University of Edinburgh has fallen

[MsF1t]

The forthcoming Research Seminar: Schools and Gender Diversity has been 'postponed' (as in cancelled) by the University after being pressured by the usual suspects. The event information is below:

The Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership at the University of Edinburgh invites you to a research seminar on schools and gender diversity. Everyone is welcome, and the seminar may be especially relevant to academics, teachers and student teachers, education policy makers, politicians and parents. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion, with all viewpoints welcomed.

Issues around gender diversity and supporting gender-nonconforming and transgender-identifying pupils in schools are complex, sensitive and often controversial. The Scottish Government is currently working on amended guidance for schools on supporting gender non-conforming children and young people, in the context of wider debates on gender diversity. What should that guidance look like? What understandings of sex and gender should inform it? How should we develop curricula, pedagogies, pastoral care and safeguarding practices that will enable all children and young people to interrogate gender norms whilst ensuring that gender-nonconforming and transgender-identifying pupils are safe, supported and included in schools? This research seminar will critically examine some of these questions, and aims to inform and support the ongoing public debate in Scottish education.

Speakers:
Professor Michele Moore: Head of Centre for Social Justice and Global Responsibility, London South Bank University
Stephanie Davies-Arai: Founder of Transgender Trend
Dr Shereen Benjamin: Senior Lecturer in Primary Education, University of Edinburgh

So depressing. I genuinely thought they were better than this, after they stood firm and supported the 'Women's Sex Based Rights' event where Julie Bindel spoke to go ahead.

(Please excuse any dodgy typos, on phone/knackered/fed up.)

This thread could be titled The University if Everywhere has fallen. It's dispiriting how in the places there is meant to be challenge, debate and exploration of ideas, it's trampled. Many unis wouldn't get as far as arranging an event like this in the first place.

Of not if

This is outrageous. That line up of incredible women don’t have a transphobic bone between them. What they do have, is decades of safeguarding experience and a wealth of knowledge particularly relating to GNC children who present as trans. To block professional exploration of this very sensitive topic is akin to....ah yes. Something which would get me deleted.

One does have to wonder about people whose response to a grown up discussion is to shriek about the denial of their very existence. Dear woke idiots at Edinburgh, we know you exist. We can bloody hear you all the way down the M6. What we’d like to do is have a proper conversation, but that appears to be beyond your sensibilities. What on earth you are doing working in a university, where ideas should be heard and examined, is beyond me

It’s just so elitist

People with priveledge and power
Well I could go on. But they need to go outside from that bubble of power

And listen instead of shutting down discussion

Edinburgh’s Principal Peter Mathieson worked previously in senior management at a Chinese higher education institution. It’s disappointing to see him bow to pressure like this when he has seen what state control of public expression does to free speech first hand. I would have expected him to be a firm advocate of free speech and against no platforming. The government here has provided really clear guidance to University leaders about upholding free speech, so there’s no government pressure to be cowed.

Let's not forget when the uni's new female rector was 'accused of transphobia, after retweeting details of a meeting to discuss changes to the Gender Recognition Act.'

'The university newspaper Student and Edinburgh University Students Association condemned the message, claiming the organisations behind the event were hate groups.'

www.heraldscotland.com/news/16980451.backlash-as-edinburgh-university-rector-ann-henderson-accused-of-transphobia-over-tweet/

@littlbrowndog. Does anyone have a share token for the Michael J Ferns article in the Times?

This is a chilling and insight into what is going on in universities. Instead of promoting intellectual debate, institutions are silencing people who have views that in any way deviate from the rigid orthodoxy. It is an atmosphere which is inimical to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. It is an environment which makes critical thinking impossible because there is no concept that people have the freedom to challenge the status quo. And the status quo on campus is that ‘women’ are not restricted to the dictionary definition and to argue otherwise is heresy and thoughtcrime. Heresy describes ideas which challenge the left wing dogma which dominates academia

It’s on the main thread board thingie.

Under 2 ariticles in times today op

Michael Ferns article here -

Glasgow conservatoire:
<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sensitive-students-at-royal-conservatoire-of-scotland-stifling-free-speech-says-michael-ferns-nt7tbk5rk?shareToken=7d4ab431319402c809488e64dc418ecd" target="_blank">http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sensitive-students-at-royal-conservatoire-of-scotland-stifling-free-speech-says-michael-ferns-nt7tbk5rk?shareToken=7d4ab431319402c809488e64dc418ecd

So universities get central funding? This should be looked into if they are blocking and intimidating women. Jesus is this the 21st or 19th century?

Lol how do they expect to convince people of their position if they are always hiding from debates and discussions?

If you can simply denounce and throw around words like 'Terf', 'Transphobic' and 'bigot' it means you do not have to convince or persuade anyone.....and as we see every time a 'hearing ' is conducted, on whatever platform, there are simply no logical or persuasive arguments at all.......It is all a total sham and people are soon found out.

How thoroughly frightening and depressing.

Know your place, women. (At home, not talking, thinking or asking questions.)

I am so sick of this censorship. I thought the government were stepping in to protect freedom of speech at universities? This is a really worrying global trend. Woke authoritarians manipulating equalities and diversity policies and laws to silence ideological critics

Ithought the government were stepping in to protect freedom of speech at universities?

Doesn’t seem much evidence of the govt doing anything to challenge the no platforming tendency. Jordan Peterson has just had his visiting fellowship revoked by Cambridge.

I really don't think comparisons to Jordan Peterson are helpful, or to 'left wing dogma'.

The women who would have been involved in this event are all left wing and have fought bravely for social justice issues over their entire careers.

The dividing line here is not between left and right, but between two sides of this particular debate, which do not line up with traditional political allegiances (as many of us active in left-wing parties and groups know to our cost).

I am sorry but I profoundly disagree with you. The no platforming paradigm which dominates huge swathes of academia do not come from the right. They come from the left wing. They are a feature of the intersectional identity politics faction which has gained ascendancy in the last decade. Revoking Jordan Peterson’s fellowship is part of the same picture. It is an environment which threatens freedom of speech, freedom of thought, critical thinking. And it emanates from the left not the right in its current iteration

Well said BovaryX. The authoritarianism we are currently seeing is very much from so called left wing circles.

Whether one agrees with Jordan Peterson or not, it is all part of the same slide into dangerous territory where dissenting viewpoints are shut out and de-platformed because some people find it too upsetting to engage with.

The right to disagree and dissent, the right to freedom of speech applies to all of us, not just the people we like or agree with.

The right to disagree and dissent, the right to freedom of speech applies to all of us, not just the people we like or agree with.

Precisely. One of the things that is so chilling about the ongoing suppression of dissent is that its architects are absolutely unflinching in their moral certainty. The concept that academia should be a place where dissenting views are encouraged and challenged has been subsumed by a conviction that a hierarchy of oppression enables one group to silence anyone who dares question this dubious theology.

Talking of pronouns, ‘they’ should be ‘it’ in my post about the no platforming paradigm....

There is an absolute determination by certain groups and people to close down any views and voices that might open up critical thinking - and it seems worse than ever at the moment.

The more that comes to light, the further the boundaries attempting to silence us are pushed.

It's very disturbing and is designed to make us feel powerless and paralysed.

But the tide has turned. Ways and means are being found, creatively and powerfully, that challenge this censorship.

Our voices are being heard and amplified, so of course this is the point at which the most pressure is being exacted.

But the tide has turned. Ways and means are being found, creatively and powerfully, that challenge this censorship.

In the outside world, maybe. In the academy things are getting worse. At my university, there have been three separate events just in the last week or so (none of which have anything to do with gender, in fact, but more to do with race / religion / politics) which have induced performative outrage and demands for people to be disciplined or no-platformed.

In the outside world, maybe. In the academy things are getting worse....there have been three separate events ...which have induced performative outrage and demands for people to be disciplined or no-platformed

I wonder how long this will continue? The Enlightenment is looking like a very dim and dusty relic in this Brave New World of fanatical moral certainty

Ironically, Edinburgh was the birthplace of the Enlightenment in Britain. Now it seems to be in the vanguard of the anti-Enlightenment movement.