University of Sussex fined £585,000 by Office for Students

[OhBuggerandArse]

The inquiry in the wake of Kathleen Stock's experience has finally been completed:

'An English university is set to be fined a record £585,000 over allegations it failed to uphold free speech and academic freedom, in a landmark ruling in the debate over student rights on campus. England’s higher education regulator found “significant and serious breaches” of free speech and governance issues at the University of Sussex, according to a draft press release seen by the Financial Times. The Office for Students press release, to be published on Wednesday, said policies intended to prevent abuse or harassment of certain groups on campus had created “a chilling effect” that might cause staff and students to “self-censor”.'

Sussex 'has reacted furiously...'

https://www.ft.com/content/d39f0db7-877a-4cf3-8c12-dd5581eecd0b?fbclid=IwY2xjawJP_1RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVWF1ZXM3cKbxGAvtKfecgeMyAXNae5933M9a3dru0zohKTe7Vk24foIeA_aem_HpdtsUQc6ipMGY9J5AGFWQ

Universities should be the gateways to real life situations.

That means briefings that reflect real world needs so they have better skill sets to show off and better ability to deal with the challenges of the workplace.

A briefing about designing for LGBT vanity isn't needed and isn't going to shift many units in practical applications.

Great article from the Committee for Academic Freedom at least 29 other universities maybe liable to be fined, 9 are in serious danger:

Will British universities learn from the mistakes of Sussex?

https://afcomm.org.uk/2025/03/28/will-british-universities-learn-from-the-mistakes-of-sussex/

Great post by RedToothBrush. It's definitely not as hard as some are (deliberately, to avoid accountability) trying to make out. Any mother or caregiver of a toddler knows how to deal with unreasonable demands that aren't in a child's long term interests. It's not bloody rocket science.

What needs to happen is staff and students need to be held to some level of professional conduct, which includes accepting that others may hold opinions you do not like and calling them names and threatening them and trying to get them sacked in a public campaign is not an appropriate response to that.

At the moment I do think many Universities are fairly toxic - lots of junior employees on temporary contracts scared of putting a foot wrong and then senior academics who seem impossible to remove unless they commit a fairly heinous crime and Unions acting as political lobby groups rather than representatives of employees to the point of joining in the persecution of their members paying subs.

There should be a requirement for professional standards if they want to charge money and act like a business. VCs are paid sums greater than many CEOs and the Prime Minister of the country and yet the VC of Sussex is behaving like a child having a toddler tantrum with no dignity or level of taking responsibility as a result of this fine. And she wonders why OfS didn't think there would be any benefit in talking to her? She kneejerk wrote that response immediately without any adult reflection or consideration of what Sussex may have done wrong at all. Black and white thinking, Sussex could do no wrong at all in her view. Despite the black clad mob and the death threats to Stock.

I keep trying to work out why these cases keep coming. There are lots of theories but this is particular to the public sector. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, is insanity but no one has told the Unions, or they refuse to listen.
My opinion is that having voted TWAW (lots but not all Unions) they have to encourage departments, colleges etc to pursue, otherwise they aren't protecting, what is now become, a sacred cow. I really can't think of any other reason as to why the insanity continues. Any other ideas?

I wonder whether there's a way to force universities to stop wasting public money on this shit. The problem with the public sector is that it is ultimately taxpayers who have to pay their fines and legal fees. (And students, in the case of universities.) Not these ideologues. I think a few high profile heads need to roll before the DEI industry as a whole starts to wind its neck in. If you were working in the private sector and you caused your employer to be fined or lose a big legal case over shit like this, you'd get fired.

In fact, I wonder if the answer is that working in DEI needs to be made an actual regulated profession which you need specific qualifications to work in, and to do a certain amount of compulsory training each year to ensure you remain up to date. It should be overseen by a professional conduct body, and if you misrepresent the law or cause harm to individuals or financial loss to your employer because you're pursuing your own agenda, you get struck off and your employer has no choice but to fire you.

The avoidance of all criticism is a huge thing.

It prevents self critical debate. This clearly isn't possible internally and so they don't want it externally either.

This is what prevents whistleblowing. A self protectionist culture. It allows scandals to occur. That's what we are seeing blowing out because trust in these institutions has been lost and they've been making huge mistakes which do have massive social consequences.

It's a really poor work culture. Its authoritarian.

Not all workplace cultures are like this. Many have much better attitudes to resolving problems because they are less top down and less authoritarian. And they can still make money. Plus their workers are often happier.

This is where we get narratives about wastage coming into play because there's a class of people employed to cover arses rather than do what's best for an organisation and society in general. When it's public sector that does this and it's supposed to work for 'the people' it's even worse.

It's all about accountability and blame culture. These drives to shut down internal descent are fundamentally unhealthy.

People in higher positions in the public sector (charity sector too) don't lose their jobs, seemingly ever. This needs to change. Anyone in a managerial post seems to pretty much have to be actually convicted of the worst kind of crime (e.g. child rape) for it to happen, seemingly.

None of the OU witch hunters of Jo P have had any kind of reprimand, let alone losing their jobs.

Post Office Scandal, Blood scandal, Grooming gangs scandal. The same problem.

In all of the above cases laws were actually broken, and yet no accountability from anyone at the top ever. People who allowed the rape of little girls by grooming gangs have been promoted. Inquiries never seem to have the power to sack, they should.

And who suffers? The truly vulnerable such as the girls in the grooming gang scandal, the woman being raped on a 'single sex' ward and then gaslit about the crime committed against her with no consequences for those doing the gaslighting. And still they suffer, because the same people are in post and promoted and wield their power to silence often in preference to doing their actual jobs.

I laughed out loud at this. Who needs Orwell's writing talents when Universities are actually doing this stuff?

And still apparently no actual reflection on sending this email that these two statements contradict each other completely. And I bet she's paid over 100k. Really she should go at this point.

Universities have taken the easy route - the path they thought would result in the least resistance and fitted with their preconceived views - rather than looking at impact assessments and choosing the best path which would bring both meaningful change and wouldn't have problems.

It's poor management.

Many many years ago I did a ilm course in management (think it was level 3 but I can't remember) and it talked about change and how there would always be people who were resistant too it but how you had to bring employees along with it whilst being aware of your legal obligations. You also had to think about things you hadn't considered and not do things based on assumptions. Consultations had to be actual consultations and not have predetermined outcomes which you then did all the paperwork to fit around. You determined your course of action after looking at things without bias.

On every single count universities are failing on this. This is what utterly baffles me - these are institutions that teach law and teach media and teach criminology and teach management and teach biology and teach history and teach religion.

And yet they STILL manage to come up with this shit show.

These are people who wouldn't last five fucking minutes outside education management and fuck me does it show.

This might explain the university thing

https://x.com/johnarmstrong5/status/1905690062899343383?s=46

My understanding is that international students are fleeing elsewhere. They've brought this on themselves. Those of them who do come here are no doubt reporting back to their friends and families about how ridiculous it all is and how unaccountable and unprofessional Uni employees are and how their eye wateringly expensive fees are being wasted on this shit.

Those international students at KCL who raised concerns and were accused of bigotry? No-one they know will go to KCL to do engineering again I bet.

I do have worries when these things infect degrees like engineering. On the current trajectory at some point engineering graduates are going to be really really good at these niche vanity projects but unable to build bridges that stand up or planes that stay in the sky. There are real world consequences. This was not a good educational experience for these students.

The article @fromorbit posted a little up thread is excellent at explaining what the template is that universities have been using and why it's a problem

The inability to tell the difference between an expert and an activist is quite the thing.

We live in a world of disinformation. Sourcing and examination of agents and tackling bias are core skills in many many subjects at university level.

If management are inept at this, it begs a whole pile of questions about educational standards.

Critical thinking should be the aim. If your university culture is to kill this, your degrees are worth shit.

@thenoisiesttermagant £100,000??? You are surely having a laugh!!!? The previous VC was on around £290,000. No VC would get out of bed for £100,000.

One issue universities have is promoting from professors for top jobs who then don’t have any business expertise in terms of employment law. Anyone who inherited this mess from the previous overpaid incumbent would have made it a no 1 priority to deal with the bullies and clean up the mess. Instead she’s doubled down and has made Sussex look foolish and poorly run. The appointees also didn’t see it as important to change their ways either. Unfortunately self serving people are embedded and seem incapable of taking advice or even understanding the problem.

Even in this country there are enough of us who know what's happening and can see some Uni degrees do the very opposite of prepare for the real world and will be very, very choosy if we decide to support our children going to Uni. I know more and more who aren't but are doing high level apprenticeships (e.g. with an accountancy firm).

Anyone who isn't fabulously wealthy can fall on hard times, we can all be in the position of having to do a job we don't like for the money, students from these places will be unable to cope with this. It's not kind to instil this lack of resilience and magical thinking and it's really mentally unhealthy to be unable to cope with people who have different views. Especially when those people are in the majority in the real world.

Universities are becoming echo chambers and the opposite of what they're supposed to be.

Doing some further digging. This is David bass head of EDI at advance HE

https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/profile/david-bass

Seems David headed up the diversity in governance programme in Scotland where of course they are famously not at all captured in anyway…

@thenoisiesttermagant I meant to add: engineering grads cannot do those things already. Mainly because it’s maths heavy but critical thinking and problem solving is knocked out of grads. Many need others to initiate the design by solving the problems and they sit at a computer joining up the dots. Look at the HS2 design in the hoof. Ok I’m being rude, but in general who needs stupid projects at university like this?

It's really worrying, isn't it? I hope they are learning these skills once they get into the workplace, but it seems a fairly easy win for any university (including in other countries than the UK/US) to actual teach some degree of real world problem solving engineering skills to ensure their graduates can obtain the best real world jobs. Presumably employers are desperate for employees who can do so from the start and aren't terrified of speaking up if they spot a critical design flaw in case they upset someone.

Yet a lawyer tells me that while previously senior managers preferred to lose a tribunal case than have a showdown with their vengeful LGBT staff

This seems a reasonable explanation as to why the tide hasn't turned fast enough...despite the case against the OU.

I have a dc at Uni who is GC but wouldn't make views known because of the risk of backlash and bullying. The DEI policies are impacting the academic reputation of UK universities and I think there will be a decline in world wide rankings, in a generation this period will be noted for when the decline started. Given the publicity about bullying staff who would go into this sector?

I used to work in a job where we treated to take on grads who had done a course related to the job we did. To say they lacked basic knowledge was an understatement. It was just about the most basic stuff in doing it on a practical level in any workplace. It made them virtually unemployable because they were so clueless and had no idea whatsoever about the concept of customers or deadlines. It was fascinating and infuriating. This was over a decade ago now, so its been going on for some years.

@thenoisiesttermagant No one expects engineering grads to be the finished job and they have years of post grad training to get qualified. The problem is they lack the general skill to think what is the best design for the issue. The key for employers is to sort out who can do this as opposed to forever relying on others. Team players are useful but flair seems to be in short supply.

Degree apprenticeships are interesting. There’s very very few available when compared to degrees. They are hugely competitive. This of course isn’t the same as universities bullying staff and a curriculum that’s irrelevant but the UK has allowed minorities to have too much influence. It’s time thing to respect minorities but quite another to allow their views to infiltrate the curriculum in wholly unrelated areas.

No one knows the question

"But why?" anymore.

The only answers allowed are

"Because thats the way we've always done it" or "Because I say so".

Both of which are wholly unsatifactory.

The only ones championing the two little words that matter (with mixed success I might add) have been Musk and our own beloved Dominic Cummings (boo hiss).

Now this is where I do think they have merit. But I also have extreme reservations about both in terms of their visions about who they wanted to replace people who were obstructive / unquestioning in this way. It seems to be about replacing them with their own stooges who say yes to the correct ideas and people rather than people who actually ask "but why?".

We are seeing a rise in conspirary theories because we are failing to recognise this issue. Because we aren't offering other sane explanations to those who have become disillusioned and have started asking "but why?", people with nefarious agendas have filled this void.

Theres a real need to get to grips with this and to clear out people who say "because thats the way we've always done it" or "because I say so" with people who say "we've done it this way because it solved this problem but didn't have the adverse problem of this, but I'm open to new ways to improve on the concept"

Musk's problem is at times hes encouraged the redesigning of things from the ground up, without taking on some of the knowledge of why things WEREN'T done in this way for good reason (effectively hes not listening to people he doesn't want to and thats a flaw. He not identifying where they do add value). Thats not to say that a redesign wasn't needed. A lot of our issues with tech is where they have been designed on old systems and then patched which makes them creak and become expensive to run and need specialists to maintain the old system because no one was willing to invest at the right time in a new one thats got a decent lifespan ahead of it and is fit for the demands of the time. There is a time and place for ripping out and starting from scratch. Cummings phrased it as effectively burning the house down and starting again but this approach is too crude and too off the cuff and carries significant risk. You can't employ a 'rip a plaster off' approach to vulnerable groups.

And Cummings ran into the problem that so many people who recognised the same problem ran into. The civil service entrenchment, resistence to change and a closing of ranks to prevent him for doing what he wanted. This is partly because Cummings managed to get them off side from the start and had a bad attitude which alienated them before he began. This may well, yet be the problem that Musk eventually runs into in the US with DOGE but maybe not - because Cummings still remained more rational and less reckless than Musk is.

But make no mistake, there is going to be the same push and demand for this 'clear out' to happen in the UK. Partly because scandals are getting bigger and the rational sane quarters re starting to wake up to the very real problems being created and how we will be impacted due to wholesale incompetence and lack of due diligence. And partly because we have ideologues watching the US who will push on this too for their own agendas and so they can install their own into these positions.

We need to recognise whats happening and fill the void with competence rather than just a different type of ideologue.

But there are two camps - we need to keep repeating this - its not an either/or choice. The leftie nutjobs wanting to smear the sane only serve to further the agenda of the right wing nutjobs. We need to be asking "but why?" ourselves - the whole thing about pronoun use is a prime example - why are you using wrong sex pronouns? The answer is always 'because I've been taught I'm supposed to if I want to be kind' or 'because I've been forced to'. No one is asking 'but why is it kind? but how does this improve things for all parties?'. Instead you get mindless 'it doesn't hurt to' type responses who have no response when you reply 'but thats simply not true, you haven't taken the time to actually think about this have you? you are just repeating what you think you should say'.

I loathe what is happening because I can see whats happening and why and it feels like a car crash in slow motion thats completely unavoidable, but instead of slamming on the breaks these institutions double down and decide to press the accellerator citing that the other party should be the one to move. It feels like the ship / lighthouse urban myth in action - we are the reality of the lighthouse:

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

For all my joy at the bricks of the GI movement being steadily dismantled, I worry that when the wider backlash comes it will look like a reset that benefits traditional white males. Women won’t benefit (naturally) and vulnerable people are likely to suffer further. I’m actually quite fearful for the younger - likely autistic - gender questioners who will also be impacted by reduced school budgets and cuts to disability benefits.

I’m also concerned about LGB people as companies step run away from rainbow displays of corporate solidarity. Most of it wasn’t all that genuine anyway. Again, I imagine the blokes will mostly be OK, but will gender non-conforming women find it harder to be recruited or promoted?

For all the shit that detractors throw at GC women, most of us are liberal at heart and want people to live as they choose, as long as it doesn’t affect others. I hope we don’t get to a situation where difference is discouraged.

With universities there is a fairly simple explanation: academics have been conditioned to believe that they represent the intellectual avant garde. They are pioneers in thought, they represent the future of the world, they are far more sophisticated than the rest of us. And the more we criticise them, the more they believe that they are correct in their beliefs.

The reality is that many of the beliefs and approaches to the world promoted by modern universities are intellectual dead ends, like the Lysenkoism of the Soviet Union. Similar to Lysenkoism, the notional academic truths have such an ideological grounding so as to render them worthless.

This is, of course, only part of the issue - I could write a whole book on what is wrong with universities - but a good example of why academics double-down on their positions when criticisms arise.