Sally Hines accuses Professor Rosa Freedman of being mean on Twitter

[OrchidInTheSun]

Hines says she's copied in her university and the ESRC into tweets about her. She's very cross. So cross that she can't spell Rosa's name properly - it's Freedman, not Freeman.

Here's her tirade
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1066446520575250435.html

'Thing is, none of us academics have had final decisions about what's being submitted yet so how could Rosa possibly know?'

Couldn't you find out from someone else in the field how the journals are rated though?

No-one is here for ‘cosy chats’ spannablue. We may be mere women, but we’re grown-ups and robust discussion is firstly what we’re here for and secondly what anyone landing here should expect. That pisses some off, clearly, but only those who think females should put up and shut up.

Some of the stuff which will end up being submitted to the next REF HASN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET

The point about REF reminds me of an anecdote about my xH - namely that one of my academic friends was more shocked that he had not been submitted to REF than the issues which led to the car crash that was our divorce process. She was literally sat there asking me to repeat that he had indeed not been submitted to REF. Whereas that was not even on my radar of bad things.

Oh, I am talking about the last REF by the way.

Couldn't you find out from someone else in the field how the journals are rated though?

Pretty much.

And, I'm having to assume that Prof Freedman would never make these claims without evidence to back her up.

Presumably by there being or not being published work that meets the criteria for submission?

Well, quite.

I am inclined to credit Rosa on this since she is very careful with language and is a legal academic - she will have tweeted precisely what she means: no more and no less.

I am much less inclined to credit those who cannot explain why Rosa is not correct with clarity and without resorting to obfuscation.

Some of the stuff which will end up being submitted to the next REF HASN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET

True. So are you now conceding that Hines is yet to publish anything REF-able in this period?

Clarity, please.

Thing is, none of us academics have had final decisions about what's being submitted yet so how could Rosa possibly know?

Us academics usually make damned sure that we have a minimum of 4 high quality, ref-able pieces to submit.

Are you suggesting that Hines has so many that the decision as to which to include will be challenging. Where are they being hidden?

The increasing emphasis on impact is interesting. If another professor can not find anything ref-able one would suggest that the work has had limited impact!

I almost wish I had stayed lecturing... I haven't seen such poorly wielded semantics in ages, spanna

You are going to have to admit that you got it wrong. There's nothing wrong in being protective of a viewpoint, or those that share it. MN and FWR in particular, would be a much poorer place without disparate view. But when you commit a blooper, fess up. Then we can all move on with facts in place rather than obfuscations that leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth!

Much as I respect Rosa Freedman I don't support this line of attack. The pressure on academics to publish in high impact journals is not necessarily a good thing for academia. The REF is not a perfect process and academics shouldn't be using it as a stick to beat other academics with. There are plenty of criticisms to make of Sally Hines intellectual positions without point scoring like this.

Have we seen Freedman'sTweet or are we just going on Hines' word? Someone said that her reports of @ing hadn't been verified/found, so I am just wondering if it is ALL made up!

Sally Hines still needs to make her case.

She didn't/was unable to during Woman's Hour. The foundation of her arguments appear to be "Some scientists believe that sex is a spectrum" and 'intersex' medical conditions - and both have been well and truly de-bunked as ridiculous, irrelevant, incoherent and misleading in our understanding of gender identity.

When taxpayers' money is being put into gender projects, then the public has a right to know that there will be some value in the outcome. The WH interview raises concerns about whether Leeds University knows what it is doing, to put it mildly. The Economic and Research Council needs a reality check and Rosa F's alerts are a public service, in my view.

It’s quite funny that she accuses Prof Freedman of being mean, and then calls her “pathetic”. Oh dear.

Chiara
I am not convinced it is point scoring.
The REF was introduced to encourage the generation and dissemination of high quality research in order to generate new knowledge.
I am sick to the back teeth of claims of 'new knowledge' being made by TRAs (including Prof. Hines) when that 'new knowledge' is just bunkum.

I would love to see high quality research that could defend Hine's theses. Asking for/ seeking refable pieces seems like a sensible way forward. She should be producing this, in light of her being a prof.

Much as I respect Rosa Freedman I don't support this line of attack. The pressure on academics to publish in high impact journals is not necessarily a good thing for academia. The REF is not a perfect process and academics shouldn't be using it as a stick to beat other academics with. There are plenty of criticisms to make of Sally Hines intellectual positions without point scoring like this.

See, spanna, if you'd made a substantive and sensible criticism of Rosa's tweet like this one, we could have saved a lot of effort, couldn't we? And have engaged on actual positions instead of smoke and mirrors.

I see your point, Chiara.

I would love to see high quality research that could defend Hine's theses. Asking for/ seeking refable pieces seems like a sensible way forward. She should be producing this, in light of her being a prof.

And yours, MsB.

This is what a robust exchange looks like - one that actually helps the civilians reading understand the issues and form their own opinion.

Alan H (zeno001) ran a Twitter search to see if Sally Hines assertion about the @'ing is true.

It does not seem as if there are any instances that would back up SH's description of events.

twitter.com/zeno001/status/1066503538828894208

twitter.com/aytchellesse/status/1066469348246605824

The REF is a bullshit bureaucratic system enforced on academia by successive UK governments. It concerns that me that some academics have swallowed the REF agenda to the extent that they can now only judge other academics work by how 'REFable' it is. Sally Hines work should be judged on its own merits, not by whether or not it meets some arbitrary criteria of research value set by civil servants.

The REF is a bullshit bureaucratic system enforced on academia by successive UK governments. It concerns that me that some academics have swallowed the REF agenda to the extent that they can now only judge other academics work by how 'REFable' it is. Sally Hines work should be judged on its own merits, not by whether or not it meets some arbitrary criteria of research value set by civil servants.

Completely agree. However, if it's true that Hines has produced little or nothing that meets the criteria for REF submission despite having the best part of a million quid in ESRC funding (which is targeted at precisely the kind of projects that DO produce REF-able research outputs), and despite having no students to teach, then that's deeply odd. That said, it could be that material in her field takes a long time to get published - some journals in my area have a waiting list of 18 months or more, so she could have had an article accepted in spring 2017 and still be waiting for it to come out.

Is she actually at Leeds uni? They cannot seriously be paying her for this.
What does Leeds medical school and biology dept have to say?
Is she trying to get Leeds off the league tables?
The vice chancellor needs to sit her down. As a parent I wouldn’t encourage (or sub the fees!) any child near an institution that publicly supported this irrational chat.

I'm not sold on the REF. I think it has had some damaging impacts. However, it is here and here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Academics work within the framework and so it would be surprising to discover a prof not producing refable work. Questioning why an academic is not producing refable work, if they aren't, is not supporting or colluding with the REF system, it is simply factoring in the context that academics currently work within when reviewing their work.

So of there are not @posts then was there any REF post?

Can you tell I don't do Twitter?

The vice chancellor needs to sit her down.

If the VC of any university carpeted an academic for doing research they didn't like then I hope every other academic in the country would be out protesting. Hines' research sounds deeply questionable to me (but then again it's not my area) and she's behaved like a complete spanner on R4 and twitter, but I would absolutely stand up for her right to do it in the face of some research and teaching-dodging bureaucrat who decided that her externally funded research is damaging the brand of the university.

If the VC of any university carpeted an academic for doing research they didn't like then I hope every other academic in the country would be out protesting.

I agree. However, many of them were quite silent about James Caspian being told he couldn't do research about detransitioning.