The Times and Harry The Owl

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Oh, well, this is interesting

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1292160071208706054

Trigger warnings on legal rulings??
What other legal rulings might attract trigger warnings one wonders?

I'm a lawyer and had to study a module on crime to get my qualification. This included a week on sexual offences, what did and did not count as rape, lots of detailed discussions of cases with rape/sexual assault etc. I imagine given the number of young women studying the course, some of them will have been victims of rape/sexual assault and might have found it uncomfortable/upsetting. This is probably the most justified place to put a trigger warning, but we had to read the relevant chapters ahead of the lecture and it was immediately obvious what the subject was so it probably wouldn't be needed. I suppose if anyone did find that material difficult they could have not gone to lessons that week and chose to avoid any questions on the subject in the final exam (IIRC we had a choice of 5 exam questions from which we needed to choose 3). Where would you stop with the trigger warnings? There might also have been people in the class who have been physically assaulted, had friends or relatives who were murdered etc.

But the judgment in question here seems to me to be a case that will annoy TRAs and their woke allies rather than trigger PTSD flashbacks. There are a lot of judgments that will irritate some readers. A Christian student on the course got very angry about the Ladele case (where a Christian registrar was not permitted to refuse to perform homosexual weddings) and I imagine some students who agreed with the judgment in that case will have been equally irritated with the Christian student's views - I know I thought she was being unreasonable but it turned into an interesting debate. Law is not a place for #nodebate. Law is #non-stopdebateabouteverything.

We also studied R v Brown (concerning gay men involved in S&M and whether they could consent to physical assault) and the teachers didn't censor it - but they did explain that it was possible that the judgment was in part motivated by homophobia as it was inconsistent with other judgments concerning heterosexual couples. But the point is we still learned what the judges said and formed our own conclusions. The censorship that is happening here is really shocking.

I suspect this will be zealous overreach on the part of one particular editor/publishing team that has been allowed to get completely out of control.

This. Hachette imprints usually operate entirely independently and don't have to seek approval from the top for what they do or don't do.

^^ seek approval for what they do or don't publish, I should have said above.

@hellandhairnets

Glad that you think this probably was a decision made by someone lower down in Hachette, without approval from the top.

Though how whoever made the decision could think this was acceptable for anyone working for Hachette to do at that point, when the headlines were full of Hachette's public support for JK Rowling and the principle of free speech, I cannot imagine.

@Lamahaha

I suspect this will be zealous overreach on the part of one particular editor/publishing team that has been allowed to get completely out of control.

This. Hachette imprints usually operate entirely independently and don't have to seek approval from the top for what they do or don't do.

How does that work?

Surely imprints can't go completely against what the public face of Hachette is saying publicly?

Trying to hide facts of a court case.

Trying to hide the comments of a judge.

Trying to hide the full truth of the ruling.

Seeking to warn students - who may be our future lawyers and judges - that this factual information is triggering and not safe to read? Potentially undermining
our justice system by insinuating it's not neutral.

I'm just wondering what else has been skewed and given the treatment behind closed doors.

Agree with much of what @SickOfThisVirus said. I've studied Brown, and a raft of rape cases, and cases to do with sexually transmitted infections. None of them exactly make for pleasant reading but that's the law. I would imagine the full goings on of murder cases are harrowing as well.

What I wouldn't imagine is any of these cases being given over to lobby groups for input on how to change the words of the judge. In a textbook. For those about to learn the judgments of judges.

And yet...it seems to have happened.

I made similar points about the absurdity of trigger warnings when studying law on the other thread, sickofthis, so totally agree with your analysis. Everyone remembers R vs Brown! I was at uni when the changes around marital rape were coming through in case law, and that was tough going. Likewise with the case law around Ahluwalia/Thornton et al. All very harrowing stuff, and the vitriol thrown at feminists at the time was horrible. The concept that young people studying now need to have this sanitised (re written?) so they can cope with it is really troubling.

xxyzz

Surely imprints can't go completely against what the public face of Hachette is saying publicly?

It may be different with non-fiction but the Hachette imprint I work with/for does not have to be green-lit from above. Editors have full authority, and the last word as to what is published. I suppose in retrospect, post-publications, problems could arise but that would be after the fact, as in this case (I presume).

No comments on The Times article yet. It needs some of the excellent analysis here being copied over.

Comments are being heavily moderated. Mine's been in a holding pen for over two hours.

Also, there is a cracking comnent below the Times article on trans and autism. From George someone. Best I've read.

I hope that teachers / lecturers make this (the original judgment & the edited version) into an interesting lesson on...

• why it’s important to read source material rather than relying on comment pieces.
• the nature of & limits on ‘free’ speech.

Slight derail but I was interested in this comment from SickOfThisVirus

We also studied R v Brown (concerning gay men involved in S&M and whether they could consent to physical assault) and the teachers didn't censor it - but they did explain that it was possible that the judgment was in part motivated by homophobia as it was inconsistent with other judgments concerning heterosexual couples. But the point is we still learned what the judges said and formed our own conclusions. The censorship that is happening here is really shocking.

I think in some upsetting cases involving heterosexual couples there has been concern (eg from #WeCantConsenttoThis) that heterosexual men aren't held to the same standards because it is women that are being injured and obviously they just love it don't they, those kinky women? In other words that due to misogyny women don't get the same protection that homosexual men get.

What else has been censored by Mermaids? Who else do they give "feedback" to?

The data leak last year revealed emails between The Tavistock and Mermaids checking that patient information leaflets met with approval.

Some comments are up now.
Let's see how long they last.

And in the real world, an organisation such as Mermaids (were it being run within its stated remit as a support resource for children) would surely question how the document needed any input from them as it was a factual report of an event that took place. But apparently we’re in the Upside Down.

Crime's not my area of practice @FannyCann so I only have hazy memories from my law course from over a decade ago, but I think the difference between the Brown case and the rough sex murder defence often used against women is that Brown concerned physical assault rather than murder.

To be convicted of most crimes you usually need both a physical and a mental element. So for murder you need to have killed someone and also intended to have at least caused GBH. This is where the rough sex defence is coming in. The accused men are saying they didn't intend to cause the women any serious physical harm and so they don't fulfil the mental element, even if they admit that they did end up killing them.

Brown, on the other hand, only concerned assault. Again you have a mental and physical element. The men in Brown admitted that they had caused the other participants harm and had intended to do so, so they fulfilled the criteria but were trying to rely on their partners' consent as a form of defence. It's subtly different.

Hopefully one of the other lawyers on this thread will correct me if I've got anything wrong. It's never been an area that I wanted to get involved with!

Thanks for the explanation SickOfThisVirus

I suppose judges, like other people, are susceptible to having their judgements clouded by their views on certain matters.
The judge in the Margaret Duchess of Argyll "headless man" divorce case was thoroughly shocked by her behaviour and not afraid to let her know it.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/aug/10/sarahhall

It may be different with non-fiction but the Hachette imprint I work with/for does not have to be green-lit from above. Editors have full authority, and the last word as to what is published. I suppose in retrospect, post-publications, problems could arise but that would be after the fact, as in this case (I presume).

I would think that those at the top of Hachette would be aware of it now, but yes, all the subsidiary companies - they aren't small, they include Little, Brown, Hodder and others - act pretty much independently. They are complete companies in themselves. Hachette are an absolutely enormous publishing operation and would never get anything done otherwise.

So as you say, they would never normally require a green light from high up in Hachette for editorial matters. BUT I am still surprised this got as far as it did even within the division. There would still be a chain of command that would have agreed the editors could go to Mermaids and then back to the author as part of the editorial process. An author and chair resigning over something like this & the ensuing row would be a big deal internally. It's a very big fuck-up.

I think it's worrying that we are having to tread carefully in case we offend someone regarding something they think, but don't take the same steps around things that really happen. Female students will be all too aware of the low conviction rate for rape and sexual assault, without the language softened for their consumption.

It's like "sticks and stones may break your bones... but my opinions about myself are so much more important than mere broken bones."

There would still be a chain of command that would have agreed the editors could go to Mermaids and then back to the author as part of the editorial process. An author and chair resigning over something like this & the ensuing row would be a big deal internally. It's a very big fuck-up.
Exactly their credibility as a reputable unbiased publisher of text books is shot to pieces.

It’s bloody disgraceful. I almost wish I was still teaching Critical Thinking in school. I would so be using this! Though I expect that in today’s climate, I’d get into trouble for it.

SickOfThisVirus thanks for that very clear explanation.

For law to play a meaningful role in society it needs to be accessible. This means that ordinary people (non lawyers) need to be able, easily, to find the law itself and a clear explanation of it.

Hachette seem to have been seeking, with Mermaids, actually to conceal the law: to make it more difficult to find an analysis of the protections offered to free speech in the context of women’s rights. How often are they doing this in legal publications?

Law is nothing if it is hidden from our view. We should all be concerned about this. I really can’t see how Mermaids can be interpreted as anything other than sinister now.