Neil Thin has been cleared.

[ScreamingMeMe]

www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/03/neil-thin-a-victory-for-common-sense/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Neil Thin: a victory for common sense
The Edinburgh academic has been exonerated following an absurd campus witch-hunt.

Of all the examples of campus cancel culture, the suspension of Neil Thin was particularly alarming. Thin, an academic at Edinburgh University, was reported to his employers by his students earlier this year for expressing what were, essentially, mainstream and anti-racist views.

Thin criticised the university’s controversial decision to rename its David Hume Tower after students complained that the 18th-century philosopher’s views on race had caused them distress.

More shocking was that he was also reportedly condemned for expressing explicitly anti-racist views – for opposing racially segregated spaces on campus and for saying that the modern obsession with ‘whiteness’ risked dividing society. For challenging woke racialism, he was smeared as a racist.

All of these views are totally normal – progressive, even. Yet for woke students at Edinburgh they were beyond the pale. As spiked noted at the time, Thin was essentially hounded not for being racist, but for being anti-racist.

The good news is that, following an investigation, Thin has been cleared.

But the fact he was ever suspended and investigated in the first place is still a scandal. He says the suspension has ‘taken a very serious toll’ on him, and that his health ‘nosedived’ soon after the campaign against him began. This will also have sent a signal to other academics – urging them to self-censor or to expect similar treatment.

The Neil Thin verdict is a victory worth celebrating. But the fact that we now have to fight for the right to express mainstream, common-sense opinions on campus shows just how far there is to go.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9647733/amp/Victory-free-speech-University-Edinburgh-throws-complaints-woke-students.html?__twitter_impression=true

Victory for free speech as University of Edinburgh throws out complaints against professor branded 'racist and problematic' by woke students after he criticised move to rename tower honouring philosopher David Hume over his links to slavery

Also in the Times Scotland section today

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/end-sinister-censorship-historian-tom-devine-tells-edinburgh-university-kqjflpqmp?shareToken=6956e1e74d0e03cf61e272b44ad31708

👍

I hadn't heard about this. Absolutely shocking.

More shocking was that he was also reportedly condemned for expressing explicitly anti-racist views – for opposing racially segregated spaces on campus and for saying that the modern obsession with ‘whiteness’ risked dividing society. For challenging woke racialism, he was smeared as a racist.

God I hope this is parody. Denying white privilege is not explicit anti-racism. What’s the difference between against (I presume) groups for non-white students and arguing against groups for natal women?

It’s when stuff like this gets shared here, with no recognition of nuance, that I feel so depressed - but yay, more ammunition for people who want to paint gender critical feminists as right-wing nutters. Fantastic 🙄

Agreed, deathgrip!

Thank goodness he's been cleared, but as stated, the accusations are enough to sink someone's career and put others off saying anything.

Well done Sir Devine for standing up for him, that's good to hear and should carry a fair amount of weight.

Hope he can now put it all behind him. Time for Edinburgh to put its house in order.

Opposing racially segregated spaces does not make someone a right-wing nutter.

It's very much less extreme than the third-year students [who] circulated an anonymous letter suggesting that they no longer felt safe in his lectures. (Why not? Are they likely to have heart attacks if they hear a different opinion?) That was apparently part of a smear campaign against this lecturer -- the same sleazy tactic so often used against GC women.

Yes agreed, the whole feeling 'unsafe' if you have your views criticised is just astounding. It's part of the whole package of consumerisation of universities though - individual self-actualisation comes front and centre.

Hang on a minute - he opposed people of ethnic minorities having their own space? What exactly does this mean? And how is that anti racist? WOULDNT that be similar to opposing women’s rights to having their own space? Or those with a disability having their own space? Or those of a certain religion having their own space??

Have I misunderstood something here?

Really good to hear that he's been cleared. However he shouldn't have been dragged through it all in the first place. What a shameful state of affairs when universities are too spineless to protect staff and students from a minority of authoritarian wannabes.

Sorry, I meant to post further in this thread and forgot, and it dropped out of my watch list (annoying when that happens!)

I never said I agreed with everything he said/did, so please don't put that on me. (Although he did support JK Rowling and made a daft joke about the man in the moon being non-binary, which seemed ok to me.)

However do I think he's an evil bigot? No, probably not. Do I think he should be hounded on social media by students hounded out of his job and have his career and life ruined? Also no.

(I couldn't find any further information in the 'racial segregation' comment: can't think why anyone would have a problem with people from ethnic minorities having their own groups to discuss issues that affect them; something along the lines of the Evergreen College debacle would be more concerning imo.)

It's good news in the wider context of freedom of speech and thought at Universities. Although I hope he hasn't been given better treatment because he's a man: none of the female academics have said anything as 'controversial', imo.

@LaLaLandIsNoFun

Hang on a minute - he opposed people of ethnic minorities having their own space? What exactly does this mean? And how is that anti racist? WOULDNT that be similar to opposing women’s rights to having their own space? Or those with a disability having their own space? Or those of a certain religion having their own space??

Have I misunderstood something here?

It seems he queried an event called "resisting whiteness" which initially banned white people asking questions.

Hard to make out more of the details but evergreen springs to mind.

A public event is different to spaces for certain groups.

Hang on a minute - he opposed people of ethnic minorities having their own space? What exactly does this mean? And how is that anti racist? WOULDNT that be similar to opposing women’s rights to having their own space?

That's an interesting question, and I agree people should be able to form whatever groups they want.

But, sex and race are different things. The purpose of racial segregation in the past was clearly about reinforcing differences in social status. That's often been true of sexual segregation, but not always. Sometimes it's necessary. For example in sports, because men and women are biologically different; or in hospital wards, for privacy; or in refuges or public toilets, where women might be harassed.

So then you’d be opposed to an event for natal women only, perhaps called “resisting the patriarchy”, then?

Absolute hypocrisy. This is what I find so depressing.

Yes agreed, the whole feeling 'unsafe' if you have your views criticised is just astounding

Well that’s certainly one slant to put on it. Another would be that being a non-white student, being lectured by a man who has denied the the root of their oppression and actively spoken out against the recognition of it, is probably quite disconcerting.

I share some views with some of the users on this board but I increasingly realise we have a lot less in common than we have in common. Cheering this is utter hypocrisy.

First sharing of Guido Fawkes bullshit and praise for the likes of Jordan Peterson, and now this. It doesn’t surprise me at all that GC feminists are being dismissed as right wing shills. How thoroughly depressing.

MN has a massive racism problem at the best of times, but trying to frame this as “anti racism” is a whole new level of bollocks.

Having just read a few newspaper articles to try to understand the context behind the 'Resisting Whiteness' event in 2019, I'm wondering whether I'm missing something. The event seems to have been criticised for not allowing white people to take the microphone during a Q+A session but the reasoning behind that appears to have been to allow the emphasis to be on people of colour's opinions and questions during the session. White people were invited to ask any questions they had after the Q+A session. Given the focus of the event, this would seen reasonable to me - along the same lines as men attending a feminist event being asked to wait to ask questions until after a Q+A session to allow the session to focus on women's experiences.

Some of the segregation comments seem to have been made about the same event where two spaces were set up, one for people of colour and another for anyone who felt unsafe. Again, given the focus of the event, if attendees had expressed the need for such a space, this would seem like the organisers recognised that need. However, I have no idea if this is the case - this is just going off my reading of newspaper reports.

@NotTerfNorCis

Hang on a minute - he opposed people of ethnic minorities having their own space? What exactly does this mean? And how is that anti racist? WOULDNT that be similar to opposing women’s rights to having their own space?

That's an interesting question, and I agree people should be able to form whatever groups they want.

But, sex and race are different things. The purpose of racial segregation in the past was clearly about reinforcing differences in social status. That's often been true of sexual segregation, but not always. Sometimes it's necessary. For example in sports, because men and women are biologically different; or in hospital wards, for privacy; or in refuges or public toilets, where women might be harassed.

Sex and race (you missed out disability? Abd religion? Age?) are different. But all these groups have individuals with things in common who mag wish to congregate sbd have their own spaces to discuss the particular issue they face as a group (or get away from the particular issues they face as a group)

@Waitwhat23

Having just read a few newspaper articles to try to understand the context behind the 'Resisting Whiteness' event in 2019, I'm wondering whether I'm missing something. The event seems to have been criticised for not allowing white people to take the microphone during a Q+A session but the reasoning behind that appears to have been to allow the emphasis to be on people of colour's opinions and questions during the session. White people were invited to ask any questions they had after the Q+A session. Given the focus of the event, this would seen reasonable to me - along the same lines as men attending a feminist event being asked to wait to ask questions until after a Q+A session to allow the session to focus on women's experiences.

Some of the segregation comments seem to have been made about the same event where two spaces were set up, one for people of colour and another for anyone who felt unsafe. Again, given the focus of the event, if attendees had expressed the need for such a space, this would seem like the organisers recognised that need. However, I have no idea if this is the case - this is just going off my reading of newspaper reports.

Segragation seems a bad choice of word, then.

MN has a massive racism problem at the best of times, but trying to frame this as “anti racism” is a whole new level of bollocks.

That's a quote from the article, not something anyone here has said.

Yes, but the article was posted without comment or critique.

@Waitwhat23 exactly that. To then flip things and use references to racial segregation to protest an event where black people centre themselves is really vile.

I believe in free speech, I think it’s important to have debate and diversity of views. But this man sought to silence this with tactics that are usually criticised here, except when it’s about race apparently.

Can people really not see this? A white man was opposed to an event where a group of oppressed people wanted to have their own voice without being spoken over, and without or having to deal with defensive reactions. Sound familiar? The fact that the article refers to this as explicitly anti-racist gives a good indication of the bias, and seeing this stuff posted without criticism is frustrating.

It’s all a bit “political correctness gawn mad”, isn’t it?

If we wanted to hold an event talking about the systemic discrimination faced by women and made a rule that only women should speak, and men should just listen - that would be okay, right? Would it be misandrist to do so? Or would it be an attempt to address the imbalance in every day life where men talk over women?

Sex and race (you missed out disability? Abd religion? Age?) are different. But all these groups have individuals with things in common who mag wish to congregate sbd have their own spaces to discuss the particular issue they face as a group (or get away from the particular issues they face as a group)

Yes I did miss out disability, religion and age. The Neil Thin story is about race, and you were drawing parallels with feminists who support sex segregation in some cases, so race and sex were relevant. I also said I 'agree people should be able to form whatever groups they want', but historically, when people have been divided by skin colour it's been a bad thing.

Not sure I want to get drawn into this as I'm not keen on identity politics. It's too often used as a way for socially privileged people to claim oppression. The people holding this meeting were students at a Russell Group university - already more privileged than most.

But he was investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing. Yet some people are still insisting he must be racist without having heard exactly what it was he's supposed to have said or in what context. Perhaps he was, you know, encouraging debate and critical thought, seeing as it's a university.

There is absolutely a difference between more traditional approaches to fighting racism etc and Critical Race Theory on this kind of issue. While a classic anti-racist approach wouldn't generally say such meetings are always bad, they tend to be careful about them and which situations are appropriate in, and which they aren't. CRT tends to be much less discerning.

A good example would be the events that started the explosion at Evergreen College and all the subsequent awfulness.

Thin it seems to me is making this distinction, and whether or not you agree with his particular argument, it's not somehow racist to reject CRT, as if it is the only way to think about race.

The traditional argument against CRT from that perspective is that it essentialises race and so in that sense is actually a racist ideology, and also some wold say that instead of destroying racism it looks to invert it. That's not a far right or alt right argument, it's common both to traditional socialists and traditional conservatives.

So yes, insofar as Thin is arguing that the approach is problematic he is making it as an anti-racist perspective. Just not a CRT perspective.

Surely the question is not do we agree with Thin - personally I think I do not, but should he be hounded and have his livelihood threatened for expressing those views - again I think not.

Thin criticised something. He didn't seek to ban anyone, get them fired or put them in danger.

I do think we should have female only spaces. I also think other people should be free to respectfully disagree with that idea.

This seems relevant to the OP issue of what exactly counts as racism...

"Racists make a comeback with all new ways to be racist"