Sussex University overturns £585,000 fine as high court rejects free speech breach claim

Procedure - and fair procedure - is incredibly important. It's what distinguishes government from baying mobs with pitchforks. (And this topic has enough of those floating around.)

Nathalie Lieven (Mrs Justice Lieven) is the same Judge who ruled against Sex Matters Judicial Review of the Corporation of the City of London's decisions about the Hampstead ponds. The Court of Appeal overturned her on that.

It's nothing to do with KS who is not directly involved in this case. The Office for Students fined Sussex for not upholding free speech, Sussex (as they are pretty much bound to do when that much money is at stake) appealed to the High Court, who found that the Office for Students did not properly follow their own written procedures and therefore the fine is void.

The Office for Students could of course try to appeal the decision to a higher court, or they could relaunch the investigation and do it properly this time. Or they could say "lessons will be learnt" and accept the decision.

Today could be said to be a "justifiable slap in the face" of a "uni dimwit" who didn't know the contents of their own reading list.

I don't think KS can but OfS can - the issue is with the process not specifically the outcome.

That's bad news, can KS appeal this decision, because if so I hope she does, because it being overturned just gives university a shield against any further injustices they are responsible for.

It's not about the money, the size of the award was a justifiable slap in the face for the uni dimwits, the message this sends is nobody in academia has to take any responsibility. 🤬

At least the experiences of Kathleen Stock at Sussex are well documented.

They can argue all they like about process [which should have been followed correctly, we wouldn't be here if it had been] and quibble about their trans policy
'was not what is called a "governing document" and did not have the importance attached to it by regulator the OfS.'

but they can't deny the intolerance and threatening atmosphere on the campus, regardless of whether the perpetrators were inspired by a 'governing document' or just the knowledge that they could do whatever they wanted, nobody was going to stop them persecuting Doc Stock and making her working life in Sussex Uni unliveable.

The new OfS freedom of speech complaints system coming in later this year could potentially involve even bigger fines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm29dngvjqeo
It’s up to OfS to make sure they don’t mess this up as well….

And sorry about that, just had a look at the BBC report again and comments have been removed. That didn't take long.

In principle, I agree. In practice, however, many organisations clearly do not comply with the law unless there is a strong deterrent discouraging non-compliance. Many organisation ignore the Supreme Court decision. It cannot be that women have to fight each non-compliant organisation at huge financial risk. Huge fines would speed it all up.

Feck.

We don't need extremes and massive fines for breaking the law, we just need people to understand that they have to follow the law and can't discriminate against anyone.

The OfS investigation looks like it was an absolute shambles. It has to be, and be seen to be, fair and impartial. Assume they will tighten up their procedures after this!

Absolutely shocking use of procedural loophole. The comments are open for a change on the BBC report, though..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8pnwyy0zjo

"The High Court case did not consider what happened to Kathleen Stock, who left her job as professor of philosophy at Sussex after protests and threats over her view that gender was not more important than biological sex.
High Court judge Mrs Justice Lieven ruled on Wednesday whether a proper process was followed in issuing the fine, the size of which sent shockwaves through universities across England."