40 Oxford dons sign letter in support of Kathleen Stock

[ArabeIIaScott]

This seems pretty significant.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/free-speech-oxford-university-trans-row-kathleen-stock/

'Oxford dons have warned students that freedom of speech is at risk as a trans row engulfs the university.
More than 40 academics - including Prof Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, and Prof Nigel Biggar, the theologian - have intervened in support of a planned appearance at the Oxford Union by Prof Kathleen Stock, a leading feminist, in a letter to The Telegraph.'

...

Letter includes:

'“Professor Stock believes that biological sex in humans is real and socially salient, a view which until recently would have been so commonplace as to hardly merit asserting.
“Whether or not one agrees with Professor Stock’s views, there is no plausible and attractive ideal of academic freedom, or of free speech more generally, which would condemn their expression as outside the bounds of permissible discourse.”'

Maybe he confused 'oppressed' and 'compressed'.

Is it possible the Oxford letter could encourage Cambridge academics to do something similar?

People tried to point that out on Twitter, @ArabeIIaScott and I think that's what's referred to in the student news article as "members of the society receiving thousands of hateful messages"

I suppose if you live in a world where your status is determined by how oppressed you are, then you're going to look hard for ways to avoid facing the fact you're at an elite educational institute and likely to benefit from privileges the rest of the world can't even begin to imagine themselves having.

Maybe someone needs to teach these young people gratitude for their good fortune, rather than telling them that if they're panromantic demi asexual enby's they deserve free sex toy wipes and lots of backpats.

Jesus, strike that apostrophe from the record, please.

Regarding academic standards.... I think that it's a lot easier to get in if you self fund your PhD. I.e. money talks, as always. In general Universities are trying to get as much money in as possible and are very encouraging of self-funded students.

I think this idea that there's a certain standard that all students must meet is probably wrong these days.

I have no idea how this student is funded, but just making a general point here about the way Universities have lost public funding and are turning into businesses.

Thank, dimorphism, that hadn't actually occurred to me.

Unfortunately, the position of her opponents seems to be that Professor Stock’s views are so illicit that they cannot be safely discussed in front of an audience of consenting and intelligent adults at the main debating society at the University of Oxford.

The sarcasm drips from this. It's brilliant.

As for buying sex toy wipes, sex toys should not be shared. If it goes in you, you should own it and it should not go in anyone else. Wipes aren't effective at removing all infections.

Bring your own pitchforks,flaming torches will be distributed on a first come first served basis.

just making a general point here about the way Universities have lost public funding and are turning into businesses.

This is because of tuition fees. Students think at some level that they are buying a degree and a university experience. It harms the academic integrity of the institution and the staff in it.

I will buy it now. 🙂

I can't believe the interviewer didn't pick up on the "oppressed" male student to enquire what percentage of Oxford professors are female, or when they finally started reluctantly awarding degrees to women? I mean, that's basic stuff.

Oh, and in regard to a previous poster saying universities love self-funded PhD students; my (STEM) department no longer accepts them as they invariably run out of money and need bailing out, and tend to be weaker. Perhaps Oxford has lower standards.

I find it worrying that most of these students who want to no platform perfectly reasonable, thoughtful academics will never ever do any sort of work where they meet clients who don't want to know about the gender identity of others and have no interest in it. As per the woman in Starbucks who probably never gave any thought to the server being non binary, again what a stupid label. Most people are too worried about paying their bills and have zero interest in whether A N Other is genderqueer or non binary or identifies as an elephant. Quite frankly I think some have too much time and spend it navel gazing and coming up with rubbish. They also seem vexatious, just looking to be offended.

Or a richer pool of self-funders to choose from?

Honestly that interview with the student was just a tick box exercise in TRA slander and lies. You are all right wing! You deny our right to existence!

With a good dose of conspiracy theory thrown in -'the women just act nice to throw us off the scent that they are really all a bunch of violent aggressive men , as those are the ones who send me abusive tweets!'

Yeah mate, that's the thing. Women don't tend to act violently, but men do and that's why we don't want men in our spaces when we are vulnerable. Do you see now?

Agree 100%

@wacademia
But yes, the student unions push it hard. Part of the problem is the democratic deficit in student unions. Voter turnout for SU officer elections is very low because most students can't be bothered to vote for officers in an institution that affects them for only three years. It's very easy for an activist with lots of friends to win an election with a three figure vote and then claim to be the voice of a five figure number of students.

Also, our SU never accomplished anything of any value to actual students, other than to run a cut-price stationery shop. The officers spent their time playing endless rounds of 'Lefter than Thou' (purity spiralling decades before the term had even been coined) and doing exactly nothing (apart from running the stationers aforesaid) that made any material difference to my very skint existence. From what I have seen of SUs and the NUS in the recent past, nothing at all has changed: it's just seen as a stepping stone to a career in politics.

The big revelation in all this is how fucking thick you can be and still get into Oxford.

Well yes. The lack of critical thinking, the lack of curiosity to find out what GC actually say or think, the lack of critical enquiry, the desperate grasping of any old bollocks and slander to shore up his prejudice, was really very striking from that young man.

The replies on the tweet are so typical. The other trans student of the union, I think it was, who also opposed Kathleen speaking, said dramatically "I'm so afraid for our safety right now", just because someone who says "biology cannot be changed" is being allowed to speak at the uni? They are literally THE most protected minority in the UK right now, yet they always still spout that crap.

Yup.

He got a scholarship too!

Surprisingly balanced Guardian article about it (apologies if already posted, not read full thread)

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/17/academics-condemn-threats-against-oxford-union-in-kathleen-stock-row

Personally I was thrilled to see the Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine on the list of signatories.

Stock, a former university professor who argues that transgender people cannot expect all the rights afforded by biological sex

Incorrect, Grauniad. Trans people can expect all the rights afforded by their own biological sex.