Oxford Students Union servers ties with Oxford Union

This is so preposterous. But even worse, it's so sad. A small number of open minded and free speech supporting students cowed into silence, and the majority just ill equipped for the modern world.

Unless of course that modern world is the insulated silos of law, education, medicine, social policy, media and politics, where such heads-in-the-sand attitudes are celebrated and cultivated further.

These will be the policy makers of the future. Where are the next generation of Kath Stock, JKR, Joanna Cherry, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Hadley Freeman, Victoria Smith, Posie Parker etc coming from?

Obviously, not the current Gen Z at Oxford or tbh any university.

Just answered my own question and am annoyed but not surprised to find that my DC’s college is one of those protesting against KS. 😤

https://cherwell.org/2023/05/08/teddy-hall-latest-oxford-college-to-condemn-kathleen-stock/

Which are the colleges that have complained?

Kids not kinds...

How many of us actually talk to our students about free speech? I have just started a separate thread on this. I think we as parents have to take some responisbility for the attitudes of the students that are arriving at university. I know a lot of what one says to teenagers is in one ear and out the other but how many of us explicitly talk about free speech and its importance? Or how we benefited from free speech at university?

Most of us would not send our kinds out into the world without understanding the importance of please and thank you. Learning to hear the other person out is just as important.

Sure, I mean Kathleen Stock is the most dangerous...and the biggest risk.

The OU has always gone out of its way to invite offensive and far-right speakers: David Irving, Nick Griffin, Marine Le Pen... And many speakers who feminists might not think are the best choice: OJ Simpson, George Galloway, Julian Assange. There have been protests against many of the speakers they invite, and JCR motions, and some very legitimate arguments that some of the genuinely far-right speakers who have been invited do tend to bring supporters along who make the city centre less safe for certain groups of students (not from hearing words, but from physical violence).

And yet, the left-wing academic lesbian is the one who prompts this response from OUSU?

Ugh. Dd1's college were trying to point her in the direction of Oxford,but she said that she thought that 'it wasn't her sort of place' and didn't apply. Reading this nonsense reinforces that she was spot on.

Thank you @DameMaud and @Margrethe much appreciated xx

Beautifully put ❤️

Apologies for my insensitivity. Hopefully she finds a resolution to this. I stick to my point that any friends who isolate her for this are not worth knowing.

Brilliant summary!✨

I love how you've put this!
You'll appreciate this if you've not seen it (or read Jonathan Haidt- though I expect you might have), MissLawls. He explains all this so beautifully And good Q&A
At a Canadian Uni interestingly.

Bollocks - if you both think that OU in 2023 is only "posh kids playing at having ideas" then neither of you know anything about it and are just repeating popular soundbites

She does have a backbone. She is very much not a “snowflake” I find that comment really hurtful actually, you have no idea what my child has been through.
She says that this ideology is so entrenched in Oxford that she would have no friends at all. She thinks that she would be shunned and thought of as equivalent to a racist, so she doesn’t ever bring it up in conversation. Only one of her friends has mentioned this talk and called it transphobic, she doesn’t hang out with people who are campaigning against KS, but trans stuff is pretty prominent generally.

From the OSU LGBTQ+ handbook:

Lesbians who do not align with the cultural gender norms associated with being a lesbian, that is being a cis woman who is attracted to other cis women, are at risk of an increased risk of discrimination by transphobes called terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) who feel that their definition of lesbian is the only valid one.

For fucking fucks sake. Women can't be allowed to have anything, can we? They're not fucking 'cultural gender norms' that's the sexuality, that's literally what it is! It's like saying members of the under 9s football team don't need to be under 9, or play football, it's fucking ridiculous!

So, these lesbians would rather not stick up for themselves? Maybe they need to really practice what they believe, not fit into what others seem correct for them.

If you're gonna lose your friends over attending her talk, there's a simple solution...get better friends.

Seriously, better to get a backbone early in life, then drift aimlessly as a snowflake.

These people aren't worth knowing.

Well that's the whole point isn't it.

To debate the issue in sunlight and expose untruths, bias and lack of evidence.

The reason why #nodebate isn't anything to do with transphobia, is all about an intellectual fear of being exposed when subjected to robust questioning.

In short, they don't want to be laughed off the stage, so the answer is not only to refuse to participate themselves, but prevent any ideological challenge being made.

Standing on a platform and saying TWAW and TRAHR simply doesn't cut it and fundamentally they KNOW that.

I read an autobiography recently in which the author describes his experience at a 1970s grammar school, where the teachers were very keen on debating and discussing controversial issues. Someone quite prominent in the National Front was invited to speak and proceeded to lecture the students on why black people should be treated differently- "they're genetically different- it's why they can't swim." A black student put his hand up and pointed out that he was Captain of the school swimming team. The speaker got laughed off stage. Surely this is more effective than banning a speaker?

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23512947.oxford-students-offered-welfare-resources-kathleen-stock-talk/

Thank you @MsFunnyOrchid

Absolutely agree. I went to a lot of OU debates and speeches but Kermit the Frog was the highlight.

My daughter is a student, I am not sure if her college is one of the four. She is too scared to go and see Kathleen Stock speak, because she thinks she will lose her friends and become an outcast. I am so angry about this, that the rhetoric is of transactivists being marginalised, when people like my daughter dare not voice their opinions at all.

That's incredibly sad. I have also heard that some young lesbians dare not say they are only attracted to other women because their own friends will ghost them. So they are going along with accepting transwomen into their dating pool because they feel they have no choice! Maybe they'd be better off identifying as straight! Least then transwomen who demand they sleep with them would leave them alone!?

💖this.