Nottingham Trent university welcomes free speech!

[HelloYouTwo]

Just flagging up as I heard an interview on R4 Today programme this morning, around 7.25-7.27 in which the president of the student union at Nottingham Trent uni said that they support free speech and therefore women’s groups wanting to meet to discuss self id etc would be able to do so.

How long before he is ‘re-educated’?

Or just not those women’s groups?

How long before he is ‘re-educated’?

I thought the same.

Bloody hell, so we now have the SU dictating/announcing university policy.

To be fair to this guy he want dictating policy. He said that universities up and down the land were placed for free speech. When asked if at his university that would include allowing women’s groups who believe that people who are not anatomically female are not female to have meetings in rooms at that university he said that as they support free speech then, yes.

(I suspect he’s about to face a Twitter storm)

want = wasn’t
placed for = open to

Why isn’t Today putting these questions to the Vice Chancellors? They are vastly well paid and with the levers of power to make change in their hands. All the adults are in hiding it seems.

I liked Justin's 'women who are not anatomically women' phrase, you could hear his eyebrows curling as he said it.

Good for him! Hope he gets supportive tweets personally and his organisation back him up and it’s great that the BBC asked him this specific question because it shows increased awareness of the current atmosphere for anyone daring to stand up to misogyny specifically and cultish thinking in general.

That's good news, it's DD's top choice for university other than the small matter of them not doing the course she wants! Still, guess it might have all changed in a couple of years when she'll be going.

Yes I heard that - and thought Justin did an excellent job. The SU president sounded pushed into a corner, where he couldn't say 'actually we don't welcome that sort of free speech'. Rather he said such groups were free to book rooms for meetings. He didn't say anything about whether it would actually be possible for them to hold such meetings without incursion - by other people exerting their right to free speech, presumably.

He then said that the SU worked with Nottingham Women's Centre, as if this was a trump card on the issue... then immediately conflated this with being welcoming and inclusive to the LGBT community.

My understanding, from these boards, is that NWC is at the forefront of promoting TWAW as policy and practice.

So that's perfectly clear then. Not.

I do like Justin Webb. He really does seem to have a grasp of the politics of this issue of Self-ID and free speech.

It isn't so much about whether they welcome free speech in theory, it's how they are prepared to stand behind this noble intent.

Because once a meeting is booked, all hell breaks loose on the phone and emails and twitter, the university will come under behaviour that in other circumstances might be called harassment and misuse of communications, huge tantrums from local groups about students being 'unsafe' from this meeting, and threats of action and protest that will suggest heavily that the university cannot guarantee safety and should cancel. And as we've seen from the police answer in Brighton, you may also have the police shrugging their shoulders if they've not been fully involved in selecting the building they wish to police.

How does he intend to deal with appalling behaviour that unfortunately has been allowed to be effective?

In the event of an actual meeting I want to see a university stand squarely behind this and deal effectively and firmly with those using behaviour to prevent and intimidate universities away from free speech. That's when I'll agree that place truly does welcome free speech

Well now it’s been declared that yes as a university they are all in favour of free speech, they have no excuse to back away from that do they?

I agree he was backed into a corner and isn’t it interesting that he knew damn well he couldn’t pick and choose which free speech he wanted to defend, and that he was very clear that of course universities are all on board with free speech. I hope WPUK decide to book a room there soon and test it out.

Good. I didn't hear the article on the radio, but smart question to ask!
Maybe phrasing it like that might allow a chink of thinking in.

Incidentally, on an 'interesting job, BBC' theme, did anyone else hear the R4 6pm news last night?

I wasn't listening fully at first (and too lazy / busy to look for it on catch-up, hence plopping a half-formed observation here, rather than starting a new thread, sorry) but what I think happened was this:

There was an item on someone being prosecuted for defaming someone else on Twitter, by, amongst other things perhaps, referring to them as a man. This could result in imprisonment. Both people had female names and were referred to as women. One was called Stephanie.

This was immediately followed by an item on 'Schoolgirl A' vs Oxfordshire CC.

This seemed to me to offer a very clear invitation to join the dots.

Yes - the first item was Stephanie Hayden vs Kate Scottow, the second the Judicial Review being brought by the 13 year old against OCC. About 24.50 in on the Sounds app.

In the event of an actual meeting I want to see a university stand squarely behind this and deal effectively and firmly with those using behaviour to prevent and intimidate universities away from free speech. That's when I'll agree that place truly does welcome free speech

Like UCL did last Saturday.