Northumbria University - Sarah Phillimore and Harry Miller 'seen as a 'safety and wellbeing' risk to an entire university.'

[ChristinaXYZ]

Open letter on Sarah Phillimore's website shows how deep the interference with debate and free speech goes at some universities.

sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-northumbria-university

They’re messing with the wrong person there.

That's what I thought!

Maybe they think if they'll ignore the woman she'll go away. Forgetting she's a barrister of course. They are mistaken.

Why do these ideologues have such significant sway over previously reputable institutions? Makes my blood run cold to think of what is occurring that we haven’t found out about yet….

Why is it that I read the title of the thread and thought of this? (Apologies to SP and HM who probably don't see themselves as Boo.)

"I would like you to set out clearly the legal basis on which you justified such interference with my email correspondence so that I can consider if I need to take this matter further.

If you concede that you had in fact no such legal basis, I request an apology and reassurances that no similar unlawful action will be sanctioned by your institution again.

I will forward a copy of this email to my MP Michelle Donellan who is also the current Minister of State for Universities, so that she is aware. I will also publish this email to my Substack, as I consider it a matter of significant public interest."

Go Sarah!

Just read this. It is concerning that the risk processes and controls within the organisation are so poor that 1 junior member of staff can complain (formally/informally?) and that be enough to cause damage to legitimate freedom of speech. I would argue that an organisation receiving public funds needs to be above reproach. So I suggest additional formal complaints to the internal audit function, the DPO and to the funding body. I dont think in this case a wishy-washy apology if and when offered is really sufficient.

Great letter. The fact that she only found out about it by chance is deeply worrying, what else is going on behind the scenes on the command of TRAs? These institutions are a disgrace for not standing up to this insanity.

It's sinister that so many self interested individuals are involved in restricting the legal & democratic rights of other citizens in order to further their own interests. Everywhere you look - the judiciary, education, politics, even children, they're there pushing their own demands often at the expense of others, just as this extreme incident demonstrates.

Well it’s going to be fun seeing their reply

some jumped up little twerp has done some serious overreach, but obviously they can’t say that so….

Well actually I thought the new strategy was to find some jumped up little twerp vulnerable person overpaid intern and throw them under the bus.

As long as they're given a warning so that they let go of the emotional support dog...!

The phrase 'who the fuck do they think they are' comes to mind.

That is the truly fascinating question. I've seen many possible but partial answers on the level of countries:

Working behind the curtain, piggybacking on some other social justice movement (self-ID bundled with same sex marriage in legalisation, say), and being funded by a handful of very very rich trans activists.

But then for years the question of transgender women in women's elite sports was discussed in committees and meetings where women were not invited at all, and this example, I think, is part of the explanation:

Almost all the negative consequences of these policies fall on the female sex, and most decision-makers everywhere are still predominantly of the male sex. Almost none of the harm would affect them directly and some of the changes actually benefit them.

When you add that to the virtue signaling you might get the kinds of examples we can observe in the academia, too, especially as the gender identity ideology states that women are privileged compared to trans women, so that it is the former who should always been viewed as the underdogs, even if the woman is, say, a black Lesbian.

Can't wait to see the response.

Exactly! When the hell did universities turn into places where there was no freedom of speech?

How does the redirect of the emails work? And who authorised that? And is it just for Sarah or for other people? And who do they get redirected to? And who appointed them?

If you haven't, you should watch Benjamin Boyce's film about Evergreen College in the US.

The worrying thing is that, just like in the US, we're increasingly going to find that "We All Live on Campus Now": web.archive.org/web/20220531191909/nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-campus-now.html

I am curious about the timeline on the changes in universities, too. The concept of 'safe' spaces began in the 1970s in the US at some colleges, as actual rooms for gay and Lesbian and bisexual students to retreat to and to be confident that nobody would harass them there. But then it somehow spread into everything and I have been unable to find out how and why that happened.

Decades later the concept of 'safe spaces' was interpreted to mean that no challenging debate could be undertaken if specific groups of students would be harmed by it. What, exactly, harm consists of is unclear, but mostly it seems to be just feeling bad or upset, i.e., it doesn't mean that there would be slurs aimed at the students in that group or that their physical safety would be at all endangered.

Much of this is still about the LGBTetc students, but similar arguments have been used concerning some other groups of students. Still, the LGBTetc appear to be the most powerful of the student groups in this context and the one that gets their way most often.

Working behind the curtain, piggybacking on some other social justice movement (self-ID bundled with same sex marriage in legalisation, say), and being funded by a handful of very very rich trans activists.

I'm not convinced that the very very rich people behind the curtain are actually trans activists. I think trans people are unknowingly being used as cats' paws by these people. I can't say what sort of people I believe them to be because it would just get deleted. I do think they have an interest in eroding safeguarding though.

How is this not a huge breach of GDPR? If an email accidentally ends up going to someone to whom it's not intended that can be a breach, particularly if containing information (I believe even a name) where there is no reason to share that information. Since Ms Phillimore addressed the email to one person and it ended up going to another (without her consent or knowledge), that's a clear and intentional breach of the law, surely?

It's enough to make a cat laugh. They're picking on a barrister and an ex copper, it's utterly laughable. I can't wait to follow the fallout from this latest shitshow on Twitter. Idiots.

I don't really follow this; why does she think she has an automatic right for her email communication to connect with an individual employee, presumably at their staff address and not their personal address?

That's not a foregone right, is it?

Employees at my educational establishment have been made aware that physical or electronic mail directed to us may be opened by another member of staff.

Irrespective of content I had thought this was pretty generally known that organisations can act in this way.

So she is proud to be a member of Fair Cop who advocate:

hashtag #SayYesToHate on 'days of LGBTQ* significance'.

Just wow. I think that University was very right to be concerned.