Pilgrim Tucker v Open University

[Signalbox]

Another GC discrimination case against Open University.

Pilgrim Tucker is a community organiser and campaigner who supported the Grenfell Tower Residents campaign, the Grenfell Action Group. Her PhD with the OU is based on her activism.

If you google Pilgrim Tucker Crowdjustice you will find her page with the relevant information.

Pilgrim says the Open University has again threatened her with disciplinary action. She has published her response, which is this:

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for your email explaining that the Open University is again planning to take disciplinary action against me unless I remove information from my crowdfunding page.

Unfortunately however I am not currently in a position to respond, as:

- I have not yet received the letter of response from the Open University’s solicitor, although it is many months since my claims were communicated to the university by my solicitor, and the deadline for your response has now passed.

- The Open University has still not replied to my request for a review of my data subject access request (DSAR), made over 2 months ago on 07/08/2023, nor to my email chasing this request for review sent on 10/09/2023. As noted in my request the DSAR data issued by the OU neglected to include emails regarding me exchanged between relevant staff, and also contained a number of redactions that required justification as to which exemptions (as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018) were applied. I note your inclusion of 1 of the email threads cited in my request, but that your removal of redactions has not been applied to the 3rd email in the thread, and despite my request for this information I have as yet still not received the explanation for those redactions, nor for any of the other redactions that have been queried. This is particularly concerning given that earlier this year the ICO upheld my complaint regarding the OUs handling of my data after the OU failed to provide DSAR data until 8 months after my DSAR request was made, 5 months after the maximum legally permitted deadline.

It is disappointing that the OU is again threatening disciplinary action against me while concurrently failing to respond to legal requirements and timeframes, as of course these failures on the OU’s part put me at a significant disadvantage in any proceedings. However once I have received the above information from the Open University I will be in a position to respond.

Kind regards
Pilgrim Tucker

(10/10/2023)

I looked up Chris williams the historian who was supposed to supervise her but blocked her once he found out she was gc. He's attached to HERC the harm & evidence research centre which came up in jo phoenix's case too today. They wanted to end the relationship with Richard garside because he had opinions they didn't approve of about trans women in women's prisons.

Now you mention him he sounds familiar.

A "Dr Christopher Williams, Senior Lecturer History" features in the list of abbreviations for Jo Phoenix' Tribunal Tweets. So he will probably be named and discussed in time.
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

Chris Williams previously featured in The Times as one of three academics who wanted to create hit list of gender critical staff in UK universities.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hard-left-academics-plotted-gender-id-witch-hunt-on-colleagues-fdqnq5cb9

Ah, I see. He sounds lovely!

Bumping for Pilgrim Tucker

Is the clown car show that is Jo Phoenix v OU likely to be repeated with Pilgrim?

I mean, other than helping her, it's the best use of money ever. There is no better comedy anywhere, not at any price, and it's making the basis of a conference about The Death Of Academia.

Good grief - so the OU’s current approach to these cases is to try to leverage their scale to make sure that women can’t afford to challenge them. We see it. Pilgrim, and Jo, we have your back, you won’t fail because of a lack of support. Lovely day to visit the gardens

I briefly thought this was Prof Chris Williams the Welsh historian, but the OU lecturer is obviously a different person. I know extreme overreaction is a bit of a thing for trans activist academics, but I was wondering whether this Chris Williams had a particular, personal reason for being so triggered by other people being sex realists.

I have donated to so many of these cases. I am happy to do so because I think they are very important. (Even though the amount I can take out of my pension isn't very much).
I would like to know, who is funding the OU? I know the costs are huge.

Who wants to take bets that after the sh*t show of Jo Phoenix's trial with the verdict , that OU settles with Pilgrim Tucker .

I hope she doesn’t settle, the process is the punishment as they say and it’s beginning to look like it’s backfiring.

As mentioned upthread Chris Williams is also in the Green Party. I wondered whether he has a trans child, but I don't know.

Much as I'd like that to be true (I would be delighted to be wrong), a comparative handful of people are following Jo Phoenix's ET v OU. The wider UK is unaware of the dismal performances of these academics who are unable to give a coherent account of their ideologies.

However, it may all be irrelevant under the narrow grounds on which a tribunal can rule.

The OU may well be indifferent to the fact that those of us who were unimpressed by them anyway have been confirmed in our impression that their academic leading lights are unimpressive as intellectuals and managers.

It's not so much a question of who's noticing the Jo Phoenix case, in the outside world, is it? The OU's legal people will surely see the similarities. As soon as they accept (please, surely?) that they're running into an expensive and embarrassing failure with that case, they'll surely take a long hard look at any other similar cases they might be running into.

We used to chat on Facebook,Pilgrim before I came off it as I was too stressed out with threats I got. (a Glasgow terven)I know how dedicated you are to your work.
I'm skint but happy to support your planting a wee bit that I can. Good luck

The lawyers will either make an offer to settle or fight and loose.
It's the insurers, that will make OU face reality with big insurance hikes...and money always wins.

I wonder whether the OU is insured for this kind of thing? The university I know most about is not (I believe) (it "self-insures", i.e., takes its chances).

I don't believe employers generally are insured against employment tribunal cases. The bill is probably footed by the university, not an insurer. An insurer would have settled all three cases by now, because insurers don't tend to let cases which they know they will lose get to court.

Insurance companies make a rational choice as far as insurance funds are concerned. Executive managers tend to do whatever is best for their own personal careers, not what is best for their organisation, when deciding whether to settle.

I am not sure top OU managers are that concerned about spending, say, a million pounds this year on the cases of Jo Phoenix, Pilgrim Tucker and Almut Gadow. The university's turnover will be many, many millions.

Admitting they got this issue wrong on behalf of the university could be professional suicide to people like the EDI Dean (who has already been a witness), to the Vice Chancellor (yet to give evidence) and others at the top. These big bosses will be far happier to keep throwing university money at these cases than admit they were wrong.

The price of not admitting their mistake is paid by their organisation; admitting their mistake could cost them personally.

Oberlin College in US are down $hundreds of millions over the bakery libel case, and they still won't accept the verdict, going to appeal.

I believe these institutions are programmed now to follow the party line on maintaining an intersectional policy, and happy to burn cash prosecuting naysayers.

Yes. Trans activists would prefer that the OU go bankrupt than admit wrongdoing. The same applies to the Green Party and any other organisation or institution that has embraced this ideology.

Where I work, we have insurance, which, after a big excess, will pay for an ET. However, this is only if we haven't fucked up. But I work in a SME.

Even when we know have done everything by the book and can robustly defend ourselves, I would prefer to settle if possible.

I have had senior people say to me, 'but we shouldn't let them win' or 'they don't deserve anything'. But the truth is no one really wins at tribunal. It is soul destroying, Everyone, on both sides, are scrutinised within an inch of their life and it is stressful and upsetting.

Because the process takes so long, it hangs over everyone's heads for years on both sides.

Whilst once, employers could represent themselves, they can't really because the legal element is too complex. Many claimants self represent, and that means they are not getting good advice and it takes up court time and pushes up legal bills, because the case management stuff is more difficult

No matter what the outcome, there are huge legal fees. Even if paid by the insurance, premiums will go up

Then there is the reputation al damage, both for the organisation and individuals. Think about the Stonewall employee who had their support dog.

It really is brutal. In my view organisations like the OU should defend pragmatically. It is madness for organisations to take an ideological stand on these matters. Or take a vindictive stande, I.e., let's push up costs by introducing loads of witnesses.

Oberlin won't go down. They're sitting on $billions in assets. But the very fact that they can burn $300m in losing a libel case against a hard working family business says it all.

Indeed, this case was my major peaking on all things woke and identarian politics, and it taught me in one object lesson how the march thru the institutions really is a thing, and how it's demonstrating the begining of the end of the liberal humanist principle that's guided the West since the Enlightenment.

People need to read about the Oberlin case on Quillette.com it so speaks to our current direction of travel.

Oberlin have reached the end of the legal road. No further appeal is going to be filed.

https://www2.oberlin.edu/appeal/

This is the reality women have to go into court time and time again to get basic employment rights. It is disgraceful.

Update from Pilgrim

Delays in the court system have meant that the higher education ombudsman, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) has rejected my request that they investigate my complaint about the Open University (OU). This makes holding the OU to account in the court even more crucial.
My case is vitally important: I am the only student pursuing a case in this area, and my crucially important research on Grenfell cannot be allowed to be scuppered.
In their most recent correspondence, the Open University’s solicitor admitted, in writing, that the university had put me under investigation after I submitted my complaint. The university never told me I was under investigation, nor what allegations had been made about me, nor who had made them. This is obviously against OU procedures, and any semblance of a fair or transparent process.
OIA investigations focus largely on the university’s complaint process, and so following the OU’s admission the OIA would have been expected to find in my favour in this respect.
However OIA rules state they can’t look at a case which is currently the subject of legal action, and will only consider such a case where the court has issued a stay in the legal proceedings. We applied for a stay of one year in February 2023, but delays in the court system meant it was not granted until November 2023, and we were only issued with the paperwork confirming it had been granted three weeks ago, in April 2024. We had already applied for an extension to that stay, to continue after February 2024, but again delays in the court system mean that we have not been able to get confirmation from the court that the extension has been granted.
As the OU has now explicitly admitted that they have, by investigating me after I submitted my complaint, deviated significantly from any just or transparent process, the decision of the OIA to not investigate my complaint is extremely disappointing.
It also makes it even more important that the OU is held to account in the court system.
Such delays and obstructions cost money in legal fees, and consume a great deal of time. It is tough and tiring, but I remain undeterred. Please help by donating, and/or sharing the word. Please share the crowdfunder, and explain to others why they should support my case.
Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundum!
Thank you for your support.