Campaign of bullying and intimidation at Sussex University vs Professor Kathleen Stock

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Absolute disgrace. Posters on campus calling for her to be sacked. Academic colleague tweeting that he agrees with this. twitter.com/FrancescoFv37/status/1445727937660076032?t=-Di7mRf5sznFvvzww8UI2w&s=19 I saw a tweet saying there was a burning in effigy. Can't confirm this but nothing would surprise me now. Time for Sussex staff, students and alumni to put their heads over the parapet.

The witch-hunting analogy is soooooo appropriate. Accusation is Proof. The accused must be made to say a form of words which if they are unable to utter, proves they are guilty. Public mobs where perhaps the majority are only in it for the kicks of seeing someone suffer.

And theoretically anyone can be accused. But it always seems to come down to women who have something to say for themselves.

Worth catching any questions: penultimate question was about Kathleen Stock.

Definitely, it was a fantastic part of the programme. The answers started with Matthew Goodwin being reasonable in terms of the importance of free speech in unversities, it moved onto Jess Barnard who in about a minute came up with a handful of slanderous statements, then when Matthew Goodwin was able to respond he went very strongly in at the totalitarian tendencies he was seeing. Including Jess Barnard saying that she thinks Stock should be sacked but a minute later denying it.

Unusually, the host, Chris Mason, allowed the topic to run as it became increasingly ill-tempered.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00106ld

Listen from 32:30. It's a surprisingly long segment and worth following how it develops.

I think the BBC is finding its backbone over this one.

Thread about Any Questions

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4370054-Any-Questions-now

Janice Turner in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a14598f8-2867-11ec-8024-639cd6774533?shareToken=bece2df8446431b0ece96011dcf03a59

Just got a 3 months for £3 subscription deal for The Times! Very pleased with that

Janice on top form as per. She is absolutely right of course.

Brilliant word perfect article. Thanks for the share token Igneo and thank you Janice.

I do slightly agree with the point made on a poster about fees.

If these students don’t have the judgement skills to understand that it’s not transphobic or threatening to say that sex matters, they really aren’t best placed to be at university and Sussex shouldn’t be taking their £9,250 a year.

I’m also concerned about teaching standards in the Art department.

More reporting in the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5e496bf8-285b-11ec-8024-639cd6774533?shareToken=56b0722a2677626a86eba5719fb5b843

And a letters by Selina Todd and Baroness Falkner, EHR commission chair:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1429b1e4-2857-11ec-9d7f-240ccd0a3a50?shareToken=e02551b12fc592515f557fd4deea2922

I am pleased to see the failure of Prof Stock’s union to support her being addressed directly in Prof Todd’s letter. It is utterly shameful on UCU’s part. What’s the point of having a union for academics if it doesn’t defend academic freedom or speak up in support of a member who is suffering such vile, targetted abuse?

One of the problems with UCU is that they decided several years ago to accept PhD students as members (indeed they gave them free membership). This completely muddied the waters around who the union represents. Many of us have left because we objected to paying nearly £40 a month to have our own (very different) interests subordinated to those of students who not only already have a union of their own but have no stake in the substantive issues of, e.g., pensions, academic freedom, etc. The likely upcoming strikes are a case in point. The strikes should be focused entirely around the existential threat to our pensions (which now won’t be protected against inflation and are moving inexorably towards a DC model) but UCU will lump all kinds of other issues in with it to get the students and postdocs to vote in favour of strike action (they can’t win a 50% mandate without them as many actual academics have left the union) and nothing will come of it. Indeed UCU haven’t even bothered to table proposals for the pension scheme, despite being asked to repeatedly by the employers, that’s how much interest they have in the things that affect their supposedly core membership.

I didn't know that about the Ph.D. students in UCU. It figures. Must have been on another thread I mentioned I used to belong to UCU for a brief period many years ago when I had a university admin job just senior enough to get in as academic-related. I found them useless. My employer made a pig's ear of the regrading (Pay and Modernisation) exercise. UCU utterly failed to intervene to get them to do it in a timely or sensible way, and then when the results came back and some people faced huge pay cuts UCU was as much use as a chocolate fireguard representing them as they tried to sort it out.

Meanwhile, every time there was an election for UCU main Executive or whatever it was called, half the candidates would talk at length about international issues, e.g. Palestine. This is not what I was paying my dues for, so eventually I left.

Surely if membership drops enough, the employer will eventually be able to say involving UCU in pension discussions is not appropriate, as most people affected are not members?

I believe Prof Stock left UCU last year. Can't blame her. They have utterly failed her.

There's been mention of Caroline Lucas as the local MP. I think Falmer campus is in Lloyd Russell-Moyle's constituency and he is full-on Stonewall cheerleader, so expect no help there.

I was talking to a friend about this last night and I remembered that in the first term at Sussex we spent a huge amount of time talking about semiotics, and then hyper reality, and it occurred to me that the current approach to transrights fits in with that concept astoundingly well - “a real without origin or reality”. It was quite late at night though so going to think on it some more.

Good to see Martina Navratilova tweeting in support of Janice Turner's article.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

I was talking to a friend about this last night and I remembered that in the first term at Sussex we spent a huge amount of time talking about semiotics, and then hyper reality, and it occurred to me that the current approach to transrights fits in with that concept astoundingly well - “a real without origin or reality”. It was quite late at night though so going to think on it some more.

Maybe men are worse than women at differentiating between threats to ego and threats to self, hence all the talk of being denied existence?

On the other hand I think pregnancy forces most women to come to terms with a physical reality that is outside their control (regardless of whether you want to be pregnant or whether this just means seeking out contraception).

Of course many people experience illness and injury that is outside their control, but we don’t live our lives assuming these things will happen.

It is utterly shameful on UCU’s part. What’s the point of having a union for academics if it doesn’t defend academic freedom or speak up in support of a member who is suffering such vile, targetted abuse?

It is, but possibly not unique. I think there are a number of unions who wouldn't stand by their female members if similar issues arose.

Aaaaah, Semiotics.

Will nailed it when he wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose would smell as sweet by any other."

I used to be a Semiologist but now I'm not Saussure.

[quote Igneococcus]Janice Turner in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a14598f8-2867-11ec-8024-639cd6774533?shareToken=bece2df8446431b0ece96011dcf03a59[/quote]
I can't believe what I'm reading...

Pleased to see Baroness Falkner weighing in.

Just saw this on Twitter -idiots

Noone is talking about the abuse and harassment Sussex Uni's Women's Officer Lucy got after speaking out against Prof Stock and the Uni's response?

Shame on Instagram for allowing this bullying account to remain live.

@MargaritaPie

Noone is talking about the abuse and harassment Sussex Uni's Women's Officer Lucy got after speaking out against Prof Stock and the Uni's response?

Why don’t you start a thread if you have information on this?

Noone is talking about the abuse and harassment Sussex Uni's Women's Officer Lucy got after speaking out against Prof Stock and the Uni's response?

I think that if you say something silly on twitter, a pile on is probably inevitable. Disagreement is not abuse, but I hope twitter have dealt with any tweets that broke their rules. Certainly if she has received rape or death threats I think she should involve the police.

I don't think any personal harassment has been reported (you haven't provided any examples), but I hope that this is also dealt with by the university. I am very sure that Kathleen Stock would not want anyone to suffer abuse in her name.

You haven't responded to my earlier request for clarification on whether you also think that it is incorrect to say that a woman who asserts that sex is sometimes relevant in policy and legislation is endangering lives. I would appreciate a reply as I think this is central to the discussion which you seem to be engaging in. If you don't reply, I can only assume that you are just here to goad.