Cambridge University ignoring the Supreme Court ruling?

[yoursweetpotatoesarebland]

Dd is going to the Cambridge open day coming up, I got an email through about the colleges and was having a read through. There’s a section about “gender identity” and how it impacts on what colleges you can apply to. There are two women’s colleges but both accept anyone who identifies as a woman!

This is from Murray Edwards:
“At the admissions level, we will consider any student who, at the point of application, identifies as a woman“

How can this still be allowed? It’s self ID too so has NEVER been legal for the purposes of the eqA.

Taking places from women and taking the piss out of women.

Yes and Greer opposed his appointment, unfortunately to no effect.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/fellows-divided-over-don-who-breached-last-bastion-1257781.html

Meanwhile, the feminist academic, Germaine Greer, who is a member of the college's governing body, is horrified at the decision to admit Dr Padman as a Fellow of the college because the statutes insist that all fellows must be women. She is considering calling an emergency meeting of the governing body to discuss the controversy. Only Newnham's principal, Dr Onora O'Neil, knew that Dr Padman had undergone a sex-change operation to become a woman in 1982. Dr Greer and other fellows had had no idea of Dr Padman's history. "We have driven a coach and horses through our statutes and I can't believe we did it," she said. "It's disgraceful that Dr Padman has been placed in this situation. I makes me very angry."

I’m sorry, how does your personal view have anything to do with the legal situation here?

As you point out, educational establishments have different rules to services and associations under the act. They can legitimately be single-sex and “exceptionally” enrol members of the opposite sex. Another example in the guidance is a single-sex that accepts the children (of both sexes) of its staff members. Obviously they need appropriate changing and toilet facilities but a boys’ school can enrol some girls and vice versa, using much more selective criteria for the exceptional criteria.

What’s not clear (and I don’t know if there is any case law) is if the “exceptional” criteria used can further discriminate on the basis of a PC. “Children of staff members” is not a PC. Clearly if all the men who are admitted to a women’s college have Gender Reassignment that is what’s happening. Obviously a racial bias in the men admitted to an otherwise women’s college would not stand.

Curiously the new draft guidance from the EHRC for educational establishments, which is not statutory guidance like the workplace and services documents are, seems to think this is ok.

This is an excellent point, and builds on my own position which is that TiM will not face any specific issues at any college they chose to apply to. Unlike GC women. They really don’t need Newnham or ME
Wondering what happens with college sport in these cases, because by joining a ‘single-sex’ college, they surely exclude themselves from any single-sex sports teams - or are women from other colleges just expected to pretend?
This also seems like a good place to remind any alumni that you can join UCWS and support the brave young women who set this up

Yes, there's a good case for a genuinely fully single-sex women's college, where there are restrictions even against male staff and visitors in accommodation spaces. Muslim women who wear the hijab feel constrained to keep it on if there's a possibility of a man seeing them, whereas in a single sex environment they can relax and take it off. And it would be interesting to know how many young Muslim women don't attend university at all unless they are able to live at home, because they or their parents want them to avoid men.

I saw this piece of advice on an advice page for Muslim students. I suspect that the universities who are offering "single-gender" accommodation define "single-gender" to include transwomen, and that some Muslim women don't realise that.

"Most universities allow you to specify your accommodation preferences during the application process. If living in single-gender or alcohol-free halls is important, make this request clear. Some universities offer female-only or male-only flats, while others can place you with fellow Muslim students. Even if you've already received your room assignment, universities usually permit room transfers if you're dissatisfied.
Don’t hesitate to contact your accommodation office—they've likely handled similar requests before. For instance, Manchester University accommodates lifestyle preferences such as alcohol-free or single-gender housing upon request."

The media is NOT selling a belief that trans people are inherently dangerous. They are saying men should not be in any place or competition that is designated female only.

As a Cambridge under grad I’m sure you know why we sometimes have spaces, competitions and jobs ring fenced for women only.

If trans people are vulnerable it is not the same vulnerability as women.

Would you support decisions to allocate income support to wealthy people as long as they are disabled? Or would you suggest wealthy disabled people get the right support such as a parking permit but not income support.

Why should men who identify not as men get something that is not allocated for them.

Perhaps they could petition to get support or allocations of positive bias based upon their vulnerability rather than taking another groups hard fought allocation.

Btw trans women are not women and certainly not the intended group for women only colleges.

Brilliant post @TeachWithMissM , I agree entirely.

What a surprise - the woman who supports a bloke parading around in giant rubber norks thinks men are marginalised and excluded at Oxbridge so need into women's spaces. Will no one think of the poor men????

colour me shocked

On these MN threads you see a lot of concern dramatically expressed for university students who will have to cope with having fellow students or even tutors who are trans (horror of horrors).

In my long experience of university teaching and acting as personal tutor to undergraduates, I've never seen students express any discomfort about this.

Students in general are tolerant and not bothered about self-id (as the student body votes you mention indicate).

Yes, there's a good case for a genuinely fully single-sex women's college, where there are restrictions even against male staff and visitors in accommodation spaces. Muslim women who wear the hijab feel constrained to keep it on if there's a possibility of a man seeing them, whereas in a single sex environment they can relax and take it off. And it would be interesting to know how many young Muslim women don't attend university at all unless they are able to live at home, because they or their parents want them to avoid men.

This is the model of education (and wider society) used in Iran. I don't see it as a positive thing.

Education in Cambridge is provided on a university-wide basis, coeducationally. Lectures and exams are provided by the various university departments and not by the individual colleges. A women-only college provides accommodation and pastoral services for women, and (in some cases) tutorials. It's not intended to be a segregated education soup-to-nuts, and I wouldn't support it if it was.

You're misrepresenting the issue. It's not about being around people who are trans. It's about colleges that admit men falsely claiming to be women only. If Newnham and Murray Edwards want to admit men, that's their right, but they shouldn't then lie and say they're women's colleges, because they are mixed colleges.

In my long experience of university teaching and acting as personal tutor to undergraduates, I've never seen students express any discomfort about this.

If you are as you say an Oxford academic, you presumably have some reasoning ability.

Think about the views and attitude you have expressed on these threads, your inability or refusal to accept the views of other women, and ask yourself why students, who are younger and junior to you, might not dare to express any discomfort in your vicinity.

@TeachWithMissM
The media is selling a belief that trans people are inherently dangerous but there is ZERO empirical peer-reviewed scientific evidence for this

What do you mean by inherently here? Would you say there is evidence that men are inherently dangerous, for example?

Nope, for me it's just the sexism.

I don't care that people express their preferences or personality in ways that have been traditionally coded to the opposite sex.

I care very much if expressing preferences or personality in ways that have been traditionally coded to one sex or the other becomes the definition of being one sex or the other.

I care very much if society slides into the utterly sexist belief that the most significant differences between men a d women are in our minds rather than our bodies.

I care very much if female people become disconnected not just from our legal rights and identity, but even the cultural context and history that lead to them.

Either a single sex version of something, whether that's a rowing race, a changing room, a walking club or a whole university college, is justified, or it is not.

Inviting a handful of men into a woman-only provision is basically just saying by your actions you don't in fact recognise it has a legitimate reason to exist while pretending you do.

ETA: And if that is the true belief we should be having that debate out in the open, not this mendicious and sneaky destroying of women's resources, rights and legal identity by stealth by keeping the shells the same but hollowing out anything meaningfully specific to women within.

Rarely if ever will you see concern about students having to ‘cope’ with people who are trans. If, as you say, there is little discomfort among students, then it again raises the question of why any male student, regardless of how he identifies, would need to apply to an apparently women-only college. What do they gain?

In my long experience of university teaching and acting as personal tutor to undergraduates, I've never seen students express any discomfort about this

Is yours one of the colleges that makes it clear that any student expressing discomfort will be treated as a pariah? My daughter was very uncomfortable with the loud, selfish male gits using supposedly female facilities. She was also firmly of the impression that objecting would make her a target. She wasn't the only one who detested it.

What students say in public isn't always a fair reflection of how they feel.

I was quite happy at university aged 19-22. I look back and see things that could/should imo have been different.

This 100%.

I think many middle class educated women understand about sexism and male power in theory, but are so normalised to it in practice that's it's only in later life when
they can look back and see how the lives of themselves and the people they know have played out that they realise how rigged the game was.

What concerns people most here is men in women's protected spaces, facilities and categories. Men who 'identify as' women are still male. If they identified 'with' women, rather than 'as' women they may show a lot more empathy and consideration and not impose themselves in this way.

Have you ever considered that some women may well feel too intimidated to voice their discomfort, certainly if their tutors are waving the flags and delivering the spiel too.

I'm a retired barrister, so there are others here who may be more up to date on the latest developments, but I don't think the legal position is clear cut.

It seems to me there are at least four possible avenues of challenge.

First, a challenge based on direct sex discrimination. If a college describes itself as a women's college, but admits some males on the basis of gender identity, one immediately has to ask what admissions criterion is actually being applied. Is the institution operating a sex-based admissions policy or not?

Secondly, there is the position of male applicants. If females are admitted, and some males are admitted, but other males are excluded, the question becomes on what legal basis that distinction is being drawn. The answer may well be Schedule 12, but that rather assumes the exemption is available in the first place.

Thirdly, and to my mind most interestingly, there is the college's reliance on Schedule 12 itself. The exemption exists to permit genuinely single-sex institutions. Newnham appears to rely on the provision allowing the exceptional admission of students of the opposite sex.

However, if there is a settled policy under which a defined category of male applicants will be considered for admission year after year, it is at least arguable that this is no longer "exceptional" in any ordinary sense of the word.

If that argument succeeded, the foundation for relying on the exemption may fall away.

Fourthly, I can see the possibility of a judicial review challenge. Universities exercise public functions, and a claimant might argue that the college has misdirected itself in law, misunderstood the meaning of "sex" in the Equality Act, or adopted a policy inconsistent with the statutory scheme.

I'd say given the way you approach things, there's no way a student would feel comfortable speaking up about males in female spaces.

a defined category of male applicants will be considered for admission year after year

I would ask what is this defined category of men, and what could it be other than "men who hold the protected characteristic of gender reassignment".

This could no more be lawful than "men who are not Jewish" or "men who are white".

There's an interesting thread by Professor Alice Sullivan analysing some data on student attitudes: https://x.com/ProfAliceS/status/2064693670264136073

The question asked in the survey is about biological males who identity as women using female changing rooms, which seems a reasonable proxy for dismantling single sex spaces in general. A clear majority of students are opposed, with only white middle-class female humanities students in favour.

This may partly explain why TRAs in that demographic may have the erroneous view that theirs is the majority view in general. It's not.

What would you have said and done if they did say they felt very uncomfortable?

It probably doesn't really happen because they have already been so brainwashed into #BeKind and 'people are whoever they say they are' at Secondary school. I know DC's school even had a list of protected characteristics up and instead of gender reassignment they'd just put 'gender'.

There is no easy way for kids to say 'I don't agree' without being viewed in the same way someone with racist or homophobic views would. They don't want that so they all think they have to believe that boys/men can be girls/women if they want and vice versa and stay quiet if they don't.