A statement from Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University regarding the recent employment tribunal judgment

[AlphariusOmegron]

I assure you hell has frozen over at the OU for this to happen. Staff will quit…
https://ounews.co/around-ou/ou-speaks-out/a-statement-from-professor-tim-blackman-vice-chancellor-of-the-open-university-regarding-the-recent-employment-tribunal-judgment/

About time the VC stepped up. If memory serves he gave evidence at the tribunal. He must have seen this coming, which is why i was so surprised at the mealy mouthed original statement. They would have to be institutionally insane to consider appealing. He has a fight on his hands to restore balance.

Don’t they have another case looming with Almut Gadow? Wonder if they may settle that now in light of the frankly damning Phoenix judgement? If I remember rightly hers is arguing specifically that academic freedom is curtailed by gender identity groupthink.

There’s one with Pilgrim Tucker too…..

A 180 degree turn around. I hope it is genuine. Maybe there is hope for us after all. Such a relief to have a bit more optimism in this terrifying war.

Well done VC.
That's the statement they should have put out after the verdict.
The tyranny of 'right think' is poisonous in higher education (and everywhere else too!)

Blimey. That's fairly unequivocal.

about time

Good. And so much better than what was said immediately after. Here's hoping that VCs and other bosses around the country are waking up and smelling the coffee.

Interesting. Wasn't their knee jerk reaction immediately after the judgment to say that they were considering appealing it? I wonder what's changed their minds?

Good outcome. I abandoned my degree with the OU last year because of this rubbish. I still wouldn't return to finish my studies, though. More needs to be done.

OU needs to settle its cases with Pilgrim Tucker and Almut Gadow if it wants to be sincere about this apology. We've seen the toll these tribunals take on women and it's absolutely inhumane to continue if they now actually realise that they are in the wrong.

I imagine there were tears and tantrums all around when that was published!

One can only hope that the academics who openly lied in court (according to the Phoenix judgement) resign. And if they don't they face disciplinary charges for telling lies in court.

Fine words butter no parsnips, although they are necessary to avoid larger aggravated damages at an employment tribunal.

I'll maybe start to believe they are sincere if they make generous settlements with Almut Gadow and Pilgrim Tucker.

It needs someone with far better skills and than I have to take this statement apart, but it’s not saying all it should. It’s too vague and carefully written, and fully mindful of legal considerations I imagine.

Just the first paragraph:

”The judgment made for difficult reading for all of us.”

Why? It didn’t change what had happened and what we had or hadn’t done about it. It just meant that it’s become more widely known, and criticised.

“In several areas we fell very short.”
Name them, then. What did you fail to do?

“ We apologise unreservedly to Professor Phoenix for the hurt and distress this has caused.”

We apologise for the hurt, but still not for our actions and inactions.

Agree with @ZebediahTwine He starts with an unreserved apology but his final words are “however profoundly we may disagree”.

Continuing:

”The judgment made for difficult reading for all of us.”

So, it wasn’t the evidence that was hard to hear, we knew all that (and perhaps thought it was an acceptable way to behave?) but reading that the independent tribunal members thought it was unacceptable was difficult.

Perhaps we were not right, then. That is difficult to think.

“ We apologise unreservedly to Professor Phoenix for the hurt and distress this has caused.”

This reminds me of classic non-apologies, ie I’m sorry that you feel like that, not I’m sorry that my actions were wrong.

In the context of the rest of the sentence though, this actually sounds like condemnation of the people within the institution acting against the GCRN. The judgement makes it clear that they did not treat Jo Phoenix with respect and civility and felt entitled to treat her poorly on the basis they strongly disagreed.

Institutional apologies tend towards non-apologies though. They’re quite defensively worded for the most part.

What will be interesting to see is: who do they bring in to conduct the independent investigation? And what are the terms of that investigation?

The answer to those questions will give quite a lot of insight into how genuine the OU is about learning from the tribunal verdict.

What will be interesting to see is: who do they bring in to conduct the independent investigation? And what are the terms of that investigation?

I'd be very surprised if many of the staff who excited adverse comment or were (relatively) excoriated in the ET's judgment would be willing to cooperate with a 'major independent review' of the OU's 'internal working environment'.

I don't know how far the OU would be willing to go to strongly advise them to participate in the review. And what barriers the UCU might erect to prevent participation.

Finally an apology for Jo

Does this mean that they are no longer considering appealing the outcome?

@RethinkingLife i suspect UCU will be a complete pain in the arse (and not in any way useful to the members).

Still who the OU bring in gives a good indication of how serious they are about reviewing. If it’s some ludicrous EDI consultancy… the answer is a foregone conclusion.

Similarly the terms tell us something about the stance from the senior leadership, even is they ultimately cannot force people who should contribute to contribute.

Crikey.

Thank you for the link to the statement.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if some of those staff members are plotting to have this Vice Chancellor removed too, as we speak.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1350507620925633