Michael Foran has had to cancel the remaining lectures on Sex, GI and the law.....

Yes, you are right about research funding. I should have been more explicit, this is what I was referring to when I mentioned "business connections."

Private universities still receive some federal funding, which is one of the reasons that Trump's actions regarding sports being separated by biological sex has any impact at all. He can only enforce the federal funding side of things. So private universities are not entirely separate from public funds and the conditions that federal government put on those funds.

I think the reliance on alumni donations shows that it's riskier for a university to allow hecklers to stop debate than to say "no". As you say, " institutions will do anything to avoid losing those funds" and in my examples of Yale and Stanford, they're doing that by emphasising the importance of free speech and robust debate, not by allowing hecklers to veto ideas that they disagree with.

I'm a bit confused here, but I think we are agreeing/saying the same thing here? Sorry, am very tired this afternoon!

Re tuition fees: yes, US tuition, especially for private institutions, but even many state schools, is much, much higher than tuition fees in the UK.

I think, for two reasons, any university would weigh up their options here. If the "hecklers" are a minority of students, it wouldn't be worth the university pandering to them, to the detriment of the majority of students. Also, I think most universities are concerned more with optics than how much they might lose if 25% of those (minority) hecklers transferred to another university, taking their money with them. Demonstrations and such are par for the course at universities, but the university cannot let any kind of demonstration attract too much of the wrong kind of publicity. Protests against racism or apartheid in South Africa, for example when I was at university, were tolerated as long as it didn't spill over into criminal damage or rioting. Rallies lauding Neo-Nazis would not have been tolerated, but neither would protests preventing speakers (of any political persuasion) invited to the institution from speaking. Scary optics in national media deter prospective students and their parents.

I'm not sure that explains things very well!

Those are good points.

However, the First Amendment only prohibits state action. It doesn't apply to private universities like Stanford or Yale.

https://www.fire.org/research-learn/private-universities

I agree about how important donations are to US universities, although I think you're understating the importance of research grants. Stanford gets over 2 billion USD a year and Yale gets over 1B. Johns Hopkins gets around 4B. (The joke I've heard is that Stanford/Yale is a hedge fund attached to a medical centre - because of the huge grants, fees, and other money that such centres bring in each year - attached to a uni.)

I think the reliance on alumni donations shows that it's riskier for a university to allow hecklers to stop debate than to say "no". As you say, " institutions will do anything to avoid losing those funds" and in my examples of Yale and Stanford, they're doing that by emphasising the importance of free speech and robust debate, not by allowing hecklers to veto ideas that they disagree with.

Are you saying that US fees are higher than UK fees? If yes, wouldn't that provide a greater incentive to pander to student hecklers?

It's a bit out of date now, but this is an excellent book that lays it all out in all its gory detail:

The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges - and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, 2005, by Daniel Golden.

Thirdly, university tuition fees in the US cannot be compared to UK fees. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in just tuition (accommodation is extra), over the course of four years (and law school is more expensive again, for a further three years). People start college funds for their children before they are even born. One of my family members saved and spent $750k over six years because he had two kids in college at the same time. The UK fees don't even come close.

Just, wow!

Was he ever the subject of a formal student complaint though? Students might not have complained about him, he's presumably competent in his own domain and they'll meet people who are worse problems. Students may simply have decided that complaining is more hassle than it's worth.

But if students have formally complained that they've been bullied or threatened for attending an academic seminar to the point where the seminar series has been closed down to protect them... even Oxford aren't going to be able to able to ignore that. The Office for Students wont look kindly on it either.

So I very much hope that behind their anodyne statements Oxford University are shitting bricks. Not even as a GC feminist but just as an academic.

Re Stanford and Yale Law

The HE sector in the US has added complications which make it expedient for universities to clamp down on this kind of "protest " pretty quickly:

Firstly, freedom of speech is completely protected under the Constitution, with no getting around certain issues by using "hate crime" laws. You don't have to give someone a platform to speak at your institution, but once you do, you can be sued if you try to prevent them from speaking or if you dictate to them what they can or can't say. And US lawsuits do not follow what they call "The English System " whereby if you lose a suit you have brought against someone, you are liable for their costs as well as your own. That doesn't apply in the US, so we will sue anyone at the drop of a hat. You are responsible for your own fees only.

Secondly, the reliance of universities on alumni and legacy donations is huge, so institutions will do anything to avoid losing those funds. Ditto business connections. The development offices of the best schools in the country absolutely run those institutions. The Presidents are window dressing compared to those who bring in the billions.

Thirdly, university tuition fees in the US cannot be compared to UK fees. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in just tuition (accommodation is extra), over the course of four years (and law school is more expensive again, for a further three years). People start college funds for their children before they are even born. One of my family members saved and spent $750k over six years because he had two kids in college at the same time. The UK fees don't even come close.

These are all excellent reasons for a university in the US to apologize and fix things in a hurry. The UK system does not have anything like the same incentives.

It seems to be happening anywhere academia has been over marketised. Ivory Tower (2014) is a great documentary about the decline in US universities: . Worth seeking out

The UK is more extreme because of the fast transition from Free, to very subsidies, not free - in a short period of time. Uni's haven't been able to adapt to the new circumstances - so we have academic infrastructure thats not really adapted to the "students as customers" - combined with a management thats increasing "business focused" and only worried about maximising income, regardless of the carnage happening on the ground.

It is very serious because universities do have a duty of care to their students and thats not happening. Horrific things have happened to students on my course in the last few years (the worst things you could imagine). Its the ground level teaching staff that get full brunt of picking up the pieces..

I don't think we are an outlier - Its bad here, but I think thats pretty standard as if the whole system was designed to be dysfunctional

One would hope, but the Interesting Incident of Dr Biggus Tittus of Oxford University seems to have garnered little response from the powers that be…

You would think that they would do that - as there have been a least 3 formal student complaints, but I think management are hoping if they ignore it long enough it'll go away... god forbid they have to step up and make a difficult decision . Disruptive student is quite good at weaponising in house support networks against us... (won't say more as its possibly very outing)

I think there may be a element of this, particularly when a student's family has donated substantial sums to the university, but I don't think it applies to the vast majority. A university's reputation is worth far more than tuition fees, and at institutions like Oxford, there are always plenty of others who would gladly take the place of anyone choosing not to attend just because Oxford took a firm stand on a protest.

Something similar happened at Stanford Law School a few years ago and at Yale Law School before that. Both schools charge high fees.

The next day, Stanford's law school dean put out a statement affirming the school's commitment to freedom of speech. Stanford's president and the law school dean apologised to the speaker two days after the event.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/academic-freedom/2023/03/12/stanford-apologizes-after-students-heckle-judge

The dean later put out a more complete statement affirming Stanford Law School's commitment to free speech and robust debate.

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-first-amendment-does-not-give-protesters-a-heckler-s-veto

At Yale, the school read a statement about its free speech principles and protesters exited the event before it started.

Debra Kroszner, a spokeswoman for the law school, in a statement said that after the moderator read the university's free speech policy for the first time, "the students exited the event, and it went forward."
"Members of the administration are nonetheless in serious conversation with students about our policies, expectations and norms," she said in a statement.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/conservative-judge-urges-us-judiciary-not-hire-yale-protesters-clerks-2022-03-17/

I think the idea that leading universities are going to pander to students because of high tuition fees is wide of the mark. I expect Oxford to issue similar statements in support of academic freedom and robust debate soon.

The appointment by some universities of vice chancellors with business experience but no academic qualification to speak of was the first sign of the rot

I was working in finance and audit at the time, and all we heard from professional services colleagues was how great this was going to be. No more "useless academics " running the place.

All I heard from academic colleagues and friends was how turning the place into a business and treating students like customers who were always right, was just investing in trouble.

And here we are.

Very embarrassing

Welcome to University Speak. There are set phrases that the university will allow to be said to the press. On any given day, any given topic, what the university says can bear very little, if any, resemblance to what they actually mean, or what they intend to do.

University Speak is "holding language." It buys them time while they finally start thinking about and possibly dealing with issues they should have known about and dealt with years ago. It's playing catchy-uppy.

They won't actually care, mind you, until it starts to affect income. But they'll let you pretend that they care.

I am reasonably sure his concern was primarily about the threats to other students. I hope that he does tell them so.

'Despite interruptions by protesters at the start, the first two talks in Professor Foran's series proceeded and continued uninterrupted. We are concerned that the series will not now be completed as planned".

It's this isn't it? A swerve to imply Foran is the problem. They're able to do this by ignoring the threats made online to other students. Hopefully they'll be speedily introduced to the whole picture.

There is a rather magnificent typo in the Mail article:

Dr Emma Hilton, chair of the human rights charity Sex Matthews, added: 'I thought we were past this in academia.

They have to go through interminable procedures to do this, I suspect. Even back in the late sixties, it took very determined action by the academics in one university to get a disruptive student expelled after he'd punched the vice-chancellor in the face. (The VC seemed inclined to let it go as "high spirited", but they didn't let him.)

Oh man. I would say that sounds like a surprising nightmare, but I come from a family of academics, and one of them (not in the UK, incidentally - the rot is everywhere) has recently been describing precisely your experience. I was kind of hoping that what he was talking about was some sort of outlier, but I see that it’s not.

Yes thank you for psoting that, it's mad.

I mean Oxford hires probably the foremost academic authority on sex and gender and the law in the UK and then they don't pull out all the stops to make bloody sure he gets to present seminars on every damn thing he knows?

Why did they waste their money?

If the university wants to stop it, they can suspend/expel anyone disrupting lectures like this. Not difficult, but it does take some backbone

AmaryllisNightAndDay
Am I missing something?

No, I don't think you are.

(I posted it so people could see just how they had reacted and judge according.)

There needs to be much more pushback from disrupted students - they’re paying too. I guess it would be difficult for you to prompt that?

That doesn't sound very committed nor very fundamental. As commitments go "the university will work with him to explore how the remaining events can take place" sounds a bit wishy-washy.

Am I missing something?

It was bad when then £9K fee's came in as uni's started to shift into "service providers". The last 3 or 4 years have been progressively worse, since now that the budgets aren't balancing they need to maximise recruitment.

At "recruiting universities (all of us at this point)" the push to maximise numbers mean we now have many students that should not be at uni, students that are not able to cope are increasingly common on the course I teach.

My job is rarely focused on teaching my subject to high level anymore. Its about navigating complex student metal health issues, that I have no training/ability to deal with. Firefighting student groupwork implosions and dealing with increasingly unregulated student behaviour in and out of lectures.

Finally even when a student is considered a problem - its almost incredibly difficult to get the institution to remove them... a failing student will get infinite resits until student finance runs out.

Students that are actively disruptive, are incredibly difficult to remove. I have a current student who's a nightmare, we are on our 4th disciplinary investigation with no progress from management. Meanwhile he's free to disrupt sessions and make everyone life hell. Its been a year of pain so far.... any serious institution would have kicked them out months ago...

The appointment by some universities of vice chancellors with business experience but no academic qualification to speak of was the first sign of the rot, I think, and that started to happen last century. It used to be the job of the Bursar to deal with finance and sucking up to sponsors, before that.