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

The OfS found that Sussex’s policy statement on “trans and non-binary equality” failed to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom governance principles, creating a “chilling effect” on campus.

This is interesting, as a lot of (most?) universities will have very similar policies on trans “equality”. I wonder how many of them will take note of this? Of course, they’ll be too terrified to incur the rage of trans activists to row back on those policies. But they’re now sitting on a potentially very expensive time bomb.

ETA. And if this is a “significantly discounted” fine, it would be interesting to know what it would ordinarily have been. That’s quite a veiled warning to universities that they’ve made sure to issue by making that clear.

I just checked on the OfS website - this investigation was started in 2021, so this para from the FT:

The decision comes after US vice-president JD Vance last month lectured Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, on the need to defend free speech during an encounter in the Oval Office. Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and adviser and donor to President Donald Trump, has also claimed that Britain is stifling free expression.

is so sneaky! It's chronologically accurate, it did come after Vance's speech, but it had nothing to do with it.

They could have said with equal accuracy:
'The decision comes after Tranmere Rovers sacked Nigel Adkins' or
'The decision comes after the Franco-Prussian war' or
'The decision comes just over a week after St Patrick's Day' or
'The decision comes after an investigation which started in 2021.'

But no, they had to drag Trump in, didn't they?🙄

Indeed.

But how bloody long is it going to take for them to realise that pissing off transactivists isn't what's going to cost them half a million quid.

C'mon universities, just say NO.

Surely heads should roll at the university. Particularly as they still don't seem to have grasped that GC beliefs are WORIADS, racism, anti semitism and homophobia are not.

It was an utterly appalling debacle and for a long time afterwards I referenced it every time I was asked to give any kind of internal feedback about inclusivity or empowerment or gender or any kind of tangentially related topic.

That is one big chicken coming home to roost!

I was just listening to The World Tonight on the radio and they reported this. It's 39 minutes (and a few seconds) in:

World Tonight

Branwen Jeffreys (BBC Education Correspondent) said that a fine of this size was unprecedented but she suspected that Sussex couldn't appeal.

As others have said, Sussex don't seem to have learned from their experiences. The report reminded me just how cowardly they were in protecting an employee who had done nothing illegal.

Their VC is a Professor of Gender Studies so their attempt to conflate these things is entirely predictable.

The Universities are behaving the same as the NHS. Shame on them. Sheer hypocrisy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9vr4vjzgqo
On BBC front page. Thought I was hallucinating

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said free speech and academic freedom were "non-negotiables" in universities.
"I have been clear that where those principles are not upheld, robust action will be taken," she said.
"If you go to university you must be prepared to have your views challenged, hear contrary opinions and be exposed to uncomfortable truths.
"We are giving the OfS stronger powers on freedom of speech so students and academics are not muzzled by the chilling effect demonstrated in this case."

After all the outrage from the Sussex VC about the unfairness of the fine, the BBC report states:
The policy at the heart of the investigation had been adapted from a template, according to the university, and had since been changed.

So they didn't actually write the policy that got them into so much trouble themselves, they just cut and pasted a template, and they have since ditched it?

Which sounds very like 'A template did it, and ran away'!

😂
I wonder which organisation produced the template? So many suspects🤔

I’ll bet that they paid that organisation a lot of money for its “advice” too.

Well, that is refreshing. I was half expecting the government to oust Arif Ahmed from his role at the OfS after this.

This article was below the BBC report 😬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyv3jn92d4o

About the University having to cut jobs.

Which led me to this from 2021 and just before Doc Stocks's resignation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-58841887

An Instagram account apparently linked to the campaign posted a "mission statement" calling for Professor Stock to be fired, alongside photos of the protest.
The statement claimed to be from "an anonymous, unaffiliated group of queer, trans and non-binary students who will not allow our community to be slandered and harmed by someone who's [sic] salary comes from our pockets".

That apostrophe! I'm embarrassed for them.

Agree. It was also refreshing to see that the BBC report did not drag in a gratuitous reference to Trump or Vance!

There was a change of VC at Sussex between 2021 and now, it appears.

The university is investigating the incidents, and will take disciplinary action if necessary, Vice Chancellor Prof Adam Tickell told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday. [2021]

That seems like a reasonable response, and he expressed support for Dr Stock.
"It's absolutely clear that all of our staff have an untrammelled right to say and believe what they think, so we take it very seriously if people try to prevent that right from being exercised"

The current VC took office in 2022, and appears to have adopted a very different approach.

There might have been a different outcome to the investigation if Tickell had stayed in post.

"free speech absolutism"

What the fuck does that mean wrt this? What is Roseneil saying here?

The chicken in question.

"A template did it, and ran away,"

Beautifully put!

So, this naughty template ... Where did it come from? Who found it? Was it down the back of the sofa?

Edited to add: this is in response to a post by Tobee, which I quoted but then spent too long tried to compose my response and the quote vanished.

An article published by the University of Sussex in February 2022 welcoming Sasha Roseneil as the new vice chancellor included the following paragraph:

“I will focus the energy and resources of the University on realising the full potential of its ground-breaking research, thought leadership and transformational education in the service of the common good. .."

As there is no such thing as thought leadership, I conclude that the word that was misspelled should have read "through".

Unless, what we are looking at is the imposition of limitations (reasonable limitations of course) on free speech at the university through judiciously applied "thought leadership"?

But no, it's a boring typo, and that comment about the "unreasonably absolutist definition of free speech" was a truthful (if extreme) expression of frustration by the VC venting fury at the office for students allowing people to say what they think, and the "free speech" in question having the full backing of the law behind it.

I suspect it is an organisation that is now known to distance itself from its advice and declare that any organisation needs to take independent legal advice to make sure that the organisation is acting legally and that their suggestions (tied to their champions programme) are just suggestions. Ie. an organisation that gives advice that needs a legal second opinion (preferrably from a top anti-discrimination specialist) .

Every week another bit of the dodgy foundations crumble away showing that it really is turtles all the way down.

Largest fine - that’s a stand and a line drawn. Phillipson sounds blistering too. I hope other universities take note.

This is an extraordinary outcome. But it is important to think carefully about the timeline here. This did not happen on the current VC’s watch, and in any case, VCs generally do not get involved in the day-to-day running of faculties and departments.

The questions one should be asking are: who was Stock’s line manager at the time? Who was running the Faculty? Heads of Department have limited power, it is Schools and Faculties that matter, the next level up. The bullying started well before the pandemic, in 2018 or 2019 when Stock first intervened in the debate.

Were any of the employees that bullied Stock ever disciplined? There were plenty who posted abusive messages online. Who at Sussex UCU wrote this appalling statement? Who wrote the trans policy? This is not VC-level stuff.

Finally, if we can learn anything from various GC cases at universities, it is that the role of staff networks is crucial. They are essentially activist interest groups that are given resources by universities to push for policies that may actually not be in the interest of the organisation as a whole. Sussex, being in Brighton, must have had a very active trans and non-binary staff network. Who led this network? And were there any links to local activist groups? Was the university under pressure from these groups, threatened, for example, to be excluded from events such as Brighton Pride? Brighton has always been the ground zero of trans extremism in the UK, so this is surely relevant.

I hate what happened to Stock but this wasn’t the current VC’s doing and she now has to defend a huge mess that others made. She seems unlikely to want to sack some senior people who were in positions of responsibility at the time but perhaps she should consider it.