Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 5

[ickky]

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

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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.

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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

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
PK - Peter Keogh, Professor Health & Society, Member RSSH
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
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 - tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

Prof Jo Phoenix Witness Statement (scroll to bottom of page and download)

https://jophoenix.substack.com/p/phoenix-v-open-university?sd=pf

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

Thread 4 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4918479-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-4

I can't really follow what this witness is meaning

J - you were asked about pronouns being accepted/decided in academia, please clarify
HBC - my understanding that the uni had a clear policy about accepting pronouns students wanted

Is it the witness who keeps giving big sighs?

I can imagine it all too well. Am just catching up with the rest of the thread and it's getting worse. BC is relentlessly destroying everything in his path. It's cruelty to morons.

This witness's statement says she opposes trans women being in male prisons - the whole thing reveals she's deep in TRA-land.

BC slips in - the open letter that you helped to produce and signed

HBC: yeah

my bold. Wonder if she'll pick that up

Get in there Ben

Oh great admission. Bloody well done Ben.

From a quick search it looks like a recent deletion.

BC: Letter - Asking SW to clarify that it fully supports academic freedom of thought. ie keeping open a space where these things can be discussed.

HBC: sighs. Long pause.

Very long pause

HBC: Yes,

That's interesting. I wonder if they were looking to use a method that had worked for them in the past and apply it to JP?

In discussing the events leading up to the resignation of the former Open University Vice Chancellor in April 2018, we focus on the enactment of a form of resistance against proposals for the university through a WhatsApp group, enabling rapid information exchange, discussion of tactics and concrete planning for action. We suggest our group – ‘the Hive’ – was unusual because, first, it countered the politically quiescent trend in academia to comply (at least outwardly) with neoliberalisation, and/or only to write about it, as opposed to mounting challenges. Second, the Hive was virtual, comprising various staff categories, including people based off-campus; it operated almost entirely online and many members had never met face-to-face. This for us evokes notions of the multitude. Third, the group exemplifies alternative forms of solidarity and resistance in other ways, being non-hierarchical, highly pluralist and non-exclusionary. Finally, our Hive provided a supportive, caring space for resisters, which we suggest emerged partly through members’ love for the distinctive social mission of The Open University – although our story also provides hope for harnessing similar emotions within other academic institutions.

You can see how this would create epistemic bubbles and echo chambers.

"An ‘epistemic bubble’ is an informational network from which relevant voices have been excluded by omission. That omission might be purposeful: we might be selectively avoiding contact with contrary views because, say, they make us uncomfortable. As social scientists tell us, we like to engage in selective exposure, seeking out information that confirms our own worldview. But that omission can also be entirely inadvertent. Even if we’re not actively trying to avoid disagreement, our Facebook friends tend to share our views and interests. When we take networks built for social reasons and start using them as our information feeds, we tend to miss out on contrary views and run into exaggerated degrees of agreement.

An ‘echo chamber’ is a social structure from which other relevant voices have been actively discredited. Where an epistemic bubble merely omits contrary views, an echo chamber brings its members to actively distrust outsiders. In their book Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment (2010), Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Frank Cappella offer a groundbreaking analysis of the phenomenon. For them, an echo chamber is something like a cult. A cult isolates its members by actively alienating them from any outside sources. Those outside are actively labelled as malignant and untrustworthy. A cult member’s trust is narrowed, aimed with laser-like focus on certain insider voices. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined."

https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult

Lots of sighing from HBC and time wasting reading everything.

Oh do not sigh, for when thou sighest thou sighest my soul away

So this is the statement you authored HBC - yes

Also HBC let me read it, long sigh, no I don't remember this

BC takes HBC to a Facebook feminist group statement. You were the author of that?
HBC - erm, let me look.

Cue lots of sighing
HBC I don't remember this. No.

BC explains the text has been cut and pasted. HBC finally accepts it is hers.

It was a lunchtime group. Not official.

I've got to listen to my meeting, but I've been reading the witness statement and the links posted here - this witness reads like she's got the same understanding of reality as LD.

BC: Reads c HBC's group: t and nb rights to self id is not up for debate on this page or at our events. Our position is that TWAW. If you don't support that position this is not the group for you

[this was the feminist discussion group]

Her post on the Feminists FB Group

This group believes that TWAW and if you don't you are not welcome here.

So where is the group for people who want to discuss women have sex specific rights?

HBC: want to give context. historically was a women-only group and when I took it over wanted to make it more incl, eg not saying men or nb not allowed.

[Men and nb being both equally relevant? Make it make sense.]

HBC: we're an intersectional feminist discussion group.

BC: But GC is an impt part of feminism

HBC: Yes. I should have renamed the group

'Trans men are men' wasn't one of her bottom line statements.

It's all about the menz for her.

BC: you say my colleagues can hold these views and I don't want to give credence to idea that T rights and existence are up for debate

BC then sections out rights from existence

HBC doing lots of forceteaming of "t rights and / or existence'

So where is the group for people who want to discuss women have sex specific rights?

I imagine if there had been such a group set up it would have been targeted by TRAs, as every other GC feminist group is.

BC takes HBC to her wit statement, where she states she opposes limiting drugs and surgery, opposing transwomen in MALE prisons, opposes not letting transwomen in female toilets etc - goes on in this vein.

I think I'll avoid OU for further study.

I feel sad about this because I've got two degrees from the OU (BA, MA) and I wouldn't have had any otherwise, but I agree with you. ☹️