Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 6

[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
CW - Dr Christopher Williams, Senior Lecturer History
KS - Kevin Shakesheff. PVC for Research and Innovation
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
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 - twitter.com/tribunaltweets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thread 5 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4919223-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-5

I remember reading about a trial, and the witness said "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is".

It could have been Bill Clinton, thinking about it.

Absolutely.

DD LD and Louise W are in HERC and one of their research questions is Does Harm matter more than 'Crime'.

HBC wants TW in women's spaces. She says policies against that are harmful to cisgender people on the grounds that they
'reinforce the idea that sex/gender is biological and immutable'.
Sex and/or gender? Separate and/or teamed? How do you even go about unpicking that.

Checking into the new thread, thanks Ickky.

I’ve been thinking about this and I’m not sure they do believe this truly. It really is the most astounding doublethink. But if you really truly believe you’re on the right side of history, that the vast majority of people are on side with you, that your letter represents the vast majority of reasonable people and you’re just ahead of the law….

well if you believe all that why would you need to obscure who authored the letter? Why would you need to hide from FOI and SAR? You wouldn’t. You’d be bloody delighted to be a named person protecting the rights of a vulnerable minority.

Somewhere, deep down, they know.

The witnesses left are Domingue, Daley, Jacobson, Tomlinson, Holliman and Drake. BC said he estimated 3 hours to cross examine Dr Drake. The rest he estimated 30 mins to an hour each apart from Prof Domingue who will take a bit over an hour.
JM mentioned 'Louise Westmarland tomorrow' just before they packed up but I think that was a mistake as LM has already given evidence. I think she meant Dr Drake.

Poor Jo who thought going to the OU would be a career highlight, having had a horrible start in life but rising out of it and being a person genuinely in need of the OU's access to get a start.

And then finding all her colleagues thought harm was more important than crime, prison should be abolished, and lesbians didn't matter.

@WrensAreAllDinosaurs 👌🏼

This.

When this is all over should we send a hamper to the panel? Some hiking boots, a bottle of wine, some tunnocks, black out blinds ( so they can lie down in a dark room), a signed pic of Ben, Strike books.

as Per PP I’d like to know who they are protecting and why

Oh dear. I’ve name changed early. Never mind.

I’m just catching up on this afternoon. The school run took longer than expected.

I’m voting today’s witnesses be put into the new category of bonfire of pants.

Thanks to all for keeping us up to speed

When you fundamentally believe that biology/reality of sex is sin, and thou shalt not suffer a sinner among you, you get a mess like this. Stonewall hast taught them: thou shalt have no other god but me.

It's not compatible with being able to provide an unprejudiced, impartial public service role.

On the acronyms front, can someone please tell me what SW stands for? In PB's evidence I thought it was a person but appearances today seem that it might be an organisation.

Stonewall

By a cruel twist of fate, The Open University is promoting its "Open Learn Biology Week", which is running this week.

I'm not sure the blue haired loons will be happy about the module "issues in Womens' Health In Relation to Sport & Fitness"

I'd just like to than the core team, again. I almost feel sorry for JM!

Gender identity ideology holds that sex and gender are linked in some unclear way so that they cannot exist independently but there's a combined sex/gender concept.

This is a useful concept because whenever an ideologist is talking you can never be sure whether they're talking mostly about sex, or mostly about gender identity, or something else, and it becomes exhausting to have any kind of productive conversation with them, while they can just flit about conversationally using the same term in adjacent sentences to mean whatever it suits them to mean, it can be different every time.

Just shows, that religion is a deep-seated drive of humans, likely naturally selected. And it runs particularly deep in those humans that claim proudly they have no God, and that organised religion is for lesser people.

One day Richard Dawkins might see this, and it'll blow his mind.

This neo religion of intersectionalism has all the structures of religions that preceded it, but some important differences. It doesn't sit well with modern science, is basically anti-human(ist), ignores millions of years of human sex evolution (TWAW is contrary to all settled biology). And it has now reward, save for self satisfaction and caste status.

But like all religions, it derives strength from group dynamics, and like the early church is not unfamiliar with purity spirals.

Amazing. A group that planted themselves in the maelstrom of late 60s social justice politics on campus (anti-Vietnam war, pro-Black activism, Stonewall riots), now running universities, key to the final rites being read to organised religion especially Christianity having power in modern Western societies, pushing a Marxist/atheist/postmodern worldview that ostensibly is the enemy of religion, has become the newest and most unvarying of religions.

This can be the only way to see the superstructure in academia, and (un)civil society at large, that can treat the likes of Jo, and Pilgrim and Aldwyn, with such inhumanity and contempt, the only measure here being their dissent against groupthink.

Thanks for the new thread ickky

Does anyone know why Ms Mulcahy doesn't intervene more or make some attempt to paint her witnesses in a better light? I remember from Maya's and Allison's tribunals, that Ms Dobby and Mr Hochhauser were more interventionist and tried to cut into Ben's line of questioning or put some doubt on his line of argument.

Would the OU's counsel have looked at the evidence and decided there's no point to intervene and that the OU will just have to take the hit? Or do you think Ms Mulcahy has some killer argument up her sleeve for closing submissions?

What's the point of paying a lot for a KC and legal team to represent you if they just let the witnesses "incriminate" themselves? (Obviousy this isn't "criminal" - but you now what I mean).

What exactly could the OU's defence be? Is it that the OUGCRN was allowed to continue hence no discrimination? Or academics were entitled to their "freedom of speech". It seems so far like the OU isn't even trying to defend its position.

I've thought this about religion for a long time. That even if you do away with it completely, there would have to be something else in its place. And this ideology seems to fit the bill.

It seems a part of the 'ok, so technically it's legally wrong, but in terms of righteousness, we identify as being better than the law is' thinking. This is part of the establishment's training from Stonewall: heed not the law or the boundaries and constraints of sinfulness, and cleave to the righteous ways.

And/or possibly, it's easier for them to just take the hit and be legally wrong than it is to sin against their faith and deal with the screaming tantrums. Where do you put the line between religious fervour and fear?

With most of these witnesses, I don't think intervention from OU counsel would help. The more they speak, the bigger their spade grows - best to just keep quiet and hope they shut up.

What if the OU's goal here isn't to win the case, possibly viewing that as a lost cause, and instead to do something much more valuable for the institution, which is to show allyship to the right side of history?