Academic Freedom, Harassment and GC academics - ask me any questions

What a lot of lovely carrots. So pleased for you @ProfJoPhoenix

£61,400 is a hefty wedge already for legal costs. Very steady stream of incoming donations, too. Lots of small personal pledges and messages.

@InvisibleDragon I love the power of women united.

61k carrots already!

I haven't donated yet because I just started a new job and am skint, but believe me I will be digging on payday next week.

Gardening in the rain makes you very muddy but clean inside!

Academic freedom isn’t just about being able to express unpopular opinions. It’s about being able to argue that unpopular opinions might be true or right, with argument and evidence to back this up. But it has to be reproducible and durable and open to testing and challenge. Hence why it’s important for academics - and anyone - to be able to say “I think you’re wrong, and this is why”, as much as to say “maybe this argument is right, and here’s the evidence.”

(And the analogy, again, with men’s rights activism is misplaced, because a lecturer who said that would need to lay out their research in support of their claim. If the research was factually wrong it wouldn’t work. That’s the point of academic standards and peer review (and reproducibility) - you don’t get to be taken seriously unless the data and research supports you. Which we all know in the case of domestic violence, it wouldn’t, because there is a lot of data on this and a lot of research out there.)

You really don’t seem to think that truth or fact matter in terms of academic research and academic freedom or opinion. Academic freedom isn’t just about being able to express unpopular opinions. It’s about being able to argue that unpopular opinions might be true or right, with argument and evidence to back this up. But it has to be reproducible and durable and open to testing and challenge. Hence why it’s important for academics - and anyone - to be able to say “I think you’re wrong, and this is why”, as much as to say “maybe this argument is right, and here’s the evidence.”

I find it a little bit sad that the implication of that post is that Jo Phoenix is spending time trying to prove that suicide is not really such a big deal amongst trans people.

And so what happens if she is right?

It is a fact that politicians and the media are trotting out incorrect statistics around suicide in trans people. There’s plenty of stuff out there debunking some of the claims. Including by GIDS about suicide in trans children.

So you don’t like her statement and don’t think she as a lecturer should be saying some of the statistics circulating are frankly wrong? And calling for research which improves accuracy? (That’s not even in the ball park of saying it’s “not a big deal”, so you’ve already misrepresented what you’ve actually quoted her above as saying!)

Let me just recap, then - you don’t think she should be saying this - even if she’s factually right?

Sure sounds like an ideology on your part to me.

Why do you want to obfuscate accurate research on suicide in trans people, anyway? Wouldn’t it be a positive for trans people if it turns out suicide isn’t as big a factor as has been claimed by some lobby groups?

(Except then the spectre of suicide wouldn’t work quite as well as a lobbying technique or a rhetoric around transition, I guess.)

Again - sounds suspiciously like an ideology, if motivated reasoning is taking the place of fact finding, research, accuracy and genuine support for people with gender issues that is evidence based rather than opinion based.

Hi jo

I've noticed a few academics adding pronouns to their emails , which as a woman with "issues" I find disturbing and insulting, not necessarily rational .

Is it most likely that they are using standard template without thought?

I'm in STEM if that makes any difference

Yawn. You've been demanding research and statistics on this area and are now trying to suggest that Jo is somehow unprofessional by referring to this research. She makes a good point that it is impossible to quantify marginalisation and that much of what is reported in the press is incorrect. Its totally unprofessional of you to intimate that Jo is being unprofessional with absolutely zero evidence of this and even potentially libellous.

Suggestions If someone thinks suicide is incredibly important, my view is that they would want language and data around it to be accurate.

I see you don't agree though, and you claim that asking for accuracy is "making light".

You don't want words that are used to describe people in law to be definable, and you don't want to prioritise accuracy around suicide data in order to improve outcomes.

Happy to disagree with you there.

I'll give an example of what I mean by "Everyone is fair game in that process, but lecturers are responsible and accountable in their position as lecturers, and students over 18 are responsible and accountable in their position as adult students."

...lecturers at universities are generally employees and have usually signed some of contract and there will be obligations that come with this, just like many professionals have - obligations to their company, or not bring an organisation into disrepute etc etc. So it is likely, and reasonable, I believe, that they are held to a higher standard than students.

So when @ProfJoPhoenix posts something like this:
"There is also a lot of research that is trying to chart some of the challenges and problems that trans and gender non-binary people have because so much of what is said by politicians, campaigners and in the media is, frankly, just wrong. Stuff about suicide rates for instance or that trans people 'are the most marginalised' (that is an impossible to research assertion - for any marginalised group - you cannot measure oppression so easily much less then compare the levels)."

I think a university might reasonably consider this problematic coming from one of their lecturers - they might view it as making light of / undermining serious issues that affect trans people - like suicidality and completed suicide. This comment did not arise as a response to another person's comment, which I believe would be more acceptable - eg "I think the suicide statistics that you have posted are incorrect because of .......", .... and it is a bit too flippant in the context of the serious harm we do know trans people experience and has the potential to trivialise these serious harms and to communicate to others that suicide is not actually really an area of concern for trans people.

What if a mens' rights activist who was also a lecturer posted something like 'We are examining the former studies on domestic abuse against women, and we believe that these have actually exaggerated the situation and it's really not that bad' ?

Would that be problematic - that a men's right activist during their tenure as a lecturer spent their time trying to downplay abuse against women?

I find it a little bit sad that the implication of that post is that Jo Phoenix is spending time trying to prove that suicide is not really such a big deal amongst trans people.

It might be that a university would find this more problematic coming from a lecturer than they would do from a student, because of the professional obligations that lecturers have, that students do not have.

But of course people can feel uncomfortable when they're reasonably challenged on their positions, that shouldn't be conflated with being made to feel unsafe.

If a student acted in such a way that according to a reasonable, professional 3rd party judgement would likely make any lecturer or other student feel unsafe then the educational establishment should take relevant steps. That should not purely be a personal judgement by the person that experiences a scenario, rather the full transparent circumstances should be made known in some sort of arbitration process so a more objective, nonpartisan judgement might be arrived at.

Everyone is fair game in that process, but lecturers are responsible and accountable in their position as lecturers, and students over 18 are responsible and accountable in their position as adult students.

Why has nobody, including Jo Phoenix, addressed the 7 questions I put down earlier? They are extremely important questions about how freedom of speech operates in the context of possible societal harm and discrimination

There has been plenty of comment on your questions. Have you not read the thread? Are you aware of the content of the court case this thread is discussing and what might or might not therefore be appropriate for Jo to post?

there are legitimate questions to answer, especially in the context of a fundraiser generating tens of thousands of pounds

Your questions are irrelevant in the context of a successful fundraiser, because the fundraiser is not contingent on your questions being answered, your points being discussed or anyone agreeing with you on anything.

Oh and your posts aren’t harassment: I would argue they’re just wrong or misguided, but the whole point we are arguing with you is that academic freedom to debate is not harassment.

Caress? Express! Autocorrect gone mad.

So at least you aren’t in favour of violent protests or harassment, @suggestionsplease1.

What about if I believe that your ideology makes me feel unsafe and at risk of harm? Can I refuse to teach you or have you in my lecture hall? Can I say I won’t be your tutor and have you handed over to someone else?

What if other students feel you make them unsafe? Do they get to say you can’t be in a space with them? At what point when you caress an opinion that upsets someone else are they allowed to protest you? You seem very sure that you know who is the one causing harm; but what of someone decides you are? Are you fair game then?

What if it turns out you’re doing a bad thing to someone or making them feel uncomfortable? Is it a different rule then?

Nearly 61 grand! Go Jo.

I've contributed a lot of money to all sorts of women's campaigns.

It warms the very cockles of my heart to help women address the rank misogyny of these tedious, repetitive, self entitled wankers.

Some people might misconstrue my posts here as harassment; I'd say if they did they are wrong, that there are legitimate questions to answer, especially in the context of a fundraiser generating tens of thousands of pounds. I believe in accountability, responsibility and awareness of possible consequences / harm to courses of action that are taken.

Well one of the reasons I objected to the comparison was that manifestly Charles Murray didn’t get cancelled. Quite a lot of other men stood up for his academic freedom, took the book seriously (and it’s more complex than suggestions allows, though it has its own bad faith reasoning); many serious senior male academics wrote reviews, critiques and rebuttals of it. He faced some controversy and a few protests, but was manifestly not treated remotely like Kathleen Stock or other gender critical feminists. The academic phrase of the time was “teach the controversy”! Whatever the conclusions about Murray’s work, it was certainly not denied a platform.

This is true in terms of academia, which would have been a great answer to the post about Murray - just yes, we're happy for people with all kinds of viewpoints to have the advantages of academic freedom and serious consideration in the public discourse. That's the real answer and it diffuses the apparent gotcha if that was the intent, because it's a solid liberal democratic answer. The only possible response to it is an assertion that someone should get to decide which ideas are the ones that shouldn't be talked about which is to most people clearly a dangerous form of authoritarianism.

Trying to avoid screenshots and gotchas is never going to be a war that can be won, it's always possible for someone to manipulate the questions so you can't say what the main point is, and the overall argument ends up looking weak. And they can always find them anyway.

Additional six carrots 🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕

54K CARROTS 🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕
I think that’s 54. And there may be more by now. I have mustered carrots and will continue to muster carrots.
Carrots send important messages.
🦖🦕🥕