Freedom of speech in academia - OfS research finds sex and gender hardest topic to discuss

We've all seen it. The students know they can go after the female staff members. If the students post negative comments online about them not welcoming men into their spaces, for example, they'll be hounded out. Male students shout and handmaidens support them (all masked up with banners held aloft). Thus, female staff are controlled but male staff are free to express opinions.
The Universities pander to the money students.

And with the specific issues around gender, more women are impacted than men.

I think this probably reflects differernt experiences.

For one thing, I suspect on average women are more likely to be sensitive to perceived censure from other academics. In my experience a lot of male academics don't mind being controversial, they even cultivate it in some cases.

But I think the bigger issue is which areas of study have more women compared to men - the social sciences and humanities are very female dominated in many cases, and those are the areas with the most issues around suppressing ideas.

As a bloke, that's my impression. Not in a lording it way, just observationally. From all I've seen, read and watched here, it's obvious that we brush things off more easily and are unlikely to be bullied over opinions.

I am definitely more aware of it in the real world, women apologising if I brush past in a doorway, or whatever. I try to make a point of saying it was my fault.

That was a great result, obviously, and cause for some optimism I guess. But I worry that the dogma is so entrenched in universities.

This is the same regulator that fined Uni Sussex a silly large amount of money for free speech breeches:

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-and-events/press-and-media/university-of-sussex-fined-585-000-for-free-speech-and-governance-breaches/

I think they have teeth.

Isn't it likely that this 'regulator' will be as useless as every other regulator we've seen lately? Or will simply be ignored? Universities are too engaged with chasing the Chinese yuan to worry about tedious details like freedom of speech.

Oh, I agree that these figures show a difference between women and men. I do think, though, that men can reasonably be concerned about what they say about men's lack of freedom of speech, as well as still more concerned about women's lack of freedom of speech.

If 11% of women said they didn’t feel free to speak, while 21% of men didn’t feel free, I’d characterise it the same way.

Men are twice as likely to be confident in FoS as women. That’s a massive difference.

Don't get me wrong a statistician would undoubtedly take issue with my representation, but finer points aside there’s a significant disparity in the experience of FoS for men and women.

All sorts of things could be behind it, including people being less likely to challenge men.

But that’s the feel of it.

There have indeed been issues in those areas too:

freespeechunion.org/ucl-bans-lecturer-from-china-course-to-protect-its-commercial-interests/

I think "immutable" is my favourite word nowadays. It looks nice and sounds nice as well 😀

It’s very interesting data. It seems not to be just about sex and gender, or women, though - I note that international politics (especially Palestine, China, Ukraine/Russia) and race are both big issues too, with non-white ethnic minority academics mentioning much greater issues than white academics.

(Edit: typo)

"In particular, a fifth of female academics (21%) say they do not feel free in their research compared to one in ten (11%) male academics saying the same."

I'm pretty sure that if 11% of female academics said they didn't feel free in their research, you wouldn't think that meant that women are convinced it's all fine, nothing to see here.

Excellent guidance. Realistically academics are going to carry on doing what they have always done (I am an academic). It will be interesting to see if any cases are brought. If there are hefty fines this could lead to a lot of centralised intervention in the curriculum - personally I’m horrified by the idea of this but it could well come. If it does then expect yet more protests <sighs heavily>.

Really interesting guidance!

Or that it's our own faults. It's our perception of the situation that's the problem and the fact that we are lacking confidence and conviction in our own professional status. Silly, shrinking women that we are.

The ‘shock’ issue… why don’t people understand that sometimes other people’s views are shocking, yet none the less we must consider them.

If we didn’t discuss shocking things, we wouldn’t have women in medicine; women in the armed forces; gay marriage; women able to vote; mixed race couples.

For goodness sake! Get some courage and prepare to endure new ideas!

It’s not you.

Is it me, or do those stats read as though men are convinced it’s all fine, nothing to see here!?

Men- sure they have freedom of speech, the university prioritises FoS.

Women- yeah but, no.

I just wondering how academia is going to square this circle, the guide seems to flying in the face of the 'knowledge' that is being taught on so many degree courses. If this is a guide to academia and academia isn't teaching anything like this they how can academia claim to be in fact academia. 🤯