Sally Hines - criticised for tweets

He...is clearly ideologically motivated

Oh what???? Motes and beams, Sally dear, see if you can pick the reference. Jesus wept.

Isn't this verging on abuse of power? Professor using their position to belittle a student ....

I note that Somerville has taken the high road and not responded to Hine's abuse. I wonder whether he will consider it worth his time to make a formal complaint?

Sally has locked her tweets. That seems sensible, I assume that someone had a word and that abuse about Mr Somerville has been removed.

Hopefully (for Sally) no-one got chance to screenshot her ill-judged remarks before she deleted/locked them :-)

She can probably do really well on impact as well as research grant income.
I am not in academia any more but a few years ago impact was really important.

Over time I assume things rebalance. Good academics with strong analytical and research skills will eventually enhance the reputation of a department and attract more fee paying students. Whereas academics relying on "innovative" research in fashionable fields may find their field goes out of fashion, grant funding dries up and there is little to attract potential students.

That's how it should work in theory, but I'm not sure if that is always whats happens in practice.

Bear in mind that the people assessing the grant proposals will be other academics from the same or related disciplines, so in smaller disciplines I imagine it's quite possible for grant funding to be 'captured' by groups of like-minded academics who all reward each other for toeing a particular line.

I wonder what criteria were used by Sheffield when deciding on the Professorship appointment.

If the ability to bring in funding carries sufficient weight to out weight strengths that other applicants brought ot the table this surely raises further questions about why Prof Sally is so adept at bringing in money. Is it that her specific and seemingly rigid views accord with those making funding decisions, and this means that she effectively gets preference over, say, a GC academic wanting to study ROGD. (Which really needs some study!)

So universities need funds, funders have a bias towards certain views and thus certain academics, so Universities hire them, over academics with stronger teaching backgrounds, more rigorous research methods and/or more open minds. Academic freedom?!

Over time I assume things rebalance. Good academics with strong analytical and research skills will eventually enhance the reputation of a department and attract more fee paying students. Whereas academics relying on "innovative" research in fashionable fields may find their field goes out of fashion, grant funding dries up and there is little to attract potential students.

NotDavid you’re giving her too much credit. I’ve met her. She honestly is that thick.

Alison Phipps is disingenuous but not stupid. Sally Hines though is lacking in intelligence through and through, which comes through in spades in her tweets and in everything else she does.

'I really struggle to credit that an academic could be so dim to take the line, "This is my personal account, and I am using it make personal jokes"'

Yeah, it's not going to wash for anyone else, is it?
We've had years and years now of people being disciplined or sacked for what they have said on personal social media accounts but Sally thinks she can say what she likes as long as it's 'personal'? This is, frankly, peculiar.

I really struggle to credit that an academic could be so dim to take the line, "This is my personal account, and I am using it make personal jokes" when she has both her job tile and her institution listed in her bio. Next she will be telling us that she had her fingers-crossed when she was tweeting, so it doesn't count.

I don't know precisely what her field is but for example if a student were to wrote an essay arguing that Thatcher's policy of selling council houses was one of the greatest causes of social mobility in the 20th century would Hines be capable of marking that objectively? It's a stateable and arguable position.

That’s an excellent question. I know only what I have read in this thread about Hines, but I think the way in which academic institutions have become so permeated with political bias is a serious threat to critical thinking and academic freedom. There was an article about an academic who was terrified of saying he had voted Brexit. There is an authoritarianism which has gained ascendancy in academia and it is inimical to debate, diversity of opinion and the values which academic institutions should be promoting. Not silencing. Much of the intersectional orthodoxy which is the subject of this forum comes from this stultifying environment

I do enjoy the dispatches from the dairy of the professor of bantz and feelz KatVon - brava!

I could just read the following in the list of threads:

We live in a strange world where the brilliant, measured and reasonable

... and wondered which brilliant, measured, reasonable woman you were going to mention - as so many women who fit that description are under pressure to STFU right now.

Maya Forstater sprang to mind immediately - she's on court today for the second day of her witch trial, sorry I mean tribunal.

We live in a strange world where the brilliant, measured and reasonable Selina Todd is being hounded by trans activists trying to persuade Oxford to sack her, while the intellectually feeble Hines, who picks fights and uses childish insults on social media, has a seemingly secure position. Extraordinary.

Ah, good point Countess.

now we just have to wait for the "It is just research" line!

She's already used that one:

twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1085995272197545985

We've had the "I was joking", now we just have to wait for the "It is just research" line!

Come on Sally! Don't let the side down!

'Hines does not seem to have grasped that students are her livelihood.'

As long as the research grant income is rolling in for what she does, they're not really.
My guess is she can pretty much get away with anything as long as she is bringing in huge grants. Once the topic is no longer fashionable she will have to watch her step rather more.

Well, Dr McKinnon got in there first on the thesis about why you don’t need to know what you’re talking about.

Perhaps she could do an academic study on Imposter Syndrome? Might be quite cathartic.

I'm still laughing at this. Hines does not seem to have grasped that students are her livelihood.

Academia contains some very bright people. It also contains some people who are not bright. I have heard Sally speak at a lecture and she falls into the latter category. She parrots a script (‘be kind to trans people, challenge what you think is real’) but there is no evidence of flair or deep thinking that I think academics should possess. She has done well to be promoted to prof and this has happened due to obtaining grant funding for an area where funders are currently falling over themselves to give money. When Hines started, it was an unresearched area, meaning that she could claim originality.
But I think Sally recognises that she lacks in the brain power department. It must be difficult to be surrounded by clever people and know you don't fit that definition yourself. Her radio debate with Kathleen was laughable. I think she is partly motivated by jealousy.

She has also produced remarkably little for the REF exercise coming up in a couple of years. I am sure her picture-book about gender sold well but it’s hardly an academic publication, is it Sally? Other than maybe one article, she seems to have no REF outputs so I am sure Leeds were relieved to see her go.

when I was studying anthropology it was understood that we all have bias and it is better to state your bias openly. (Heaven help me, I am not defending that vile woman, just the principle)

I think most would agree with that principle where an academic has a particular political position. There is a wide difference between stating a position and insisting your position is the only morally correct one and that anyone who disagrees is evil.

I think we should be wary of falling into the cancel culture of the Genderists but (given that incredibly aggressive, personal response to an article in a student paper) can any student feel confident that disagreement with Hines will not harm their career?

Not her area, but surely most human beings have a political preference. Frankly any decent professor would judge such an essay in academic terms.

For the record, I don't consider Ms Hines to be a good professor but, in principle, I don't see the problem.

That doesn't answer my question. Hines' bias is obvious.

I don't know precisely what her field is but for example if a student were to wrote an essay arguing that Thatcher's policy of selling council houses was one of the greatest causes of social mobility in the 20th century would Hines be capable of marking that objectively? It's a stateable and arguable position.