Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 2

Pernicious and intentional. It will take years to disentangle these misguided beliefs/interpretations of reality from public policy and relevant institutions.

Funny how the Stonewallian version of the EA keeps cropping up.

TT: J requests the Savage Minds podcast to listen to and not just read transcript

Interesting that the judge wants to listen to it and not just read the transcript.

From what I have gleaned so far, the argument from the OU seems to be that nothing happened to Jo, but if it did it was because her beliefs were not WORIADS and that the OU (through the Equality Act?) had a responsibility to stop her in case she hurt someone's feelings?

@Datun that has sent such a chill down my spine. Anyone that thinks one, never mind 100, victim is acceptable is just one of the most revolting things to come out of this whole thing.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, or completely mistaken, but Jo is saying she was bullied for her GC beliefs. The OU contest this by sending 18 of her former colleagues to state why her beliefs are unacceptable and should not be said. In addition to the 300-odd that signed the letter against her.

Looks like bullying to me. Open and shut case.

Yeah, it really is saying the quiet bit out loud. Well, positively shouting it, actually.

Well, operation 'let them speak' is working I suppose. There's a reason they're called the TRAliban.

Who is that dickhead, who dresses like Alice in Wonderland on Ketamine??

He said it 'wouldn't matter if there was a slight spike'.

A poster on a thread last week quite openly asserted that you shouldn't stop men in women's toilets, until a certain number of offences had been committed.

When asked how many, they came up with a number.

One hundred.

Women and little girls should provide their bodies for men's validatory use, until they have been assaulted or attacked a hundred times.

I agree the witnesses should not have been making comments in the public gallery and in and around the building. I am surprised the HR person didn’t advise them to be more circumspect, but they had a legal right to be there. In the pub or elsewhere they are free to talk as they wish provided they don’t breach confidentiality.

Not quite. If they are there as employees of the OU they are only as free to talk as other employees - ie they must not create a hostile or intimidating atmosphere for those with a protected characteristic.

Only listened to a bit of it so far but the podcast is brilliant. It's making my lunchtime. It's lawyers talking sense ie the judge's language. Let's hope she listens with open ears.

Oh my goodness, the TT thread from this morning is quite something!

I thought this in particular was quite telling:
BC Well there's a debate about this and SW have a certain position and
SW's position of no debate is a folly, isnt it?
PB Hmmm
BC She was being reasonable?
PB No, she was saying it was the worst tactical move ever that made SW seem they'd made a massive error
BC what's wrong w making that point?
PB It isnt but I felt it was making a point about
?? [sorry missed]
BC We'll leave it up to the tribunal to decide about that shan't we? I think it's time to leave i
t there.

PB's train of thought appears to be that JP is criticizing Stonewall and that this in itself is bad. Something you just don't do. Like pointing out the Emperor's state of undress.

Oh! Yes toilets. Early on in their evidence the witness said that they had encountered difficulty at the OU with people misgendering them, people not using their preferred pronouns and having difficulty finding appropriate toilet facilities to use where they felt comfortable. I had assumed that witness was biologically female so I’m having to revisit my assumptions there.

I do wonder what these people think when they hear about something like Dolatowski's attacks on girls using the women's toilets. Acceptable collateral damage? But how can they dismiss that and then blather on about 'vulnerable minorities'? You don't get more vulnerable than a child facing 6ft 5 Dolatowski alone in a toilet. The cognitive dissonance must be awful, unless they're just very, very stupid.

Either way, not a great look for the OU.

Salem Witch Trials (as interpreted in The Crucible).

Multiple people saying the same unevidenced thing shore up each other, no matter how groundless and implausible the claim.

BenCoopersSupportWren

something of a cross post there!

These organisations have obviously been subject to Stonewall law, and have never listened properly to what it actually means for women.

And although it's not surprising that women don't get listened to, I cannot understand how they don't connect the most basic of dots and grasp that women's sport will be ruined, and rapists really shouldn't be in women's prisons.

I'm assuming, they are all just totally hung up on pronouns and toilet use. Which rather begs the question of how come their ideology holds up in some places, but not others.

In other words, they haven't thought about it much at all. Which is a bit of a rookie error, when you're being taken to a bloody employment tribunal.

And they clearly have no clue about operation let them speak. Anyone who understands the implications of that, would not line up 20 bloody people to do it.

One of my underlying convictions in this entire issue, is that I know we're right. Nuttin', nowhere by no-one has ever given me the slightest concern otherwise.

It's also rather delicious that the answers so far have only served to make the judge want to listen to Jo's podcast.

OLTS

This is it exactly. It's a bit embarrassing that's the childish level of response from someone who is in a professional academic position and paid as such.

I’m still stuck on the email they sent wanting to ensure the OU didn’t breach their obligations of the EA. Witness said they didn’t want any disciplinary action to be taken, didn’t want the research to stop and believes in academic freedom of speech. So exactly what action did they want OU to take? Soothing words to the trans community?

I really don't understand why the OU is calling so many witnesses (other than try to make the tribunal too expensive).

How can they each bring some new crucial piece of evidence when this is the calibre of their staff? It appears this is going to be a very long parade of incompetent academics, that will reflect very badly on the OU as a whole.

PB thinks the Equality Act is actually the Trans overlord act as far as I can tell. Very concerned about discrimination against trans people up to and including hurt feelings from misgendering.

Not bothered about real harm to women who don't comply with PB's stamped foot. Quite happy to be nasty and vindictive by raising formal complaints and to try and compel people not to say what they see.

A true zealot.

I think whoever said earlier that the problem is they've applied a version of the Equality Act as they want it to be - and I'd add how Stonewall told them it should be - has put their finger on it. They were told something that appealed to their general desire to "be kind", none of the pitfalls of adopting that wholesale were pointed out because it wasn't in SW's interests to do so and they were (still are?) so blinded by determination that they could get the law changed soon anyway, and it became an unquestioning groupthink.

Now they're faced with someone who can spell out the facts and the nuance of the Equality Act inside out, back to front and upside down and it must be dawning on them at some level that they have massively fucked up by not applying more critical thinking to the original EDI training...

So, in a nutshell, JP didn't talk about the T's enough?

So PB is far from a bystander in this