Kathleen Stock on BBC Woman's Hour today

Covered in the Times today

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kathleen-stock-fled-university-hyperventilating-amid-transphobia-row-tlmf0hzzb?shareToken=08ae1f776a2d4f93841c315ebf88093c

I've not heard the interview itself but this, and the bbc report on it, both make it quite clear she holds (ex)colleagues primarily responsible.

The protests originated from Stock’s calls to protect female-only spaces at the university which she says were fuelled by other staff who mobilised students against her rather than debating her views directly.
She said there had been “three-and-a-half years of low-level bullying, harassment and reputation trashing” by colleagues that started when she began to write about gender identity policy.

Three aspects of this that are not said often enough.

1. KS believes what 99% of the country - indeed the world - believes, so why is she being victimised and scapegoated as though she is alone?

1. We all know that, if she were a man, this would not have happened. Many men in the public eye are speaking out on this issue and I've not heard of terrorists in balaclavas at their workplaces.

1. GC women in balaclavas wielding smoke bombs and banners with words of hate against one individual named trans person would have been arrested by Sussex Police in a nanosecond and charged with a Hate Crime, and several public order offences.

Dr Stock said in the Woman’s Hour interview yesterday that this was in part instigated by staff
We keep talking as if this was purely a student protest. It wasn't - there were staff involved. I'm prepared to make some allowances for students but not for the grown ups.

I don’t think this will have much effect on undergraduate intake. It’s not as though students at other universities are noticeably less stupid on this issue.

However, it won’t just blow over. The message received by students is that they can dictate staffing policy, even when that puts the university in legal jeopardy.

ETA: Yes, it looks as if interim vice chancellor designate believes they have acted appropriately: freespeechunion.org/letter-to-professor-david-maguire-vice-chancellor-of-sussex-university-about-the-harassment-and-intimidation-of-kathleen-stock/ which must make Sussex a somewhat frightening place to work (go figure).

I agree that the university must know who these students are, or, if they do not, it would not be terribly difficult to find out. This makes me think they have chosen not to act, I suspect out of concern that to do so would make the university look transphobic. The vice chancellor is leaving at the end of the year, I can sort of see why he might prefer not to take action (even though I do not necessarily agree with this decision).

At what point does 'peaceful protest' become harassment?

Or, what is the difference between a witchhunt, a hounding, a campaign of public harassment and smearing, and a 'peaceful protest'?

I simply don’t believe that the uni don’t know the identities of those behind it. Dr Stock said in the Woman’s Hour interview yesterday that this was in part instigated by staff. The uni knows who they are, and I’ll bet they can figure out which students would be likely to back those staff. A proper investigation could easily get to the bottom of it, were they minded to so do.

They’re not, as far as I’m aware, taking that option.

The students are protesting that Kathleen stock believes in certain circumstances biological sex must take precedence over gender identify. That’s it, that’s the ‘terrible awful we’re so scaarreed and unsaaafe’ thing she holds firm too that Biological reality matters.

If some posters think that indulging students in hounding & harassing her for 3 years to the point where the police couldn’t guarantee her safety is them behaving legitimately, words fail me

Where does access to a workplace free from bullying fit in?

I wouldn’t have to deal with that at work

The university absolutely should be finding out who these people are. If I was an employer I would be wary of employing a graduate of this establishment.

The students masked themselves because they know what they are doing is against the rules of the university and they might suffer sanctions if caught. They should. But I'd like the university to put more effort into finding out who they are, and taking action. They should send a clear message that this bullying behaviour to staff will not be tolerated by investigating and expelling students where appropriate. They are liable for enabling a hostile environment for Kathleen Stock, and for others with the same beliefs.

To me, there’s such an obvious gulf of clear water between “legitimate public protest” and what’s happened to Kathleen Stock that I struggle to see how people can’t see it.

If they were protesting against, say, a controversial figure coming to speak on campus, then yes, IMO it would be more along the line of legitimate protest. It would be to prevent a specific action: I don’t think that person should be invited here. I’m no fan of deplatforming, as I’d always take the “Nick Griffen on Question Time” approach and let people with vile beliefs damn themselves with their own words, but other people feel differently, and that’s fine. The goal in that case would be “I want everyone to know I don’t want this speech to happen”. OK.

But for Dr Stock, the campaign was against her keeping her job. It happened daily, for a number of years and amounted to a campaign of bullying and harassment that nobody, no matter their views, should have to put up with. Her “crime” is also ambiguous- she just has political opinions that people disagree with. There is nothing inherently hateful in what she says, and she is a very moderate voice. Bullying someone out of their livelihood is not legitimate protest, no matter how you slice it. And people doing it are wrong, and I don’t really care how sincerely they hold her beliefs against her. Still wrong.

Can you imagine if any other group of people targeted and bullied an individual the way these "students" have done? This isn't peaceful protest backed by moral and intellectual arguments. This is bunch of nasty, misogynist thugs. If a child of mine behaved like that I would be mortified. What a waste of tax payers money.

I wonder if you'd feel differently if a group of bullying people in masks were at your workplace every day pushing for you to be fired, Aber77, however "highly articulate and sincere". I suspect you wouldn't be quite so understanding.

“The people who were wearing masks and didn’t want to be ‘singled out’ weren’t making a principled stand - they just didn’t want to be subject to the rules of the university.”

The people who were wearing masks didn’t want to be ‘singled out’ weren’t making a principled stand, they just didn’t want to be subject to the rules of the university.

I would think what your dd learned from this experience is that a) you will support her if she decides to put men’s feelz before her own and b) she will be branded a terf and hounded out of university if she doesn’t toe the line.

I doubt that this is true because aber77 has said they both support Stock.

Again (stuck record!), I think what they aren’t seeing is the difference between right to protest and right to personal attack.

The university had no grounds to sack Stock, so the students resorted to other means, which, looking at recent Twitter posts, they believe were successful.

This is mob rule backed by the student Union. The university only started to pay attention after the Maya Forstater ruling a few months ago. Did you miss all of the other ways she was hounded out?

I would think what your dd learned from this experience is that a) you will support her if she decides to put men’s feelz before her own and b) she will be branded a terf and hounded out of university if she doesn’t toe the line.

Doesn’t that matter at all to you seeing as you support Prof Stock?

@Aber77 "They said they were scared of being singled out by the University." This line of reasoning baffles me. It is an admission that their behaviour is unacceptable. If they had a reasoned argument, there would not be a problem with their presenting it. If one is unable to stand by one's arguments or actions, perhaps one ought to question why one is making them.

The victory post on the demonstrators' instagram account is chilling. One wonders how they will look back on this behaviour once they (hopefully) grow up a bit.

I am somewhat surprised that the university didn't take a harder line on the protestors setting off smoke bombs and plastering posters everywhere. Surely one could argue that those behaviours warrant disciplining from the university. Part of the reason students are there is to learn how to debate and argue, and those behaviours are not that.

That's exactly how I see it. They let others take the lead and women take the pain. JK Rowling and many others were brave - I mention her specifically because of her unique public profile that enabled her to cut through and have an impact which we are still seeing now.

That said, I am not convinced that the BBC is actually going the right way now. They are capitalising on this interview, promoting themselves in the practised way of the BBC, making use of their numerous 'platforms' to wave the BBC flag: Look at me! But I question whether they and Emma Barnett are still speaking the language dictated by lobby, notably Stonewall, such as 'assigned gender at birth', 'people who are pregnant' etc, whether they have amended their style guide, whether they are still giving OUR money to dodgy individuals or outfits, whether they are still promoting dangerous ideology to children on their kids' tv programmes, including mangling their girls' growing bodies with bindings, which strikes me as barbaric.