Dr Jo Grady, new general secretary of the University and College Union, crticised by academics for her use of Twitter "Terf-blocker" Telegraph article

[R0wantrees]

'Feminist academics in uproar over new union chief's 'Terf blocker' as they complain of assault on free speech'

(extract)
"Ms Grady has defended her past use of a “Terf-blocker”, which she said is an “easy mechanism for blocking large numbers of accounts that have been identified as articulating transphobic views”.

Prof Selina Todd, an expert in modern history at Oxford University, said that she and many colleauges consider "Terf" to be an "abusive term".

Refusing to debate with people whose views you disagree with is not a suitable approach for a representative of academics, she said.

Prof Rosa Freedman, Reading University’s chair of law, conflict and global development, said that by using a Terf-blocker “legitimises” the narrative that anyone who expresses gender critical views poses a danger to transgender students.

“She is in a position of leadership and is supposed to defend all academics and academic freedom,” she added.

Alice Sullivan, a professor of sociology at University College London, said: “Academic freedom means nothing if it does not extend to those with whom one disagrees.”

Michael Biggs, an associate professor of sociology at Oxford, said he fears Ms Grady will treat transgenderism “as a new orthodoxy, beyond question and scrutiny”.

He added: “Precisely because this issue is so contentious, the Union must defend the academic freedom of all its members—which will inspire our students to value intellectual and political debate.”

Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at Sussex University, said she is concerned by Ms Grady’s use of “block lists” which mean “she can’t hear voices of gender critical academics”.

Ms Grady, a senior lecturer in employment relations at Sheffield University Management School, was elected as general secretary on Friday with 64 per cent of the vote.

Defending her previous use of a “Terf-blocker”, she has said that “filtering out and muting people is not the same as denying them free speech”, adding that she used it due to the “enormous volume of personal abuse” she was getting online. "(continues)

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/05/24/feminist-academics-uproar-new-union-chiefs-terf-blocker-complain/

This is very concerning. However, in many ways it will be a case of ‘nothing has changed’. Most GC UCU members haven’t expected any protection from their union for a very long time. This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for some.

twitter.com/rorfitelli/status/1131950040367468544?s=21

Not only that, Jo Grady is part of a group organising against motions for academic freedom in debates around sex and gender, at the current UCU congress (if you scroll down, this is alluded to by the author of the twitter thread)

One has to wonder about the claim that she was receiving an enormous amount of personal abuse - from GC accounts? I see a lot of this flying about, “toxic” debate, abuse blah blah, and yet I am still to be shown anything which I would consider abusive coming from a GC account. Unlike, say, tweeting pictures of cartoon figures holding guns at senior female MPs

If you can’t manage people holding a different opinion to yours, then you shouldn’t be in a position where you are expected to stand up for your members.

Saying that men cannot actually become biological women and should not be in womens spaces is now an extremist view, according to people on both sides of the debate. Its enough to get you framed as toxic and abusive.

But she isn't filtering out views and opinions she disagrees with.

She is filtering out the voices of those that someone else has decided are unacceptable. Which is an unbelievable thing for an academic to do!
Handing over control of what voices you hear to some random (who may not exactly be qualified to act as moral arbiter on anything anyway - didn't the Challenors create one of the blockers?!) shows a quite bewildering lack of curiosity. "Please tell me who I should/shouldn't listen to, wise men of the internet! Save me the horror of making my own mind up!"

To be fair, I have seen GC accounts accusing pro-trans academics of being pedophiles and it is definitely not all polite chat. However I think the actual thing that they find offensive is disagreement with their views.

Personally, I find Jo Grady vapid and unprofessional and I think she has bitten off more than she can chew here. She has only been active in the union for two years and has no leadership experience, but trades on being an expert on theories of collective bargaining. She has a loud group of cheerleaders at the moment but I am not sure how much that will help when the shit starts to hit the fan. The pensions row is likely to blow up again very soon, requiring difficult decisions to be made by the GS, as well as needing to be a very effective negotiator. I can’t say I liked the previous leader, but she did have experience and she did know how to negotiate. ‘We will not capitulate’ is not negotiation and I think Jo Grady will learn that very soon. I would not be surprised if she resigns the role within a year, as soon as things get difficult.

There is no such thing as 'personal abuse' from GC feminists. Unless 'abuse' means someone saying they think you're wrong and explaining why. And usually sharing facts to back it up.

Getting so tired of death threats, rape threats, name calling and awful abusive behaviour being condoned from the TRA lobby while GC feminists are demonised for even speaking about it being framed as 'hate' and 'abuse' and 'unsafe' and other ridiculous terms that normal people outside of this bubble will just say frankly is insane.

Well done the academics pointing out how very silly and overdramatic this all is.

It is much worse than that Telegraph article suggests. Grady also whipped up her followers to demand that Louise Moody be sacked (Grady mistakenly thought that Louise was employed by the University of York) for voicing the belief that lesbians do not have a penis. For a trade unionist to demand the sacking of precariously-employed person, who also happens to be deaf and a lesbian beggars belief. I will be resigning from UCU next week and saving myself £25 a month. I was only in it for the legal protection, but I now have no confidence at all that they would protect me if needed.

I am also resigning. Waste of money. The Louise Moody thing was horrific but she and her empty-headed cheerleaders can’t see it. What they fail to realise is that one day their views might be the ones considered ‘problematic’.

And why they can’t understand that questioning whether woman should be redefined as just an identity is not the same as saying trans people don’t have the right to exist is beyond me....

I don't know if it made the news in the UK but in Ireland last year the charities regulator blocked a woman and was unable/refused to provide a reason why they had done it.
www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/charities-regulator-ordered-to-explain-why-it-blocked-woman-on-twitter-1.3705779

Obviously someones personal account is different to a State body's account but its an interesting case to keep in mind

Have likewise hung on for legal protection and also because I believe in trade unionism. But this is a step too far.

This is a tweet of hers:

Last, and most importantly, I do not support the transphobic arguments that underlie these motions. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Neither gender nor sex are binary, nor are they “biological”. There is an overwhelming amount of research to this effect. Period.

What a complete idiot.

Bloody hell. But then she also tweets about the amount of misogyny in the academy and how she’s discriminated against for being a woman. But at the same time she claims there isn’t really any such thing as woman and that people are not allowed to fight for women’s rights. Weird.

Ah well, as I said above, I think her term will be relatively short-lived. The pension thing is going to kick off and people will not give a shit about how awesome and inclusive her views on biology are once their money is at stake due to her lack of experience in negotiation.

I’ve just cancelled my UCU membership. Am sad about this as I’ve been a union member for 14 years. But I’m not paying money to a union which wants to undermine my rights and that is run by a vacuous handmaiden who wants to get lesbians sacked from their jobs for rejecting the concept of lady dick. I agree that members will turn on her when her lack of negotiating skills is exposed in the pensions dispute.

I'm absolutely delighted that Jo Grady has been elected; she's a breath of fresh air in the UCU.

Oh, and it's her personal Twitter account. She can block anyone she wants to. I have seen anti-trans activists ganging up on individuals online in a way that is truly repellent (though I know not all anti-trans activists behave like this). No one should have to put up with harassment on social media.

I heard there was a TRA blockist that lots of GC people have signed up to too? Cult Blocker, or something? How is that different?

Surely people should be allowed to filter their social media feed as they see fit? I’m a bit perplexed as to how this actually made it into the newspaper to be honest?

I think it made the paper because the blocker basically doesn’t just target anonymous troll accounts- it also blocks anyone whose views do not correspond with the trans women are women mantra. So anyone writing about feminism could end up on the list and many many have, even though they have never harassed anyone online or even spoken about trans people. It is basically the act of blocking anyone whose views might not entirely correspond with one’s own. A bit perplexed as to why you think that is fair, especially in academia.

Also, it’s the account she used for campaigning, so not quite so private. Furthermore, this is all a bit moot because as soon as she needed votes, she switched off the blockers, which calls into question why they were needed in the first place.

I heard there was a TRA blockist that lots of GC people have signed up to too? Cult Blocker, or something? How is that different?

The differences appear to be that hardly anyone is aware of it, it doesn't have many followers, and there doesn't appear to be evidence that it's widely used.

twitter.com/CultBlockerPro

I think it’s a shame the article didn’t discuss Grady rallying the troops to lobby a university to “deal with” a precariously-employed young academic for not buying into Lily Madigan’s claim that they are a lesbian. That doesn’t really sound like trade unionism to me. It’s a bad day when you trust your employer to uphold your rights more than you do the leader of your union.

I agree this is bad news for UCU. Disappointing that the article didn't cover Grady calling for a fellow woman academic to lose her job for holding GC views.

JessicaWakefieldSV that's such an awful tweet. Did she tweet that in her new role as GS

I did want to give Jo Grady the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure about her campaigning style (smacks of personality cult - a bit like the poor man's AOC; using her family history and pictures of family members to establish credibility; temporarily deleting/hiding twitter feed before April 2019 ...) but UCU needs a good leader with lots of enthusiasm and support for the coming fight against universities' pressure on staff pensions.

BUT instead of leaving self-ID and gender identity to one side for now and focusing on priorities, she's doubling down. It is all very well to sanctimoniously invoke the rights of marginalised groups but if the pensions fight goes badly, every single academic in the USS pension scheme will lose thousands of pounds in old age. UCU looks like it will be busy with infighting at a time when the union has to stay united. The insistence on dogma versus reality ('sex is a spectrum') and denigrating academic freedom makes academics looks like bloody idiots who don't deserve a good pension. This is at a time when the UK public doesn't understand where all the money from tuition fees is going anyway.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic but I do fear that this is about feeding a young woman's ego instead of fighting for the profession as a whole.

Dearie me!

Of course it’s all about her ego. Someone on twitter claimed that she has been promised a professorship on her return to academia. I can’t quite see that though as surely she would need to have the research to back it up.

But, yes, the pensions thing is the priority now. Trinity will not be the only rich Oxbridge college to leg it (I bet all the monied ones are considering it) and there’s a very real chance that the USS will be downgraded with a devastating impact on our pensions. For her to be harping on about being an ally just shows that her priorities are totally skewed.

And remember that this is someone who has only been active in the UCU since the strikes in 2018 and has never even led a branch. Or indeed any sort of a team from what I can gather. Yet now she is leading one of the largest trade unions in the country at an absolutely critical time. Doesn’t look good.

Further, the EHRC released this earlier this year:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/free-speech-be-protected-university