Our friends at the Good Law Project

I also agree with this. And I say this as someone with skin in the ND game.

Actually, I listened to an interview with Kathleen Stock about this very topic yesterday, and she said, like PPs remarked above, that she's not saying that autistic people can't be academics and that, in fact, half the great academics she knows are autistic.

The issue is where to draw the line, and that the bums on seats approach taken by universities is letting everyone in, even the ones who would ordinary not pass muster.

She also made the point that it creates a victim/special treatment mentality which is detrimental to everyone once they enter the real world. As we've seen with Arday.

I suspect it was meant to be consensus before autocorrect/type “helped”

I take issue with this sentence in the OP. Neither anti-racism nor trans activism are 'left-wing causes'.

I'd argue that trans activism very much is, but both are also very much part of the Omnicause of anti-racism, trans rights, net zero, anti colonial “correct think” found in hyper-progressive left wing circles.

Anti-racism is consensual among all but the far right.

Say what now? Can you expand? Who is consenting here to what exactly?

@fanofBen

"She isn't saying nobody with dyslexia should be an academic, or that the original idea to mitigate some disabilities eg dyslexia was a bad idea; but that, once you start making allowances it isn't automatically clear where you should stop. She's right"

I agree with this. Further, they appear to have appointed someone on the basis of his skin colour and disability who seems clearly to not be up to the job. That can never be right. It lowers standards in academia.

And sometimes people who aren't neurodivergent do the same.

Neurodivergence is sometimes a difference, sometimes a disability, never a sloganised superpower.

Support for a left wing cause that bears no relationship to the facts? Where have I heard that before?

I take issue with this sentence in the OP. Neither anti-racism nor trans activism are 'left-wing causes'.

Anti-racism is consensual among all but the far right. And I think that the alleged wrongdoing of Arday is severe enough to mean that both racists and anti-racists have to work quite hard to see the scrutiny of him through the lens of racism. (I do accept that black academics in general are more aggressively scrutinised for potential failings, I'm just not convinced that he is an appropriate target for expressing concerns about that issue.)

And transactivism has fuck all to do with the left. It is a men's rights movement, and men of all political shades are equally capable of the misogyny and disregard for women that feeds it.The attempt to position it as a left-wing cause is a manipulation perpetrated both by the activists themselves (who attempt to wrongfoot sex realists with bullshit about far-right funding) and by the growing right, which has (as the gender critical movement fully predicted) used the idiocy of gender ideology as a recruiting sergeant, and to undemine the former consensus around equality and diversity practices.

I’ve just read about this! It’s utterly baffling! How are the police being weaponised like this? It’s utterly farcical.

Stock isn't saying people with dyslexia aren't suitable for academic careers! Let's quote the whole paragraph (my bold):

There is currently some bafflement on social media about why Cambridge authorities are disclaiming the accusations about Arday with such aggressive, self-satisfied certainty. I have a possible explanation that is only secondarily connected to skin color. Namely: at some point, the university sector decided that intellectual disability was something that should be mitigated, rather than treated as disqualifying one from scholarly life. Conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia, autism, ADHD, speech delay (and so on) were now to be treated as unfair obstacles to a person’s dreams of pursuing an academic career, rather than constituting evidence they were unsuited. And since over-diagnosis of mental health conditions is rife in the sector, and everyone is frightened of being called discriminatory, the predictable upshot was that — at least in some cases — straightforward midwittery came to be treated like an excusable intellectual disability as well.

She isn't saying nobody with dyslexia should be an academic, or that the original idea to mitigate some disabilities eg dyslexia was a bad idea; but that, once you start making allowances it isn't automatically clear where you should stop. She's right.

(I typed more but it needs to be more carefully worded than I can manage on my phone right now! Maybe later.)

Forgot to say I very much doubt Arday is paying for Carter Ruck from his own pocket.

Someone somewhere raised the issue that people with autism can't lie, or find it very difficult perhaps, which doesn't fit with what we know Arday says of himself.

While I find the whole thing very funny on one level - all those goody two shoes who will soon have egg+++ on their face - I'm wondering how much money students & parents etc are wasting sending their children to Cambridge to be taught by him.

I wouldn't be laughing at that.

Au contraire cher OP...this opening sentence...

I know this doesn't belong here but given the bollocks from the GLP about issues that do I thought people might be interested.

Anything to do with the GOOD LAW PROJECT is relevant here, due to the GLP and MUMSNET sharing a director.

I agree with the good Dr Blackbird’s main point.

However, for those who aren’t familiar, that Sokal paper was a hoax. It was written to expose poor quality refereeing in Sociology.

quantum-chemistry-history.com/Sokal1.htm

Thank you, that also rubbed me up the wrong way. There are many incredibly gifted individuals who suffer from conditions like dyslexia. The idea it renders one inherently incapable academically is rubbish.

You look at things that are and ask why? I look at things that have never been been and ask why not?

Sometimes people who are neurodivergent think around corners that the rest of us don't know are there.

One of my favourite (and most used at work) GIFs.

I agree, DrBlackbird. Look at Alan Turing etc.

Whilst she writes well, there are claims in this article that could be applied to any and every university.

Arday may write and speak nonsense (note, I’m not claiming he does, just that he may do in the sense that Stock references), but my god a significant percentage of university academics the world over also could have that accusation made against them. Going back decades e.g. Alan Sokal’s published article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity".

But her argument came undone for me when she claimed that neurodiversity was evidence of being ‘unsuited’ to an academic career:

"Namely: at some point, the university sector decided that intellectual disability was something that should be mitigated, rather than treated as disqualifying one from scholarly life. Conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia, autism, ADHD, speech delay (and so on) were now to be treated as unfair obstacles to a person’s dreams of pursuing an academic career, rather than constituting evidence they were unsuited."

First of all, in my experience, faculty with autism are rife in academia (who else has the hyper focus to study the mating habits of the deer fly at full moon to a doctorate degree) but, second, it is extraordinarily elitist to suggest that just because someone is dyslexic that they’re unsuitable to academic life.

There is possibly a valid point somewhere in how universities as progressive institutions may well promote faculty beyond their abilities as a form of positive discrimination or supporting equality, but she’s missed the mark with such unnecessarily sweeping claims implying all those with SpLDs are unsuited.

Apropos: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1939/03/18/the-secret-life-of-walter-mitty-james-thurber

Thanks, she is excellent, that is a can of worms well and truly opened.

She writes so well.

Here's Kathleen Stock's take on him: https://archive.is/MqJDU

Not Diane Abbott, coming back to the Labour fold with a splash?

You're right about Clive Lewis, Nadia Whittome and Bell Ribeiro-Addy. John McDonnell is also in there, of course.