Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 4

[ickky]

Started on 2nd October at Watford Employment Tribunal (Radius House, 51 Clarendon Rd, Watford WD17 1HP 01923 281750)

You may attend in person or remote viewing has been quite limited but you can request log in details from

Email [email protected]

Header should read

URGENT CURRENT CASE - Public Access Request - J Phoenix - The Open University - 3322700/2021

Ask for access link and pin and please give your name and address in the email as they check when you connect to the tribunal.

The clerk will ask you (in a private remote room) to put your camera on to verify, this involves looking at you, but no ID is needed. You may turn off your camera after this pointless and unnecessary process.

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

PB - Dr Paraskevi Boukli, Former Senior Lecturer Criminology, Deputy Head SPC 2021-22
IF - Prof Ian Fribbance Dean of FASS
MW - Prof Marcia Wilson, Dean EDI, 2020-23
CM - Caragh Molloy, Group People Director 2019-23
LD - Dr Leigh Downes, Senior Lecturer in Criminology (in SPC), Academic Lead for EDI FASS 2019-21
DD - Dr Deborah Drake, Senior Lecturer Criminology, Head of SPC 2018-21
CT - Catherine Tomlinson, Senior Student Advisor
LW - Louise Westmarland, Prof of Criminology, Co-Deputy Head SPC, 2018-21, Current Head SPC
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

Thread 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4913946-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-2?page=1

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4917480-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-3

It was in an email to me - the Sex Matters memo.

Hi, if you sign up to their newsletter, or are a regular donor you get emails from Sex Matters with info and stuff. I'm not sure, I thought it would also be available on the website - possibly will be published later on.

Antway here is the excerpt from Maya in this weeks email:

This week I joined Professor Jo Phoenix and her supporters in Watford to watch her employment claim hearing against the Open University.

I was able to enjoy some of Ben Cooper KC’s cross examination, read Jo’s witness statement (which she will publish this weekend) and give some moral support as a legal mascot. It was a strange feeling sitting in the audience when my case was mentioned, and also realising how intertwined our cases are, although we did not know each other at the time when I was losing my job and Jo was first speaking up at work.

Jo’s story starts, like mine, in 2018, with the consultation on reform of the Gender Recognition Act. Like so many of us, she became concerned about the impacts of gender-identity policies on women’s rights, and about the violent, misogynistic response to those who wanted to talk about them. She decided to speak up around the same time as me, in response to the same things: the protests and threats whenever Woman’s Place UK held a meeting, the bullying of Professor Kathleen Stock and the attack on Maria MacLachlan at Speakers’ Corner. She added her name to a letter by academics to The Guardian in October 2018.

In March 2019, around the time I was losing my job, Jo spoke up in defence of Richard Garside of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS), after the Open University cancelled a conference because of threats of protest – he had made a statement on transgender prisoners calling for “calm, considered and respectful discussion to find a workable, and fair, solution”.

In December 2019, after my first employment tribunal and before the “not worthy of respect” judgment, Essex University cancelled a talk by Jo because of threats of protest. In May 2021, together with Professor Rosa Freedman of the University of Reading, Jo received an apology and the Reindorf Review into the incident was published.

Jo says that from around the time of the cancellation of the conference with CCJS she was frozen out by her department and told she should not speak about her research on trans prisoners, or about the cancellation of her talk at Essex. But she did not give up. Working with her colleague at the Open University, Professor Jon Pike, and others she began setting up a Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN) to bring together scholars who “share a common interest in exploring how sexed bodies come to matter in their respective research fields”. The day after my EAT judgment they got the courage to send out emails to academics asking them to join.

The new network attracted vehement and personalised attacks from those who wanted it shut down. Hundreds of colleagues signed an open letter, and a research group published a statement which remains hosted on the OU website to this day challenging the good faith of the founders and labelling them as harmful to trans students and staff.

Jo writes about the shame and humiliation she felt when this letter and statement were circulated, and about her heartbreak at not being protected by the OU. Her case against the university is that it did not act to protect her and other gender-critical staff from attacks based on their beliefs. She eventually resigned from what she said was an intolerable hostile environment. Over the next week more OU witnesses will take the stand to defend their conduct.

We may not come and sit in the front row of every tribunal hearing, but the list is getting longer – Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Denise Fahmy… – and there are more to come. With each of these cases, employers are learning the hard way that they must not treat people with gender-critical beliefs as unworthy of protection from bullying and harassment. Mealy-mouthed both-sideism, when one side is threatening violence, mobbing and bullying colleagues, and closing down debate, destroys institutional cultures and missions. Employers should follow the Equality Act, not the flawed and biased teachings of Stonewall.

The systemic nature of discrimination against gender-critical people means that my case, Jo’s and all the others are intertwined. We are not merely individuals who separately found ourselves in toxic and hostile workplaces, but victims of a hate campaign against anyone who promotes open inquiry into the impacts of gender ideology. The Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose job is to join the dots between individual cases, has suffered in the same way.

In my case we pleaded that the law provides protection in relation to both my gender-critical belief and my lack of belief in gender identity – arguing that institutions in a plural society must accommodate those who believe different things. I still believe that, but what is emerging from our collective experience is the lesson that the beliefs promoted in the name of gender identity inherently involve destroying the human rights of others (as seen in Liverpool this week). This is not “worthy of respect in a democratic society”.

Thanks for this - yes was a founding supporter of Sex Matters but seem to have fallen off their email list .. I'll chase it up...

I've donated again, thank you all for an insightful thread.

You absolute star! But please don't give more than you can afford, Jo would not want us to.

But I hear you, there are definitely things I would happily forgo to fight this and other battshittery. Plus the brilliance of Ben is a worthy cause in itself.

Also, if anyone wants to add to the Pilgrim Tucker case she has a crowdfunder page that needs assistance.

And good nudge to me to give to them again - I'm a regular supporter but not of £x per month, just a chunk when I have some I can give....

Jo really needs some more gardening done.

I see the amount is going up, but the number of individual contributors has not moved up much.

A big cheer for Gardeners all, big and small. I've bought a pot of Pheonix Flowers!

PK - Peter Keogh, Professor Health & Society, Member RSSH

up next

Interesting to see Maya/Sex Matters suggesting GI is not WORIADS. It would be great to see the ideas challenged in court.

PK enters with a big sigh. Says table with files is a mess. Says it's all over the place.

BC: In your statement you say you don't agree with GC beliefs and are not hostile to those beliefs. What about expression?

PK: I say what I say [he is Pontius Pilate]

Have gardened

He has a lovely Irish accent

So the count for the OU witnesses so for is
1 reasonable☆ person, 1 pompous windbag, 1 chocolate teapot, and 2 bowls of custard. Bets on the next one?

☆ As far as I remember, but my bar on 'reasonable' is rather low at the moment, in view of the competition.

This witness is making a lot of huffy fuss about the state of the bundles.

PK: There was legal uncertainty at the time so it was an odd time to set up the GCRN

BC: You are making up a new reason now for your answer then.

PK: Forstater is protected in law so my opinion is neither here nor there

Very huffy. Lots of sighing. Testy and defensive.

Bugger you!

I was trying to think of "There may be batshit" ahead lyrics, but you beat me to it (and beat me hands down if the truth be told - better than I could have achieved! Kudos.)

PK is huffing already.

I've paid some money into the Ben Cooper fund.

Excellent value for money!

Already reduced to silence for being called out about not agreeing to the Forstator judgement, despite saying today that he accepts it.

@Farmageddon

Like LD says: 'a little voice'. 🤨

Picture of PH

www.open.ac.uk/people/pk4594

Despite the lovely accent, PK comes across as pedantic and arsey IMO

PK*