For any interested academics out there.
x.com/ComAcFreedom/status/1819619817642471516?t=k0BQ6_XhFkGkvm2HsU0WQA&s=19
The decision to halt HEFOSA appears to reflect the view, widespread among opponents of the Act, that there is no “free speech problem” in UK universities, that the very idea of such a problem is a fiction put about to divert attention from bigger issues. Nothing could be more false. Hundreds of academics and students have been hounded, censured, silenced or even sacked over the last 20 years for the expression of legal opinions, as AFAF’s “banned list” and CAF’s “threats to freedom” monitor both show. And these documented cases are only the tip of the iceberg; the widespread silencing of viewpoints is incalculable. A report published earlier this year by the Academic Freedom Index placed the UK sixty-sixth in the global league table of academic freedom, lower than Peru, Burkina Faso and Georgia. This state of affairs has serious consequences for all of us. The suppression of university research into the effects of puberty blockers facilitated one of the great medical scandals of our age, as the Cass Review makes clear.