Bristol Uni SU moves to ban TERFs

[terfsRus]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/03/01/bristol-university-students-seek-ban-terf-speakers-question/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw

I suspect the scales will fall from most people's eyes about this soon...

[TheRagingGirl]

I hope we can take heart from the University’s official statement here on Freedom of Speech:

www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2018/february/freedom-of-speech.html

I am a Pollyanna even after what I’ve been through (doxxing complaint trying to get me sacked).

I was at the Bristol Women’sPlace meeting and I was a bit concerned about the status and safety of the Chair, as I knew there’d be protests at her University, so it’s good to see she’s being supported.

[UpstartCrow]

Dictators always destroy education and the educated first.

[DodoPatrol]

I think I may need to try to steer my doubtful, questioning, nonconforming, probably lesbian child away from some of the more extreme ranty students' unions, for her own long-term safety and health.

That'll be Bristol and Durham off the list.

How are similar policies at other places?

[TerfyMcTerface]

HairyBallTheorem - the absolute worst are mature male students, particularly the kind who have worked in business previously. I have taught some deeply unpleasant specimens who relished undermining and openly sneering at female academics. One of them told my female colleague that a woman's place was in the wrong.

[BlackForestCake]

Bristol Uni Fem Soc's twitter is full of stuff promoting creepy Travis's performance art, the one who wanted to hang out in Top Shop's changing rooms with the girls.

[TerfyMcTerface]

Good God, DNAnotGRA, that is utterly shocking. I'm so sorry. I don't quite know what to say. Things have got even worse than I'd realised

[HairyBallTheorem]

Contemporary that's fascinating to see that study. Back in the day when I lectured I had a couple of instances of male students who simply could not cope with female authority figures. (One was a junior female colleague - she'd, quite correctly, given a student a 3rd class mark, he appealed - naturally was convinced it should have been a 1st, I second-marked the work and agreed, I spent an hour talking him through what was wrong with it and what he could have done to improve it, so he went to the male head of year. It was only when the HoY agreed with us that the student finally backed off).

I also had one male student volunteer to become class rep (unheard of to have a volunteer). When it came time to collate the class reviews, the HoY came up to me and said "make sure you read the actual questionnaires first". It turned out the questionnaires were a pretty typical batch, basically students happy with my teaching. The report however bore no resemblance to the actual questionnaires. This one student had taken it on himself to say I was crap. I still don't know what had annoyed him so much (other than my being female), but the really unsettling thing was how premeditated it was - he had actually volunteered as class rep, I realised in retrospect, solely to be in a position to put the boot in.

(Fortunately I had fairly stellar teaching reports across the board, both from the students and from the external examiners, so I was pretty bullet proof.)

[DNAnotGRA]

This university and its students societies and union has a lot to answer for. The staff and students within some of the societies have colluded to alienate my child from his family. My child has contracted the "trans mind virus", has become suicidal, sociopathic and we recently had to phone the police to conduct a safe and well check following a hate filled email to his 76 year old aunt who has stood by and supported him even though she was a gynae nurse for decades and know how the bits work. There is an insidious agenda at play at the university and they have banned me from campus for trying to put in place a care plan for when my child leaves uni later this year.

[UpstartCrow]

I'm struggling with the first paragraph of that article, like the pedant I am. WTF does ''the transgender status of women'' mean.

[ContemporaryPankhurst]

I may be oversimplifying it in my rage but essentially it is. It depends on the institution, some use SET to wholly make the employment decision. It is also based on the REF and not bringing the institution into disrepute. We could argue the weighting of each but as you often have to start applying for your next contract as you begins the first you need good student feedback.

Its sexist as well:
www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/11/new-analysis-offers-more-evidence-against-student-evaluations-teaching

This isn't the SET but an article about the student review website:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/13/female-academics-huge-sexist-bias-students

[athingthateveryoneneeds]

Renewal of teaching contracts are based on student assessment - make the classes too hard, challenge their views and the teaching contract is not renewed. The customer is always right.

That is APPALLING.

[ContemporaryPankhurst]

My gosh, they are literally policing what University staff are allowed to think and express:
“implement measures to prevent similar events from taking place on University grounds or with the endorsement of members of University staff”.

This is teenage arrogance writ large. It is driving me mad at my institution, in our discipline it is fine and there is a lot of mutual academic respect, but at a college level it is awful. The students have just changed a 'unisex' toilet sign to 'all gender'. Just unnecessary. Also, they won't hear the fact that many toilets are 'unisex' because women weren't allowed until 1975 and there weren't enough facilities.

It drives me mad that young people feel they are so well informed that they must educate me despite me having a PhD and life of learning. I wouldn't have dreamed of telling the academics that taught me that I knew better/ was better educated than them. (I did launch from thinking about the same issue differently though). I was taught that if you don't doubt your self then its a good indication that you are wrong. Doubt is essential for knowledge. The people I saw fail were the people who were certain of their own correctness, you could see the fail coming years in advance.

I think it partly comes from a new consumer culture at universities and job insecurity. Renewal of teaching contracts are based on student assessment - make the classes too hard, challenge their views and the teaching contract is not renewed. The customer is always right.

[athingthateveryoneneeds]

@PositivelyPERF that's a good idea. I shall make notecards. :)

[Thisusernamethingistricky]

This whole 'no platforming' bollocks is stupid. Everyone knows that the best way to expose hate speech for what it is to shine a light on it. Look at any time one of the EDL has spoken on the news, they get ridiculed. Think about the time Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time and it pretty much was the beginning of the end for the BP. When you have genuine hate speech that is illogical and shows itself for what it is, people see it.

A lot of this 'no platforming' has come about to do with trans rights. TRAs know perfectly well that if reasoned, logical, objective debate was allowed into the ring, the whole movement would be shown up as the load of baloney that it is. Its why Paris, Lily, Shon etc block anyone who doesn't buy into it all hook and line and lick their arse.

And obviously 'Liberal feminists' and people like Owen Jones have put so much into telling people who question the trans movement that we will be on the 'wrong side of history', that they too are desperate not to let the illusion that 'trans women are women' be shattered and show themselves up, so they need to continue with the no platforming and silencing anyone who disagrees with them.

[PositivelyPERF]

athingthateveryoneneeds you’re going to have to spend the next couple of years condensing gender critical thinking into a few lines, as you’ll not get a chance to expand on the correct definition of sex without being quickly shut down. Learning the correct definition of anti discrimination laws and the ‘actual’ rules, as opposed to the fluffy ‘feminist’ thinking, of the university wouldn’t go amiss either.

[MrsOvarall]

Telegraph reading parents are more likely to be the sort that can help fund their DC through university. I'm surprised that the university isn't worried about them taking their money elsewhere when they discover that there's no provision for DDs at Bristol.

In fact, thinking about it, most parents see through the BS and also have some level of influence over where their DC go to uni. Bristol should be more careful.

[Lottapianos]

Nick Ferrari is talking about this right now on LBC and hes absolutely on the side of the angels on this one. You know the world has gone mad when you feel grateful for Nick Ferrari's sane and sensible views

[athingthateveryoneneeds]

I swear it makes me want to go back to uni as a mature student just so I could stand up to this bullshite.

I'll be going to university in a year or two. It should be interesting...

[PositivelyPERF]

It also means that, when there is not sufficient accommodation at the start of an academic year and students have to share, a female student could conceivably find herself sharing a room with a biological male. None of this has been up for discussion

That is already happening, TerfyMcTerface. A poster, sorry I’ve forgotten her name, was saying on another thread that she organises student accommodation and isn’t permitted to know the person’s sex, only their ‘gender’. Therefore she could end up putting a six foot weirdo in with a victim of historical rape, Male violence or sexual abuse and that female student will have nowhere else to go if she complains.

I swear it makes me want to go back to uni as a mature student just so I could stand up to this bullshite.

[TerfyMcTerface]

I wonder if these students realise that most of their lecturers are probably TERFs?

[MachievellianBagOfCunts]

That article is GLORIOUS.

I think this bit's my favourite, because it's such a quietly subtle but clear reference to McCarthyism (The committee, 'Are you now or have you ever been...'):

A committee will be set up in order to vet proposed speakers or organisations, in order to see whether they have expressed Terf views in the past.

The inclusion of a photograph of Linda Bellos. And ending on a comment about free speech. Wonderfully done.

[TerfyMcTerface]

We do not condone attempts to silence discussion before it has even taken place or the use of stereotyping or threatening language to prevent debate

They need to go further than this, imo. "Not condoning" does nothing to stop what is a direct threat to the University's values and obligations.

[TerfyMcTerface]

I missed that hackmum, but it's somewhat reassuring. I do think that there is a problem with universities themselves, not just SUs. My university has interpreted the 2010 Equalities Act as conferring "the right not to be offended". To exercise an academic's right to freedom of speech, one would therefore have to be prepared to potentially test the conflict between these rights via a disciplinary or even legal process. So there is a barrier there to freedom of speech - whether presented by the Equalities Act, or by the University's interpretation of it.

On trans matters, my university (and I assume the same has happened elsewhere) has gone full-steam ahead with removing all single-sex provision, without consultation of university members. This means that the significant numbers of female Muslim students presumably cannot now use the swimming pool or sports facilities. It also means that, when there is not sufficient accommodation at the start of an academic year and students have to share, a female student could conceivably find herself sharing a room with a biological male. None of this has been up for discussion

[BeyondDeadlySiren]

That's a very clear news article :)

[hackmum]

Terfy - the very first thing the new universities minister, Sam Gyimah, did, though, was make a speech about the importance of free speech in universities. So all is not lost.