Jo Phoenix: case management meeting today

[Pluvia]

Jo Phoenix is a criminologist who was bullied and harassed out of her job at the OU for her views on sex and gender. She has an Employment Tribunal (with Ben Cooper representing her) in the pipeline.

I'm wishing Jo well today because she has her case management preliminary hearing, at which the date will be set for the tribunal. Today's the day when everything becomes concrete and financial commitments are made.

I notice Jo's garden's been looking a little untended. If anyone wants to help with the landscaping they just have to google Jo's name to find the location.

Ah, pretty much cross-post whilst I was typing, though much better expressed!

If anyone is on Twitter, is it worth posing a question to Legal Feminists and the Baroness if anything needs ti or can even possibly be done legislatively to prevent this fairly blatant abuse of power, targeting people with specific protected characteristic, resulting in denial of access to justice.

Costs incurred could to be regulated, number of witnesses standardized etc., surely something needs and should be done?

This seems an excellent idea.

Dug.

There's no way women are going to stop financing this. It's a disgrace that we have to, but by doing so we are establishing in law that these intimidation tactics are wrong and illegal.

And we are also letting others know that they cannot penalise individual women on the basis of their finances.

Solidarity (and carrots) to Jo.

Did some digging and will do some more come pay day.
I saw her speak at Filia and she was amazing.
She doesn't deserve any of this - she should be free to research and teach and use her amazing brain without this nonsense.

Been digging

Planted some cauliflowers, but it looks like she may need some artichokes too...

I know two families where universities such as Bristol, Brighton and Cardiff, hotbeds of trans activism, have been ruled out. Their children have encountered bullying at school for not cheering loudly enough for the trans cause. I'll make a point of mentioning Reading to them.

A university that dares to differentiate itself in this area is likely to attract much higher quality students, I would think. If you are taking steps that attract the kind of kids who value free speech and independent thought at age 18, you’ll run rings academically around places that are producing… well, TRAs.

I'll certainly see she's covered in that direction

There’s a disturbing level of intellectual bankruptcy, moral callousness, and self-righteousness abroad in such schools and I'm sorry that children continued to be bullied for such a wide range of causes.

It's wise to be wary of institutions that take pride in their substitution of indoctrination for education. We can see that such indoctrination is effective, if for no other reason that it forces people into preference falsification and unexamined window signs in our personal greengrocer (to misuse Havel).

Something that makes me very uneasy is considering whether one of the unintended and great harms moves beyond producing a generation of young people who are persuaded to set aside material reality in favour of participation in someone else's immersive fiction (especially when it has some legal enforcement behind it). What if one of the greatest harms is producing a generation that is cynical about education and feels alienated by the dishonesty and hypocrisy of educators and those who represent the creation and implementation of knowledge.

I've been thinking about the delaying tactics used by these organisations, and going back, via "1066 and all that" to Magna Carta (Who looks as though she did die in vain), specifically Clause 40. "To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny, or delay right or justice." Of course, Sellars and Yeatman added their caveat "except the common people", and we now have a corollary to that, "except common women."
The government, in funding these institutions is doing precisely what clause 40 is supposed to reject.

DH and I have it in our Wills that the OU inherit a large chunk if we all die ( including our DDs). A few 'go have a holiday with this' bequests and then the OU get everything to help support students In need.

Not any longer. That changes today.

Will plant more when I get home.

bumpette for veg

How can it be legal for OU to call 18 witnesses and deliberately draw out proceedings. Just how?

This is not justice.

I think above a certain number they should have to fund the legal action for both sides when it's so David and Goliath like this.

I'd like to know this too.

Why isn't this clear unfairness and 'inequality of arms' being stamped out by judges at case management hearings?

I guess for many employment tribunals people will be representing themselves. There can't be many situations where you would be able to raise funds via crowdfunding for legal representation. I wonder how much your chances of winning drop if you are a litigant in person.

Have dug. I think a new rule that states that the side that wants to prolong the event needs to fund this (after the original timeframe has already been agreed) would be fair.

Also done

It's wise to be wary of institutions that take pride in their substitution of indoctrination for education

At this point in time, I am v worried about what my DC would be exposed to at Uni. Definitely will reflect on which ones might be better / worse at safeguarding. DCs 17 year old friend went to a Uni open day and noticed a poster advertising the SU’s "Fetish Society" celebrating kink with bondage workshops, rope and scissors provided. My god, how have we come to this complete abdication of a duty of care towards young and vulnerable teenagers??

I’ve also been mulling over whether to leave the UCU after being a member for two decades… it’s a hard one because employees need to act in concert as a counterweight to employer’s holding the balance of power. However, I’m less and less impressed by their lack of support for staff on this issue.

In all honestly, considering apprenticeships over university in a few years. This shit isn't the only reason, but it is part of the reason.

Another row of beans in.
(Hope the beanstalks reach up to the giant's gold.)

I am in the same state of mulling.
It is a difficult choice.

no i think you just have to keep going! I never give the extra donation and its worked fine for me recently ... I've had to wait until I got the code on my phone for it to go through though

Elfy I think you should write to OU and tell them this ( apols if this has already been covered - quoting means you can't read the rest of the thread )