Michael Foran has had to cancel the remaining lectures on Sex, GI and the law.....

[impossibletoday]

due to bullying and harassment of those students wanting to attend.

https://x.com/i/status/2063577885928013833

Was he ever the subject of a formal student complaint though? Students might not have complained about him, he's presumably competent in his own domain and they'll meet people who are worse problems. Students may simply have decided that complaining is more hassle than it's worth.

But if students have formally complained that they've been bullied or threatened for attending an academic seminar to the point where the seminar series has been closed down to protect them... even Oxford aren't going to be able to able to ignore that. The Office for Students wont look kindly on it either.

So I very much hope that behind their anodyne statements Oxford University are shitting bricks. Not even as a GC feminist but just as an academic.

Thirdly, university tuition fees in the US cannot be compared to UK fees. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in just tuition (accommodation is extra), over the course of four years (and law school is more expensive again, for a further three years). People start college funds for their children before they are even born. One of my family members saved and spent $750k over six years because he had two kids in college at the same time. The UK fees don't even come close.

Just, wow!

It's a bit out of date now, but this is an excellent book that lays it all out in all its gory detail:

The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges - and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, 2005, by Daniel Golden.

Those are good points.

However, the First Amendment only prohibits state action. It doesn't apply to private universities like Stanford or Yale.

https://www.fire.org/research-learn/private-universities

I agree about how important donations are to US universities, although I think you're understating the importance of research grants. Stanford gets over 2 billion USD a year and Yale gets over 1B. Johns Hopkins gets around 4B. (The joke I've heard is that Stanford/Yale is a hedge fund attached to a medical centre - because of the huge grants, fees, and other money that such centres bring in each year - attached to a uni.)

I think the reliance on alumni donations shows that it's riskier for a university to allow hecklers to stop debate than to say "no". As you say, " institutions will do anything to avoid losing those funds" and in my examples of Yale and Stanford, they're doing that by emphasising the importance of free speech and robust debate, not by allowing hecklers to veto ideas that they disagree with.

Are you saying that US fees are higher than UK fees? If yes, wouldn't that provide a greater incentive to pander to student hecklers?

Yes, you are right about research funding. I should have been more explicit, this is what I was referring to when I mentioned "business connections."

Private universities still receive some federal funding, which is one of the reasons that Trump's actions regarding sports being separated by biological sex has any impact at all. He can only enforce the federal funding side of things. So private universities are not entirely separate from public funds and the conditions that federal government put on those funds.

I think the reliance on alumni donations shows that it's riskier for a university to allow hecklers to stop debate than to say "no". As you say, " institutions will do anything to avoid losing those funds" and in my examples of Yale and Stanford, they're doing that by emphasising the importance of free speech and robust debate, not by allowing hecklers to veto ideas that they disagree with.

I'm a bit confused here, but I think we are agreeing/saying the same thing here? Sorry, am very tired this afternoon!

Re tuition fees: yes, US tuition, especially for private institutions, but even many state schools, is much, much higher than tuition fees in the UK.

I think, for two reasons, any university would weigh up their options here. If the "hecklers" are a minority of students, it wouldn't be worth the university pandering to them, to the detriment of the majority of students. Also, I think most universities are concerned more with optics than how much they might lose if 25% of those (minority) hecklers transferred to another university, taking their money with them. Demonstrations and such are par for the course at universities, but the university cannot let any kind of demonstration attract too much of the wrong kind of publicity. Protests against racism or apartheid in South Africa, for example when I was at university, were tolerated as long as it didn't spill over into criminal damage or rioting. Rallies lauding Neo-Nazis would not have been tolerated, but neither would protests preventing speakers (of any political persuasion) invited to the institution from speaking. Scary optics in national media deter prospective students and their parents.

I'm not sure that explains things very well!

According to a story in the Times, the University explicitly gave permission for the protests, despite attendees at the first lecture complaining.

Here is the story in the Times

https://www.thetimes.com/article/8408c1ec-131b-4b6d-bc2c-6632712ed441?shareToken=2d1a372fac6900d28b041555bc64fdab

I think the issue is how some (and it certainly isn't the majority) think the way to promote their view of the world is to stop everyone else from being able to discuss anything.

Foran himself said he didn't want the bullying of students to go on.

But what this means is that 2 complete nincompoops who are doing nothing more that masturbating the egos in public for no other reason than to virtue signal, are denying the majority from attending a talk.

And their complete arrogance of assuming they should be listened to and obeyed.

I think every time a student/s attempts this type of disruption they get issued with a warning by whichever university and their parents written to and told we dont believe you told your children they could behave like this, so just to let you know if they do it 2 more times they will be expelled.

This isn't anything to do with being student, it is about have they grown up enough to now how to behave as a member of society.

If it is too "traumatising" to hear or even been aware that other people dont think like them, then obviously they shouldn't be putting themselves at risk by attending university.

Maybe students should be made to sign a contract before being admitted that says they agree that they will not be disruptive.

Obviously if outside of lectures students are being bullied by other students then some action by the University authorities need to provide support and again censor those who are doing the bullying.

There must be some of this going on as I cant believe these two idiots standing up and make complete fools of themselves are that charismatic that all other students are over come and submit.

Sorry image is from https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15882085/Moment-Oxford-University-professor-forced-cancel-lecture-pro-trans-activists-call-bigot-transphobic.html

Quote:

'If you are here in a critical capacity to challenge his ideas... that is not the same as refusing to platform him. He will not be convinced by your arguments. Please join me in walking out and refusing to platform this bigot.'

!!!!

Dr Foran added: “It is unfortunate that these protesters have chosen disruption over genuine intellectual engagement grounded in academic charity and rigour. In attempting to shame students into de-platforming these lectures, they manifest the antithesis of what a university stands for.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/07/oxford-professor-cancel-lectures-trans-protesters
and https://archive.is/tDbKb

Does this mean that throughout the student community students are experiencing bullying. If so this is really worrying and something the Universities should do something about.

If it is just public posturing like this, and in fact other students heckle them, why give them the power.

If just doesn't make sense.

I've written to William Hague the Chancellor via email to inquire if he is aware of this debacle and what he now intends to do. He has responsibilities to the University and Professor Foran; he is more than a figurehead. What will happen on his watch in the face of this threat to freedom of speech?

I will report back.

Comment by John Maier in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/47b357aa-e286-43ec-841e-075731545d4e?shareToken=1d538c469a6ce84ced053aa3ec43bbc0&ver=article

This is the activists' validation reel.

Worth watching to the end, if you can bear it, for their rallying cry of DIY hormones and euphoria. Also, we are introduced to the concept of intersexism.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZUJ_ZeteEq/?igsh=MWF0OHo0MjIyOHM2Mw%3D%3D

I bet the Oxford trans brigade haven’t read their cancelled professor’s book

If student protesters were forced to describe the texts they are so adamantly against, the response would be paper-thin

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/08/michael-foran-oxford-gender-lecture/
also at https://archive.is/Ka8Ky

Lord they’re an ill thought out bunch.

Oh dear. The protest was bad enough but why put more weird whining up for the world to see. Im mean really? Is this the best cogent argument that Oxford students can manage? According to them Michael Foran says horrible violent words and is a horrid bigot who should be cancelled and de-platformed so he can’t talk about the law. Ie words are violence. But the students who disrupted the talk and made some horrendous accusations - using words - were not being violent or threatening. Really? Get a grip - if your disruption was relatively speaking more “violent” than the giving of a law lecture (considered to be hateful by the students themselves), then they must accept they were relatively speaking threatening and violent themselves. If not the Michael isnt either. They can’t have it both ways - honestly i used to think Oxford students were clever. This lot seem to be utterly incoherent

They are probably unable to be coherent, being too taken up with their resistance, which,

"is local, community-based, intimate. It is in the networks of friends, allies, lovers and exes, in the mutual aid and the DIY hormones and the day-to-day euphoria that we make."

Interesting use of language to resist a lecture by an academic lawyer: intimate, lovers, exes, euphoria.

And the final call to arms - "Don’t get afraid, get angry." - sounds rather, er, violent.

Well exactly! Cake and eat it sprang to mind.

The whole lovers, exes bit had me cringing I must say. That chap is no MartinLuther King is he? It probably sounded good in his head

Similar tale here with me, @TwoLoonsAndASprout. There's not a day goes by without my missing it, but I'm aware that the university I feel a profound nostalgia for doesn't exist any more.

"is local, community-based, intimate. It is in the networks of friends, allies, lovers and exes, in the mutual aid and the DIY hormones and the day-to-day euphoria that we make."

Fgs. This sort of inane 2nd hand GenAI teenage rubbish is what fuels genuinely frightening people to argue that the left should be denied a democratic voice because they’re so crazy. A spiral of left craziness followed by right repression. Regular people caught in the middle.

Edited to say thank you to @BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth for signposting this interesting thread.

I’m a bit confused. Is the blond haired girl with green dyed hair trans ?

The man in red, was that his normal voice? It’s very odd. Is the Sesame Street Character, green puppet in the bin, meant to represent someone else who doesn’t want their face shown? Or is that again the man in red.

There were barely more attendees than protesters - and I hope you're aware of the funding behind this guy. He's a protege of people with incredibly regressive views about women and gay people.

Those (very polite!) protesters did women everywhere a favour. Misogynists should not be platformed in our universities.

We’re all picturing the same shy, hesitant womanly smile breaking out across his face when he penned that paragraph aren’t we? I will spend most of the day giggling about friends and allies, lovers and exes…

is this a suggested blueprint for all protests in civic life now and is there a sliding scale - if I want to appeal a parking ticket is one ex sufficient?

Michael Foran is gay you absolute fucking wombat

is there no end to the ways you embarrass yourself here??

He's funded by Christian nationalists want to control women's bodies. And plenty of right-wing women support that movement.

I'd urge everyone not to be fooled, and take a look at his background, mentor and funding.

Then maybe read the poem again.