Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 2

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Abbreviations

JP - Jo Phoenix, Claimant (C)
OU - The Open University, Respondent (R)
J - Regional Employment Judge Young
P - Panel or panel member
BC - Ben Cooper KC, Counsel for C
JM - Jane Mulcahy KC, Counsel for R

OU Departments & Networks:

HWSRA - Health & Wellbeing Strategic Research Area
FASS - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
SPC - Dept of Social Policy & Criminology
KMi - Knowledge Media Institute
GCRN - Gender Critical Research Network

OU witnesses

CW - Chris Williams, Senior Lecturer History
CT - Catherine Tomlinson, Senior Student Advisor
SE - Sarah Earle, Prof of Medical Sociology, Director HWSRA 2016-22
DD - Dr Deborah Drake, Senior Lecturer Criminology, Head of SPC 2018-21
LW - Louise Westmarland, Prof of Criminology, Co-Deputy Head SPC, 2018-21, Current Head SPC
LD - Dr Leigh Downes, Senior Lecturer in Criminology (in SPC), Academic Lead for EDI FASS 2019-21
PB - Dr Paraskevi Boukli, Former Senior Lecturer Criminology, Deputy Head SPC 2021-22
MW - Prof Marcia Wilson, Dean EDI, 2020-23
CM - Caragh Molloy, Group People Director 2019-23
JD - John Domingue, Prof of Computing Science, Director KMi, 2015-22
PK - Peter Keogh, Professor Health & Society, Member RSSH
CW - Dr Christopher Williams, Senior Lecturer History
SD - Shaun Daley, Head OU’s Resourcing Hub. Head Strategic Resources, Co-Chair OU’s LGBT+ Staff Network
HBC - Helen Bowes-Catton, Lecturer Social Research Methods
NS - Nicola Snarey, Assoc Lecturer Eng Language
NatS - Natalie Starkey, Outreach & Public Engagement Officer Sch Physical Sciences, 2019-22
CT - Cath Tomlinson, Senior Student Advisor
SJ - Samantha Jacobson, Employee Relations Case Manager
RH - Richard Holliman, Prof Engaged Research, Head School Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences, 2019-22. Member of Investigation Panel investigating the C’s grievance

Witness for JP:

SE - Sarah Earle, Professor Modern History Uni of Oxford, Founding member GCRN

Tribunal Tweets - https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets

TT coverage so far https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

Thread 1
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4905118-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-2nd-october-whispers-ben-cooper?page=1

I'm getting Lisa Nandy vibes.

So Jo is expected to be more resilient?
But everyone else is pandered to in case of possible hurty feelz?

That's about the size of it.

It’s absolutely bonkers!! I can’t imagine another cohort of people where this would be happening

And Zemiology is the 'Ology of Hurty Feels

I'm getting Lisa Nandy vibes.

Yes, or Kevin Bacon.

Fuck me. Will they ever learn.

No, you wont bankrupt the witch, we will have her back, no matter how many witnesses you throw in the mix. We will be there alllll the way through to appeal.

When you let your people talk, and expose them in a court of law to people like Ben Cooper, they will come off at best as lazy/incompetent and at worst as complete loons. This will damage your organisation.

How much money have they spunked just to keep the green haired, daith pierced they/thems happy?

It is lunacy.

I want a T shirt with that written on it.😍

Yes, Jo has to be resilient but people who have NOTHING to do with the University and could quite easily avoid Jo's views altogether are being pandered to?

And there's nothing wrong with Jo's views - the vast majority of the population hold these views and she's only ever expressed them respectfully!

Can I tell my employer that my children's mental health is affected by the fact I'm not paid more?

Yes you can Larklane

I have a theory that the kids who were never told no are now the adults who can't tolerate feeling annoyed.

Can I tell my employer that my children's mental health is affected by the fact I'm not paid more?

Of course. Whether your employer cares is a different matter. As would be whether any political party cared to investigate whether there's a systemic reason behind it (looking at you Birmingham Council) and consider whether it might require scrutiny of current policies.

I'd speculate that zemiologists would say that the increase of inequalities and inequities within the UK are a proper field of study for them. Looking at the thorny problem of NHS spending, I'd doubt that many people would disagree that Primary Care needs substantially more funding in its own right as well as to reduce some of the pressures on Secondary Care and beyond.

But, before that even happens, poverty, inadequate housing stock, substandard education, all of these are major determinants of risks for poor health.

However, there is no bright line here between activism and value neutrality. It's the lack of neutrality in the understanding of academic freedom and enquiry that has contributed to the current OU mess.

Thank you so much for all the coverage. Just caught up with it all today.

BTW, having seen such messaging before, I suspect the explanation for the weird intervention by non-academic staff is there will have been a meme going round along the lines of, "How will you look your (hypothetical, future) trans kids in the eye if you don't do X now?"

For some rather specific X dictated by an internet sprite.

BTW I've also seen this same technique used in what you'd think was an entirely unrelated field. Again, mass social media messaging that "We'll know you don't love them unless you prove it by doing explicit thing X now."

With the "them" being a specific group whom people will be motivated to publicly demonstrate their care for, and anonymous internet sprites rolling it all along.

Yes, such an argument can arise naturally – but the examples which caught my attention had a whiff of the lamp about them. So I think this is a Thing.

Kevin Bacon? Do I want to know what that's referring to, or is it just depressing?

Hopefully it's a 'degrees of separation' thing, not a really weird thing.

"How will you look your (hypothetical, future) trans kids in the eye if you don't do X now?"

It's never:

"How will you look women in Iran in the eye if you deny that women are subject to sex-based oppression?"

"How will you look your (hypothetical, future) children in the eye if you wholeheartedly endorse the erasure of women as a legal class and with sex-based rights?"

Or 'How will you look your hypothetical child in the eye if you don't stop them sterilising themselves now?'

Thanks for the updates everyone. I couldn't follow along today.

Catching up on this afternoon's TT coverage. Love BC's example of a completely non-controvertial lecture topic being 'the delightfulness of cats'.

Exactly. There's some concept that you can find a chain of six or fewer acquaintances between any two people on earth.

It used to be a joke/game that Kevin Bacon was so ubiquitous and Hollywood so incestuous that there were only six links or degrees of separation between him and any other Hollywood actor you cared to name. His co-star's wife's dog walker was once photographed with the arse double to Tom Cruise sort of thing. So quite remote really but you could force a connection (see trans kid's mum's boss).

No shade on Kevin. I think he kind of ran with the joke and as far as I know is a lovely guy.

I'd forgotten about "Six degrees of Bacon". I too was puzzled by the KB reference until you explained.

9.30am Start today.

I'm logged on and waiting to the melodious tones of conference guy over and over again.

Dear dog is confused as to why he was hoofed out for a walk so early today. It's the OU's fault, dear dog.

I had the "waiting for the conference host to join", then I was let in (confirmed my name) then the screen changed back to the opening one, and back to "waiting for the conference host to join", which doesn't feel right.