Sara Morrison vs Belfast Film Festival - Thread 2

[TwoLoonsAndASprout]

Continuation of previous thread - don’t have all the details to hand to add here, so if someone can pop them on, pls do! Want to get this up quickly!

My analysis on the few sources we have is is that Deborah Boyd left school mid 1970s with a decent number of O Levels. Got married had a child. Started working as a receptionist in a waste management company. By 2004 was calling herself Professor and was trying to establish herself as an entrepreneur. Registered and dissolved a number of companies, no visible success. Began networking as a female entrepreneur and expert. Joins Womens industry and business orgs and networks vigoursly.

Continued to use Professor but no academic profile. Cited in some promotional articles. Re3 awarded contract for construction in Limerick. Article states won a leadership award in 2009. Only online reference to award an article published in a small not for profit media org whose mission is a focus' on the global South (?) and written by a PR consultant, also from Belfast.

By 2015 the serial entrepreneurship comes to an end. Continues to use Professor. Family now includes those who have a LGBT identity.

2025 finds herself as a panel member in ET. Maybe unaware of the high profile and media interest heading her way. No real reflection on the appropriateness of her participation and her past and present connections.

DB seems to have danced the shady line for a long time. Being in this spotlight now must be a nightmare.

Just to say that like many of us I was intrigued with how today's proceedings have unravelled.
I'm also wondering where the drive is coming from to pick someone's life apart (i e those on the panel). It feels grubby to me - and the kind of tactic used by some TRAs.
Maybe I'm being too simplistic, but basic netiquette is no ad hominem attacks.

I was wondering if it was something along these lines - started calling herself professor so sounds more knowledgeable and learned - a way to gain respect and clout - a way to sound like you are an expert - I don't think "professor" is a protected title so no reason she can't identify as that

(Edited for spelling)

I attempted notes of most segments today. Not sure if I got the specifics of that bit - will try to read them later. But from memory if it wasn't 'concern' it was something very similar.

Why do you think this is ad hominem? It is a very serious matter to be recused from an ET and there is a number of matters with regard to it remaining unresolved. If she has fraudulently claimed the title of professor and misrepresent her stranding to the judiciary that is a crime. It is very far from being as hominem because she would have been an authority on the judgement and her credibility is all important.

It's a tribunal where she should be impartial- I mean, that's surely the lowest bar for a tribunal member to reach. If she has any conflicts of interest then it is absolutely necessary for her to bring them up to ensure a fair legal process. IMO.

Is it a title one can buy by doing an online something or other from a university based on a small island somewhere if you hand over £500?

Highly outing but as a trainee I was involved in a high profile case in which a senior Exec fraudulently claimed to have an MBA from a Concordia College, St. Johns, US Virgin Islands.

This perjury was a key factor in an £300 million settlement.

It would buy you 3000 BIG EXPENSIVE SUMMER USE ONLY screens but you wouldn’t have any spare change for erections.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of!

So many screens, so little erections.

Not really. Professor is a job title, not a personal title. You get it by being appointed to a position, not by having an achievement (like a PhD). So there has to be somewhere for the position to be, even if it's honorary or visiting. I mean, I suppose there could be a university on the small island that had no students but an inordinate number of honorary professors.... but no, really, no.

Naomi suspects there is bias.

She suspects bias to the extent she would risk a case that is going ‘swimmingly’, and it really is.

She is has ethical obligations and wants actual fair proceedings. So she made her application in good faith.

It didn’t all pan out as planned. But that’s the work. She and Charlotte & Simon will plough on. The case is in Sara’s favour.

Let’s see what Monday brings.

Well I think it important to know if this is a fair process. I dont think anyone has started researching the other people on the panel.

It does seem like captains of industry who can attract research funds might be given a professorship here https://www.sfi.ie/funding/funding-calls/sfi-research-professorship/

It might be possible to buy honorary doctorates here (not sure I'd trust them with card details) buydiplomonline.net/

Those research professorships are the real deal, and, um, our DB does not have the requisite profile.

Suitable applicants for an SFI Research Professorship Programme award will be outstanding researchers in academia or industry, recognised as world leaders in their discipline, with a demonstrated capacity for strategic and dynamic leadership on the international stage. They will have already been successful in obtaining funding through extremely competitive funding calls or will demonstrate clear potential to do so in the near future.

@Largesso @Noodledog @SexRealistic I'm a lurker and occasional poster (but have name changed as I frequently do).

I may not be on top of terminology etc but my comment was not about NC's actions, but more the momentum from some to pursue lots of details and personal info about someone else (in this case a panel member).

What happened to SM sounds likes a witch hunt to me.

I'm not sure how beneficial it is to participate in another witch hunt.

I'm positive you can buy PhDs Dr awards like that. Just waiting for the British Library to reopen fully and I am off to research a former (highly unprofessional) colleague. Who lied to me about another qualification, and I always doubted the doctorate.

No convinced you can have a witch hunt against someone who is a respected member of their society. Dictionary definition says it involves unorthodox views. This is questioning whether there was some dishonesty involved in taking a position where you are required to act impartially.

I know someone who titles themself Professor So-and-so, who absolutely does not have and has never held a chair at any university. They “have” a “visiting professorship” at a non-uk university, which as far as I can tell just means they have asked for and been granted library privileges there. I don’t quite know why they do it, unless they think their industry connections will be impressed (and won’t investigate). Academics are not impressed.

It's really misleading. I don't think panel members should be allowed to do anything like this.

Are they allowed to do something like this?!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. It is possible, even if it seems unlikely, that DB holds a visiting or honorary professorship at a university that doesn't have a great online presence, and does good work in that role. I do hope that the Tribunal will check, before they have her on any other panels, though. I am quite tempted to Write a Letter to urge them to do so, (eta) though surely it's not necessary - the judge and court officials would have to be extraordinarily obtuse not to have checked already after NC's remarks today.

We understood that’s the point you are making but this is not a witch hunt. We are researching the professional status of a panel member of an ET as usually information is easily available confirming claim to such titles as Professor and it is odd that it is not. If it was a witch hunt we would be shouting to all and sundry that she is a fraud and a liar which we are not doing. We are looking into something that presents as odd. The allegations of bias were not contested by the J in a way that would have usefully informed the public in a process of open justice that will have huge impact on the rights of women in NI and how they are adjudicated, if a panel member had been dishonest it is hugely significant. It is strange that the J did not directly address key elements of the application with regard to Boyd’s recusal. As with the ET itself, it is legitimate to infer from absence of information but we are not actually making any inference as such, simply exploring the questions left hanging by the judge’s pointed failure to address key points.

Completely agree. I was genuinely asking theoretically based on the example.

It's an interesting one.

Professor in the UK and Ireland is a distinguished senior academic title and people who have it take it seriously, but in the USA academic system 'professor' seems to be the title for people with almost any lecturing job.

Wrt at a tribunal, I have no idea what they would be allowed to do.

The person I described has clearly not been called out on this because they continue to do it. I can guarantee you, though, that if they went for a UK academic job they would not be styling themselves as a professor, because it would be immediately obvious that they weren’t. These things are very public: if you have a professorship at a UK university you will be on that university website, probably with a mile-long list of all your publications and the PhD students you’ve supervised and the huge amount of grant money you’ve brought in, etc. There is no way you would be invisible online.

This is also true - Canada as well.

And of course Hogwarts...