distinguish myself from the hacks and cranks who think they’re ‘scholars’ and ‘intellectuals’ just because they have PhDs. The LittD (or any higher doctorate) is a mark of true distinction. PhDs are very easy to get these days.
Good luck Graham, I’ve worked in low-level academia myself and know how horrible the atmosphere can be. Now working as a builder, here in rural Yorkshire at least they’re actually a better (more truthful, better ethical standards, more in touch with the reality of how things work) class of people.
Here’s one example of an extravagantly certificated individual who apparently didn’t measure up.
https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/chairman-helen-pitcher-reappointed-for-a-second-term-with-the-criminal-cases-review-commission-ccrc/
Remember the egregious Andrew Malkinson case?
Well said Kathleen Stock. Pusillanimous about sums up the beta brains running our universities. I am glad you have been vindicated but glader still that I get to read you here. You are one of the best things about UnHerd.
Poor lady… To be harassed like that by such a pack of morons. I’m also disgusted, but not at all surprised, by the cowardice of academic institutions. They’re all the same in this respect.
The Cultural Turn of the Left is vicious and largely F-scist in nature. Doubtlessly it is inspired and at least partly funded by China which is also a F-scist state posing as a Maoist regime.
Contrast the left-wing student culture of, say, uni of Essex in the 1980s which might have loved Derrida and Foucaut, but put their activist energies into conventional feminism, CND and supporting the minors.
Professor Butler and her support for the genocidal Hamas says all you need to know about the modern academic Left.
As ever, Kathleen Stock writes wonderfully.
I’ve been spared the horrible experiences she endured at Sussex and would say that most of my school teaching career has been a positive experience and, yet, as I’m close to retirement, I’m glad to leave.
The industrial-educational complex seems to me deeply corrupt. Maybe it always has been and I didn’t notice but I cannot help seeing it now.
Education is not about trying to pass on interesting ideas to young people at the moment, it’s about creating conforming citizens. While this was always true it was only true to the extent of fitting young people to be compliant employees. It seems to me, that education believes it can make good citizens, who hold the correct views and behave “appropriately”.
How very awkward for influential and powerful extremists on the far Left.
They used ‘mean girl’ gossip tactics and bigoted behind-the-scenes ‘reputational risk’ algorithms to secretly label vocal centrists as ‘extremists’ (since these centrists had done nothing wrong according to the law), and then dramatically damaged their careers and livelihoods. And for what? For the unofficial crime of not being radically progressive enough.
Many of these extremist progressives hid their decisions in secrecy and darkness precisely because they knew quite well that their bigoted decisions couldn’t withstand scrutiny, transparency and the truth. Some even used such dark methods to bury their own (far more significant) dark deeds.
But now these ‘extremist hunters’ who gaslighted the Western World have become the hunted extremists. And since data are forever, they’ll be running from their bigoted decisions for a very long time. Light is the best disinfectant and the truth will inevitably catch up with these folks. Part of me feels sorry for them. They were stuck in a very small progressive echo chamber and were fooled by their own delusions.
It’s no wonder that we witnessed such a magnificent religious revival amongst the Techie Davos crowd, as bigwigs renounced long-held progressivism and became born-again Classic Liberals over night. Or, to be more precise, as soon as they realized from early general election polling that the Wizard of Oz ‘man behind the curtain’ extrajudicial punishments were coming to an end.
Freedom of speech is required to have a democracy. What did these institutions think they were ushering in?
Very sadly we still get the egregious ideology on ‘trans’ in influential parts of the Civil Service and the Church of England. One hopes, eventually, for a return to normality, that is, to facts and logic rather than the malingering disease of mental illness that produces this socially and individually deceitful and destructive nonsense.
This is very good. Kathleen Stock is marvellous.
Hopefully, and it is a fervent hope, we will look back on this period in history of mass psychosis and mental aberrations and illness as something to be examined so that we never repeat our errors.
Your experiences were one of the main inspirations behind my recently published novel No Free Speech for Hate, one of the main characters being a university academic being labelled as a “terf” and cast into outer darkness for her views on gender.
I have just bought the kindle version, having seen your post. Looking forward to reading it.
Sussex VC says
“virtually impossible for universities to prevent abuse, harassment or bullying, to protect groups subject to harmful propaganda,”
Classic – All discussion of trans issues are automatically proof of Abuse and victimhood so cannot be discussed .
Is the Woman VC an academic ? She cannot be. Because academic freedom must trump this sort of childish silencing of debate.
No, I don’t think Sussex will get the point. Students behaving foolishly is a given (that is part of what being a student is about) but for a major national institution to behave as Sussex did, and, it would appear, still wants to do, is mind boggling. The author shouldn’t give up on academia and will hopefully return to it. Academia would be better for it.
Labour are in the process of introducing a piece of workers’ rights legislation which includes a clause that makes an employer liable if an employee is offended at work. It has been publicly discussed in terms of the threat it poses to pub banter, but applied to Higher Education I can see ‘unintended consequences’ in cases like Kathleen Stock’s, where it’s weaponised by woke staff members to police the opinions of their colleagues. Like the GRA, its contradictions will become entangled with the provisions of the Equality Act, and – while making more work for lawyers – chill further freedom of expression at universities and other workplaces where it’s integral to their existence. That Starmer is a liar is evident; he certainly lied to Trump and Vance when he said he was proud of the UK’s record on free speech.
The trouble is- the fine is not payable by those who committed the offence. It largely falls on the tax payer or the students.
Correct – it’s time that VCs and senior HR personnel were held personally liable.
Stop state funding of higher education. That’s stop these nonsenses as Uni’s would have to find actual paying customers.
But this has not worked in the US. All the Ivy League unis are private, but people are still climbing over each other to get into them, at the cost of huge fees.
Trump is beginning the fight though and hitting them where it hurts.
For the time being. The times they are a changing and the landscape will look very different in the US in four years. Let the money do the work.
Yes, but given the fecklessness of humanity, people are not going to stop going to the likes of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia etc. They simply hold too much social cache. They will likely realign before losing status. Money can help force this realignment.
They do receive massive amounts of Federal funding: apparently $6.4 billion in 2024: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ivy-league-schools-received-6-222646051.html
Its not really the point of this article, but I always wonder about the efficacy of fining what is a publicly-funded institution to make an (entirely valid) point.
It seems unlikely that the fine will be taken out of the Vice-Chancellor’s salary or otherwise levied against whoever was responsible for the behaviour that is being penalised in the first place. The only people who suffer will be the students who face a drop in the level of facilities or education as the University budget is impacted (although this may be difficult to measure in the case of an institution such as Sussex) and ultimately, this is the Government fining itself.
Unless the accountants manage to get a grasp I expect the ideologically pure will fail to change.
See the Wikipedia entry for Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College for an example of entrenched opinions.
Interesting – I think VC Roseneil needs to look at this case carefully. I think she might be taking Sussex down the same dead end. What was it that Einstein said about doing the same think over and over?
I suspect Doc Stock has been itching to write this piece, quite understandably after what she has endured at Sussex Uni.
I first came across her on twitter back in 2018, and she has consistently been a voice of reason, speaking and writing what (to any sane person) is obvious and true. How she has fought through all of the hate directed at her is inspirational. Brava Kathleen!
As readers may be aware it is possible to allocate 10% of one’s estate in one’s will to charities free of inheritance tax. I have currently named Sussex University (because of proximity) and UCL (because I got my PhD there). I am taking advice on how to amend a will as simply as possible (codicil I presume). As I don’t have any personal relationship with Sussex University I would have few qualms about finding another beneficiary. However, if it is true that UCL, founded on the inspiration of the secular and rational principles of Jeremy Bentham, has similar policies, I should be very concerned. Should I give my money to the University of Austin? I would rather keep it in this country.
Interesting conundrum. First, I would definitely remove Sussex from your will. They simply do not deserve your money and will put it to bad ends anyway. Bottom line – they cannot be trusted. UCL? Well, they’re not much better, although they do (or certainly did) have a VC who was rather against EDI initiatives and the like. But, being in London, it’s certainly a hotbed of wokeness. I too have thought about giving money to my old university, but now realise that this is in fact a waste of money (unless one has a huge amount via which they can create an endowment and put strict terms upon it). Otherwise your money will only go towards supporting inane bureaucracy, EDI initiatives, etc., or schemes that have a politicised EDI component. As donations dry up, perhaps universities will begin to put 2 and 2 together and realise they need to change their ways. I for one are not interested in supporting what, in many cases, are nothing more than secular madrassas, indoctrinating our youth in a malign way.
I’d be wary of all education establishments in this country, apart from some well-run schools. You’ll need to do your research. Some (end-of-life-type) hospices are very good.
I would suggest Hillsdale College in Michigan (not UK though), on the other hand, asking UnHerd readers for advice wouldnt be something I would do.
Wigan College of Catering and Hospitality might be a more practical way of donating to education.
Divide it into small amounts <£10,000 for small local charities. Giving to any large charity or other organisation just fattens the bloated bellies of the executives who run them.
Stock on a Thursday? What is this country coming to?
University life sure seems different than it was in the 90s.
I agree with the points made in this article. Many universities have removed free speech in order to pander to nonsense. My own experience was that I was removed from an honorary professorship at Wrexham ‘University’ because I had commented on a lighthearted (so I thought) Facebook page regarding the potential danger if dual language signs in Wales and that fewer people were speaking Welsh despite Government policies. Both positions are evidence-based. Nevertheless, with the press going wild Wrexham sacked me without any option to defend myself. Fortunately it was an unpaid position, but it says a lot about the nature of at least some modern universities.
A fine article that seemed to emphasise how tired you are of the gender wars which is unsurprising considering your front and centre role in it.
You deserve your R&R it’s been well earned.
Well done Kathleen Stock for such a balanced response to the fine – no tinge of rancour, when this would have been more than understandable. You have emerged with dignity – your former university colleagues have not. You have shown great courage – your colleagues and students have acted with savage mentality like a witch-burning mob from the early Middle Ages. I am disgusted by your treat, and so many countless others who have, and continue to be, mercilessly cancelled by this vile Woke culture. And the British police are the pits in knocking on innocent people’s doors.
Stock is spot on as usual but please will numpties in this debate stop identifying the gang who assert the extreme positions on trans as Lefties. Left is a political position in relation to economic exploitation and is generally I agree associated with action against other forms of oppression but real oppression, not denying the reality of biological sex. Sure the idiot Greens (not a left party) have been hijacked by the trans mob and the witless Scottish Labour having for once done something sensible and proposed amendments to the now struck down Scottish legislation, voted for it anyhow (whipped to do so) totally unamended but there is nothing left about trans aggressive activism, David Byrne
They will never yield ground though, that’s the awful truth. The bandwagon riders will go quiet maybe, until they climb on the next one, but the true believers have a religiosity about them, seen in the wild eyed glare when they are “demanding” things.
And, frankly, when the Prime Minister is on open record as saying that a woman can have a p***s, a position from which he has never retreated, who can blame them?
Sadly, the fine will not be paid by the former Vice Chancellor and other guilty parties. No doubt it will be students who suffer.
Rather than this enormous fine – and it is enormous – I wonder if it were to be better if the Sussex VC were to be tarred and feathered and then required to walk the boundaries of the campus while being invited* to cry out “Mea culpa, mea culpa!”
*invited. Just invited to cry out because we don’t want to do compelled speech – do we?
Just place her in stocks with free rotten fruit and offal available.
Alternatively, invite some orthodox Muslims and provide plenty of nice smooth beach stones.
Revolutionaries, consuming one another.
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I really hope the operative “roseneil” isn’t assuming an anglicised version of the family name Rose/Roses/Rossiter? That would take inverse racism way over the Prince Harry threshold and is a visceral insult to the Roma, Sinti and Kale-Zincali. If this is the case i would remind the mercenary “roseneil” of the tradition of Faida… seeking to avenge dishonor via retribution. Alive and well in Roma culture and UK which for some odd reason retains the blood feud “common law” instead of a judicial system.
Kathleen Stock is a brave woman to have stood up to such awful bullying – let’s hear from some of them to justify their actions. One of the sad aspect of all this is the reluctance of transgender academics who agree with Kathleen to speak out.