Times article on academia

From an ethics review perspective, the researcher proposed to interview established academics in the humanities and social sciences (an elite group) about their professional activities (and their twitter activities are part of that - they are identifying themselves as academics on there for a reason).

I just don’t buy any of this crap about deception and trauma. They’re using concepts of victimhood to prevent anyone looking at all critically at their activities. It’s sinister. These are not vulnerable research participants being asked about sensitive topics. They are academics - many of them very senior and experienced - being interviewed about their work.

Look, all they are doing is trying to prove that we are terrifying people who cause harm.

They want us sacked, punished, ostracised, silenced.

To justify that, we have to be doing terrible things. Except we aren't. We aren't forming mobs surrounding and screaming at people. Or going to conferences to give talks about holding knives to people's throats. Or hounding people out of their jobs through campaigns of harassment.

But we must be doing SOMETHING terrible and harmful, so they have to pretend that being asked about their field of expertise and pushed on how they define their foundational concepts and what they understand about the opinions of those they accuse of being genocidal fascists, is, like, a really traumatising and terrible thing to have been done to them. Because we must be doing SOMETHING harmful.

And who knows, maybe they genuinely did find that emotionally difficult. I mean, if they are only talking and publishing amongst those who ' all think the same thing, basically', they may genuinely never have had to defend their views before and it genuinely was upsetting for them to find out that they cannot.

You may be onto something. Perhaps what is needed is some kind of academic Snapchat, instead. Auto-destructing books?

Fine bunch to talk about ethics when children are being encouraged to have major life changing ops for no medical reason.

And I can't even work out the ideological reason. If women can have male or female bodies, and men can have male or female bodies, why is any surgery required?

Fine bunch to talk about ethics when children are being encouraged to have major life changing ops for no medical reason.

Anyone would think they’re doing assassination by twitter because actually they are uncomfortable at anything but validation and affirmation and they know that, had they reported this misconduct through channels they absolutely understand, the research ethics chair would have investigated and learned that there was no misconduct.

So they whinged to each other. And then took to twitter when someone published the findings in such a way that people might ask questions about their field and it’s practices.

God forbid a student ever quotes her book and disagrees with it.

THATS THE WHOLE POINT OT LLF ACADEMIA.

Isn’t it amazing how none of these actual academics did so much as look on their participant info sheet and contact the ethics chair about the research malpractice and their discomfort with being asked about their professional activities and positions?----

with people who cannot discuss their own areas of research teaching in universities, no wonder some students are so horrified if anything comes close to making them examine their opinions.

It's referencing her book.

Maybe Dr [?] Phipps should apologise for writing her book ... Because, y'know, just anyone can read it and quote from it, which is obviously literal violence.

What a pity books don't have an automatic "T**fblocker" so only the ideologically pure may read it. Damn books: they are an imperialist white supremacist transphobic technology.

This view, together with the belief that “cis women have more power than trans people”, led genderist academics to refrain from forthrightly denouncing some transgender activists’ aggressive tactics towards feminists. These include threats and ideations of extreme violence, which, as well as being pervasive on social media, appear to be increasingly condoned at universities. For example, last year, a London School of Economics postgraduate student conference paper described a scene in which feminists critical of genderism “scream for mercy”. <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220915033149/web.archive.org/web/20210623205221/https:/gi422conference.com/trans-endemics-embodying-viral-and-monstrous-threat-in-times-of-pandemic/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The paperr* then described the potential threat: “I hold a knife to your throat and spit my transness into your ear”, concluding: “Are you scared? I sure fucking hope so.”

Yeah but no debate, this hurts my feelings

Among other experiences, my interviewees described complaints to and by management, attempts to shut down events, no platforming, disinvitations, intimidation, smears and losing career progression opportunities, including being blocked from jobs.
Others spoke about being physically removed from events, alongside receiving torrents of abuse online that even included incitements to murder. One criminology scholar said her experience was “a continuum of hell”, while a law scholar claimed “the impact has been huge [and] is going to last a long time”.

These were experiences by "GC" feminists about the side that Phipps is on.

She's a fine one to talk about trauma from having her ideas challenged. She hasn't lost a job Ffs.

Louis Theroux has made a life's living from allowing people to speak and share their opinions.

Right. I don't either.

Is that the one where the potential interview subject told Helen Lewis to 'fuck off'? repeatedly? Yes, saw that.

Same person also apparently approvingly retweets someone asking Prince Charles to justify his wage, as PC shakes hands with a crowd of mourners.

So it's okay to publically shout accusatory questions at a grieving person, but not okay to interview someone without first warning that the subject may be upset by questions?

twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1570841842446667778?cxt=HHwWhMDUlaiV4MwrAAAA

Does everyone generally have to approach everyone with signs saying 'I am about to interact with you and this may cause you trauma'?

Maybe? Do you recall that thing about Helen Lewis the other day - the crazy person who was incredibly upset by receiving a message from her saying "Might we talk?"

This spawned an umpteen-tweet thread about "unethical journalism and bias and racism". Amazing read, if you haven't seen it.

twitter.com/chaedria/status/1569391345089007616

From what I can gather it's the research interview - apparently she was interviewed and then asked not to be named. Now she's "horrified" her interview has been part of the research (though I'm unsure how/ why?)

Journalists do this all the time. Researchers do this all the time. Academic researchers do this all the time.

I don't understand how it's unethical.

Bit puzzled where all this 'deliberate harm' and malpractise comes out of quoting five words from Phipps' book.

I believe the "deliberate harm" was talking to Phipps about things people had said to/about her on Twitter.

And the "malpractice" is pretending to be "trans-inclusive". (ie not wearing an "adult human female" badge?)

I think, Necessary, the accusation is that Favaro shouldn't have interviewed without warning that some of the questions might upset people?

'If CityUniLondon IRB read and approved a protocol that stated study participants would be NAMED and that emotionally traumatic questions would not be disclosed on the consent forms, the university itself needs to be investigated.'
'study participant was subjected to emotional harm that was not previously consented to'
'deception in the research process'

So this person's objecting to anyone being named in the published article.
And nobody apparently warning interviewees that questions might upset them.

IDK enough about academia to know if this is how they do things. Does everyone generally have to approach everyone with signs saying 'I am about to interact with you and this may cause you trauma'?

I have checked. This is the only section that names/refers to Alison Phipps, and it's not talking about any interview:

'“Trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (Terfs), as they frequently labelled them, are part of nothing less than a “colonial [and] ultimately an eliminationist project” against people who identify as transgender or non-binary, some believe, as explained by Alison Phipps in her 2020 book Me, not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism.'

It's referencing her book. So what are they all on about? She's not named in the article otherwise.

She is implicitly included in the section describing the views of 'trans-inclusive feminists' - but surely that's just factual and not a bad thing to say about someone? Bit puzzled where all this 'deliberate harm' and malpractise comes out of quoting five words from Phipps' book. Or am I missing something?

So the logic here is:

1. "she decided our side was behaving badly"
2. "therefore she's on their side"
3. "therefore she's biased"
4. "therefore her research must be flawed"
5. "therefore her research must be withdrawn and she should be punished"

Am I following this correctly? I don't see there's any evidence apart from just following that train of thought.

Oh, I missed this part of his post:

'not only requires the retraction of the research findings, but also censure for the researchers.'

Witches! Burn them!

'If the allegations by Allison Phipps are correct, and I have no reason to think they are not'

Absence of evidence is not evidence of anything.

If they don't the house of cards falls down.

The whole thing relies on them all agreeing with each other and cancelling the dissent.

Ergo, ideology.

Yep. Here's a sociology prof accusing the author of 'deception' and 'scholarly malpractice'.

twitter.com/nkalamb/status/1570753199971377153

'the university itself needs to be investigated.'

etc.

Highly unpleasant that this was always going to be the response - to attack the author. But it does perfectly illustrate her arguments.