Some good news!

Has the official statement now been made?

Founder of TransOxford describes that event as 'the night the bullied became the bullies"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3234661-Condemnation-of-the-shameful-campaign-of-bullying-intimidation-against-WPUK-meeting-by-founder-of-TransOxford

RowanTrees what an important article thank you for posting. I am trying to restrain my contempt for those ‘protesters’ in oxford having read in this article how obnoxious and mindlessly authoritarian they were behaving. Shame on them.

TheNavigator - Prevent isn't just about Islamism (as I'm sure you know). Referrals to Prevent over concerns about Far Right extremism are growing rapidly and I doubt there is a part of the UK where that is not a potential threat.

Regardless, the point of the Prevent duty in relation to speakers is to avoid situations (as has happened previously ) where convicted terrorists and criminals, or those who have been banned from the UK for their (genuine) hate speech are given a platform at UK universities without any real understanding by the authorities of who the speaker is and why their views are problematic and without consideration of taking steps like bookiing another speaker to provide a contrasting opinion.

Report from NUStrans18
[extract]
"It is undoubtable to say that this year we saw a huge spike in Transphobia across the spectrum. Groups like Women’s Place attempted to limit Trans discussion, Trans activists had to face attacks by TERFS (It stands for “Trans-exclusionary-radical-feminist, those women who deny transsexual women acceptance in the women’s liberation movement, or even deny them their right to womanhood) when campaigning in Birmingham and national newspapers tried to compromise the foundation of Trans and nonbinary activism by labelling them as ‘snowflakes’. If anything, these examples demonstrate that we have some way to go with regard to Trans rights. However, #NUSTrans18 Conference was certainly a starting point. Demonstrating activist movements, organisers and The NUS Trans Campaign have a key part to play and are arguably more relevant than ever in 2018."

www.nusconnect.org.uk/articles/nustrans18-conference-highlights

Article about the protests against WPUK meeting in Oxford.
By Rebecca Lush,
"in those 26 years of protest-organising I have never witnessed anything like the authoritarian, silencing tendency of current trans activism against women meeting to discuss their legal rights."

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/women-have-every-right-discuss-changes-law-could-affect-them

"This Quaker man became very upset and frustrated at the lack of respect accorded to him and the contempt with which he and the survivors’ group were treated.

The female co-ordinator of the survivors’ group came out and tried to speak, but none of the students would listen. They just continued their chants to drown her out. I spoke to a number of the students around me and asked the male leader with the megaphone whether he would communicate to the rest of the protesters that a meeting of sexual abuse survivors was being disrupted and his exact words were “we don’t care.”

There was something uniquely obnoxious about a privileged male Oxford student telling women that they didn’t care about sexual abuse survivors and that women need to get back in their box as they had no right to speak."

wacademia thanks helpful to have it set out so clearly.
Seems like universities are in a bind.
That’s all such a subversion of how most people might think universities should be able to work, ie they should be able to be educating and challenging students to turn out robust critical thinkers at the end of the course, rather than having to run the whole institution as a popularity contest between rival universities because ‘unis’ are all reliant on student fees. Central funding is needed.
Then govt places responsibilities on universities- like ensuring free speech- which in principle is the right idea, but which all of the above financial factors mitigate against because they create a specific climate which is about not being able to really challenge students thinking because the customer is always right.

I am in an area where radicalisation really is not a risk, so the Prevent duty is disproportionate in that we have to apply it, regardless. And in HE that largely comes down to having to have a policy on speakers and events, that encompasses our students' association.

So basically we have been pissed on then told off for using an umbrella.

I would disagree with your view of Prevent TheNavigator, I’m in the East Midlands (and work in education), and certainly the Prevent duty has been useful in the settings I work in, there have been numerous cases of kids being identified as at risk from right wing extremism and interventions used accordingly.

(Although I work in secondary and FE not Uni/HE)

The University has to have policies in place to vet speakers - that was the reason for all the forms Harriet Harman went on about - we have to show we are taking steps to prevent radicalisation and that includes showing we are vetting speakers. It is bollocks and makes me highly sceptical of the sudden Daily Mail pleasing commitment to 'free speech'

I don't see the connection between this and the Prevent duty TheNavigator?

@chattylion @ferntwist @datun

The students fill in National Student Survey and the NSS then feeds into Teaching Excellence Framework and Unistat (Which? for undergraduate applicants), which in turn affects applicant numbers and by extension tuition fee revenue. University management at institution- and department-level are are terrified of anything that could result in bad NSS scores so have a lot of motivation to give the students what they want, even if it's going to harm the students and the country in the long run by turning out a generation of unemployable bigots with no psychological resilience and no critical thinking skills.

Bear in mind also that the students who spout the pomo genderism nonsense are usually non-STEM students getting charged £9k per year for a course that requires no lab sessions, no reagents or other consumables, no expensive equipment, no pricey software licences, and no PPE. So more of the fees from non-STEM subjects are profit available for vice-chancellors' vastly inflated salaries and vanity institutes other purposes within the university, giving the uni an extra incentive to yield to non-STEM students' opinions compared to rheir STEM counterparts.

I work at a university giving technical support to teaching a STEM subject and I see the students wanting to be spoonfed and hand-held more and more, even compared to when I got my degree ten years ago.

With regards the NUS recent threads include:

NUT Trans Conference
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3237230-NUS-Conference-breaks-down-after-the-UK-Border-Force-Arrive

NUS Women's 18 workshop session:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3222263-Slide-show-on-How-to-Deal-with-TERFs?pg=5

Bristol University
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3233018-Freedom-of-Speech-A-statement-by-the-Chair-of-the-Universitys-Equality-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Group

Oh cross posted R0wantrees - thx :)

there's a bit around 7.50am but very fluffy and more about you shouldn't be a t Uni if you can't tolerate different views

The substantive discussion is at 9.20am about offence culture and whether these people are employable after Uni and how their intolerance is enabled by Unis and other organisations. How they are harassing people and getting people sacked etc. Feminists mentioned amongst others that are being deplatformed. Talk about culture wars on campus. Linda Bellos mentioned along with women's rights. Also about NUS denying there's a problem..

There are two points when its discussed. The main part with Claire Fox starts at 09:23 so you need to click onto the 9-9.30 segment and then +23 mins.

There's a bit at 11 min in and then she says it will discussed later and unsure when?

Discussed by Julia H-B this morning at about 25 mins in to the segment. It is discussed specifically in relation to feminists and Linda Bellos.

The comment about how it was dismissed by an NUS spokesperson as 'not happening and tabloid-fodder' is very important.

talkradio.co.uk/radio/listen-again/1525325400#

I've just been reading about it in the Times.

When you think about it, it's staggering that students should be trying to shut diwn debate. Typically that's where the most radical discussions begin. Students in previous generations have started revolutions by talking about danferous things. How are we here that this generation wants coddling and protecting so much, with every man and his* dog being triggering.

*her/their/ze

Times piece with sharetoken so you can read it!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sam-gyimah-crackdown-on-students-silencing-free-speech-x28jx85fc?shareToken=80857da47fcdd63c150c9f691ea0e9b4

This authoritarian no-platforming fad is absolutely linked to the way sky-high fees have turned universities into a marketplace, with students as the consumer. They’re the boss now.

This.

There was a thread on it last year. The points system that universities use, whereby a student gets to grade them, is at the root of this.

Based on the results of the grading, the universities acquire a status which translates to money.

(I know that's a very loose description, but I can't remember the exact name.)

But it means the students have the universities over a barrel.

If the universities can claim they will be fined for no platforming, it lets them deal with it without negative impact.

A “murky” legal landscape, with guidance from various regulators, lets zealots censor those with whom they disagree, Mr Gyimah will say.

The new rules signal the seriousness with which the government is taking free speech on campus.

Worth reading in full.

There was a good article on this in the Times as well:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/sam-gyimah-crackdown-on-students-silencing-free-speech-x28jx85fc

I am guessing this is based on the recent Joint Committee on Human Rights report published here a few weeks ago. The report seems quite reasonable (not that I have had time to read in depth, I have just skimmed it so sorry if I have missed something).