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

This

It is the job of every head or deputy head of an institution to clear up the messes of their predecessors. Everyone who takes on that level of responsiblity (and pay) knows that there is a reasonable chance theres a stinker of an issue lurking that needs to be dealt with.

All the 'it didn't happen on her watch' is complete and utterly fucking irrelevant.

We are talking about her just needing to get on with the basics of her job. She doesn't need a pity party. She doesn't deserve one. Its part of the job description!

The irony of this is that instead of smearing and guilting which is often the intention, what happens is they are actually crediting Trump and Vance for the hard work of a bunch of leftie women. Not only that, but without realising it, far from shaming people into compliance and recruiting people to 'the cause', they manage to legitimise Trump and Vance and make them look like they've achieved something here.

The reality is that this case has had absoluetely nothing to do with either and its likely that outcomes would have been the same because our British systems of checks and balances were working all by themselves without US intervention.

Thanks to women like Kathleen Stock...

This is an example of the invisibility of women and men being credited for the work men have done:

Rule 7.
7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.

I really feel for Stock, she has been harassed out of her job and out of UK. I wanted to see her speak at Oxford Union but security was so strict, no outsiders could attend. The “students” protesting outside I swear they do even really know the issue.

How the protesters can not give a women’s studies professor the ability to teach is insane.

Women’s Studies! Is also been taken over by trans!

BTW the anti Stock graffiti was everywhere - Uni didn’t bother to clean it up.

100% would never allow my children to go to such a backward uni.

I feel a bit sorry for universities.
Young, idealistic students are tricky to deal with individually but when they decide to rally to their cause they are unstoppable regardless if common sense is not present.
The law around trans people is still an ever shifting sand atm.
Tra’s have time and money to tie their victims up in knots.

We could educate our teens before they get to university but of course they already know everything.

Totally agree that current VC's doubling down is symptom of an endemic problem at Sussex and academia overall and is extremely concerning. But let's not forget the hounding of Prof Stock occurred under Adam Tickell's leadership, who is now sitting pretty at Birmingham.

It’s excellent news, delighted for Prof Stock

Furthermore … their acceptance rate is now at approx 90%.
I’d say their decisions regarding Stock have impacted their ability to compete. It’s also the gayest Uni in UK which might not appeal to everyone.
A friend from DC school got a clearance offer from Sussex - she had only 2 a-levels and they were a C and a D. She declined and and doing a re- sit of all 3 a-levels.

not a fan of Sussex Uni, because of treatment of Stock. I do wonder how the sciences teach sex/gender/chrimoskmes??

As long as the Universities could demonstrate they took as much action as is within their power I doubt they would face any significant sanction.

I hate what happened to Stock but this wasn’t the current VC’s doing

Even if it wasn’t, the current one had an easy “out” by blaming her predecessor. But she didn’t, she just dug in deeper so this is as much a mess of her making as anyone else’s.

It’s not just students though. Look at the messages posted online by staff (referenced above). Look at how UCU behaved in failing to support Stock and coming out in support (IIRC) of those who targeted her. Look at how staff behaved at OU towards Jo Phoenix and others. And so on.

These are not kids, drunk on the Kool-Aid of teenage righteousness and idealism, they’re highly educated adults who - by definition - should fucking know how to think critically and the importance of respect for divergence of view. Instead they are the epitome of the statement “so open minded that their brains fell out”.

The thing is, I’m pretty sure Roseneil feels that she has done a lot to, very gently, change the culture. But she has done it in a way that did not force some staff to confront their own bigotry against gender-critical women.

And the commitment to free speech is all very well but the problem with GCs using a free speech argument has always been that it’s actually not at the heart of the matter. Because ultimately, this is about women and their privacy, safety and dignity.

I’m sure that Sussex still has a trans inclusion policy that allows staff of either sex access to opposite-sex facilities. Most UK universities do. Who pays the price for that? Women. Roseneil, who sees herself as a champion of women’s rights (her early work was on feminist activism) cannot accept that she is enabling misogyny. So yes, perhaps she was always a tricky choice for the job. But would anybody else been able to forge half-decent working relations with the powerful queer lobby at Sussex? I doubt it. FFS, it’s Brighton!

If a senior cis het white male had waltzed in and sacked a bunch of people in 2022, which was also a period of very difficult industrial relations, the university might have stopped functioning.

This is a sector problem, it’s not just Sussex, as we well know … (OU, Oxford, Edinburgh, BIM and so on).

The graffiti was cleaned up, there were images on Twitter of estates workers scrubbing it off and students taunting them with ‘whose side are you on’? Of course, the university could have done more to expel these students …

You feel sorry for universities for failing to uphold the law and carry out their responsibilities as pastoral carers for staff, women and other vulnerable groups because one group is radicalised?

Its literally their job to deal with this shite.

If you had a bunch of extremist of other politicial ideas on campus protesting and threatening violence towards staff or other students, you'd expect the university to grow a pair and deal with it.

Why do they suddenly deserve sympathy because its a certain issue?

Seriously, why does this have to be pointed out: unacceptable behaviour remains unacceptable. Harassment, intimidation and threats remain harassment, intimidation and threats.

We have a whole court case which lists the failures by the university on this. Stop delegitimising and undermining these crucial points through the social expectation placed on women to emphasis. It harms us.

This shouldn't be about emotions on a subject. It should be about focusing on balancing rights and upholding the law. The end.

What’s in it for them? This nonsense will last longer in universities than anywhere else because academics have built their careers on researching, teaching and publishing in this area. They have been fawned over and funded for years and have taught and hired in their own images, multiplying their numbers. Universities have set up departments and chairs in this, often at the expense of women’s studies.

Admitting that this is nonsense and that they haven’t been warriors for truth, justice and cutting edge research means denouncing who they are and what they’ve spent years doing. Very few people are capable of doing this, and the universities that are always crying poor will be just as reluctant to admit that they funded and fell for it too.

An organisation is still held accountable for its actions. It doesn’t matter if leadership has changed. Look at the Post Office. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

BBC has said Sussex are appealing. They are wrong to do so and some staff probably should be investigated as they are at best incompetent and at worst not acting in accordance with employment legislation and policies.

I think certain universities have promoted courses that attract the noisy trans community. So others may well be silenced. If I was Sussex I’d look at the academic offering and make changes. However being in Brighton !!!!!!

And the commitment to free speech is all very well but the problem with GCs using a free speech argument has always been that it’s actually not at the heart of the matter. Because ultimately, this is about women and their privacy, safety and dignity.

Hard disagree.

You can not uphold the privacy, safety and dignity of women if you can not name reality, speak about reality and understand the power of the truth.

The privacy, safety and dignity of women is TIED to power and control. Power and control is maintained through the use of language and the ability to speak.

This is why authoritarianism (of all political persuasions) doesn't work well for women - because they have less power within society. Where you have free speech, women have greater power.

If we can't describe what is happening to us because we are preventing from talking about it, we can not stop it happening to us. Because we lack the words.

Words have power.

Ask Orwell. Ask Arendt.

This is basic stuff. All history and politics students in the UK should know this stuff by university age (even if they are authoritarians wishing to control others!).

And the commitment to free speech is all very well but the problem with GCs using a free speech argument has always been that it’s actually not at the heart of the matter. Because ultimately, this is about women and their privacy, safety and dignity.

I respectfully disagree I'm afraid. Free speech is at the heart of the matter, otherwise you have no tools at all to stand up for women and girls. That is why the self-ID lobby use the No Debate tactic and, failing that, a shaming tactic ie Be Kind which has the same effect of silencing speech.

I believe that universities who (alongside the press) have a duty to stand up for free speech but fail to do so should be sanctioned very harshly and publicly.

Re the new VC - google the 'glass cliff phenomenon'. Women are often drafted in at times when it is obvious they will fail - ie to clear up the mess that men have made. And then the finger is pointed towards them saying, look a rubbish female leader.

But then again, reading the current VC's comments there is also the very obvious possibility that she is simply repeating the mistakes of Prof Tickell, albeit at a lower level.

it just adds one more little factor to the deeply depressing 'which UK university will go bust first?' speculation. I fear that once one goes a lot more will follow rather fast.

Is “Office for Students” like a tertiary education Ofsted? They should probably be looking at the OU (but presumably a complaint needs to have been made).

My Uni days were i. The 80’s, when my Alma Mater was more than happy to suspend or boot out difficult/protesting students. It doesn’t seem to happen any more.

And the commitment to free speech is all very well but the problem with GCs using a free speech argument has always been that it’s actually not at the heart of the matter. Because ultimately, this is about women and their privacy, safety and dignity.

I also resent this concept because part of it is based on the misconception that The Far Right Support Free Speech. Yet again its about this smearing and guilt by association concept.

Let me make this absoluetely clear.

The Right and Left can BOTH be authoritarian. Free speech is the counter measure to both the left and right. This is precisely why authoritarians battle to control the narrative.

If you want the Far Right to control the narrative on this subject, if you try and control speech you will lose. The only way you win is by recognising that this is a balancing act. The line is threats, bullying and harassment and you make this clear it applies to everyone.

People who recognise sex rather than believing in gender, are not automatically hard left or right or moderate left or right or even slap bang in the centre. They come from ALL of these position because recognising reality is not a political position. You have to be free to stay how many fingers you are holding up.

Otherwise you have lost ALL power and with it, by default, any right to privacy, safety and dignity.

If they appeal maybe the fine will be increased- it was a lower fine because it was the first ever fine of its kind so they threw Sussex a lifeline. I think it should be rescinded given this response.

Heard this on Radio 4 this morning and I was so surprised that I nearly spilled my tea! It is brilliant news. And also amazing that the BBC reported it.

The report added that Sussex are furious and are going to appeal.

We mildly observed to each other, “Aren’t they one of the universities in massive financial trouble?” but I suppose when you’re a Brave-n-Stunning warrior for TRSOH then no price is too high. What their funders, donors, and (importantly) fee-payers think about throwing yet more money at the Omnicause is another matter 🧐

Looks like the current VC was Sally Hines's PhD supervisor...

This is from 2018
https://herriotts.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/the-usual-suspects-sally-hines/

BBC has said Sussex are appealing. They are wrong to do so.

Sussex are already having to lay off staff because they have financial problems, so I suspect they can’t afford not to look into appealing - £585k is a massive hole in their already-buggered finances.

But you can’t appeal just because you don’t like a decision, there have to be legal grounds to do so. So I suspect it’s also a face-saving exercise.