An Oxford college has admitted that it “misled” students after it claimed an event organised by a Christian group had caused “distress”. Following a joint campaign by the Free Speech Union and Christian Concern, the college has lifted the ban and apologised for capitulating to an activist mob. The Telegraph has more.
Worcester College, run by David Isaac, the former head of the equalities watchdog, had apologised to students for hosting a Christian Concern training camp and cancelled a second booking after a small number of students complained.
But after being warned that the move could be discriminatory, the college has backed down and issued a statement saying that it was committed “to the right to freedom of speech and religious belief and the dignity of all people”.
The joint statement with Christian Concern confirmed that the evangelical campaign group would now be invited to speak at the college, adding: “In a world where differing views are strongly and sincerely held, it is important to come together and listen to each other.”
The college’s apology, first revealed by the Telegraph last September, came after some students complained about the presence of the Wilberforce Academy over the summer months.
In what was described as the latest example of cancel culture in Britain’s universities, Worcester College wrote to students acknowledging the “distress” that it had caused and promising to use the profits for “diversity initiatives”.
The letter came just months after Mr. Isaac took over as provost from his role as chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He had previously been chairman of the controversial LGBTQ charity Stonewall.
Despite having been a champion of free speech at universities during his time at the EHRC, Mr. Isaac’s team cancelled a preliminary booking for the same conference for this September.
But in March an independent review found “no evidence” for the allegations from students, who had claimed there had been “aggressive leafleting” by Wilberforce attendees and that they had approached students to discuss LGBTQ conversion therapy.
The college acted on the complaints despite staff not even being able to find a copy of the leaflets, the review noted.
Worcester College has now admitted after “detailed examination” that it was “misleading to suggest that Conference delegates or representatives of Christian Concern acted improperly in an email to students in September 2021”.
The joint statement continued: “Worcester College did not act with the intention of impugning Christian Concern or its reputation. In a world where differing views are strongly and sincerely held it is important to come together and listen to each other.
“To that end, Worcester has invited Christian Concern to speak at a debate which will take place as soon as can be arranged. Worcester looks forward to welcoming Christian Concern back to College.”
The move has been welcomed by campaigners including Toby Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union (FSU).
He said that the FSU has “stood shoulder to shoulder with Christian Concern throughout this dispute”.
“The mistake Worcester College made was to immediately capitulate to the demands of an activist mob and ban a group from its premises without properly investigating the allegations against it,” he said.
“We see this kind of institutional cowardice again and again, particularly in the higher education sector, usually motivated by a desire for a quiet life. The way to force these institutions to take their responsibility to uphold free speech more seriously is to make it clear that organisations like ours will create an almighty fuss if they don’t.”
Worth reading in full.
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Blair’s puppet and oxygen thief.
Indeed.
“Labour has slashed its original £28bn green borrowing plan by 80%, blaming Liz Truss, and unveiled a new tax raid”
A plan to borrow £28 bn is, or was a shockingly disguised tax raid. Who the chuff did he think was going to pay the money back? I doubt Kneel’s WEF bonuses have yet reached £28 billion.
Confirming once again how thick and lazy he is Kneel blames Liz Truss for the state of the nation’s finances. Clearly a graduate of the Abacus Abbott school of economics.
The disgusting BBC were trying to lay the blame on Truss imploding the economy on Thicky Campbell’s phone in (Radio 5). Either they arrogantly think the nation is stupid or the nation really is that stupid. A f**kwitt nation deserves a f**kwitt leader.
Liz Truss was not in Downing St long enough to make any alterations to the British economy. She proposed reducing taxes in an expectation this might revive the economy following cowardly Bozo’s genuflection to his Davos handlers. The Bank of England, clearly being run by the likes of Blackrock recognised that a revitalised Britain was contrary to Agenda 2030 which requires the destruction of these islands and instructed the B of E to spook the markets, which they duly did.
Liz Truss is certainly NOT guilty of harming the British economy and anybody believing such is frankly brain dead.
We are pretty stupid though. We are letting them take away our petrol and diesel cars. We are letting them ration our energy with smart meters. We are going to let them rip out the best central heating system we ever had (gas). We let them force us to scrap perfectly good vehicles or pay extortionate sums to drive them. We let them off with trying to stop us flying on holiday and eating red meat. We let them away with building thousands upon thousands of turbines everywhere you look and forcing up the price of electricity so they can pretend to save the planet. ———Yes we are pretty STUPID.
We’re not letting them do any of those things, they are trampling over our rights and freedoms to do these things! We are guilty only of not yet finding an effective way to stop them.
“Not finding an effective way to stop them” amounts to the same as “letting them”. ——Did you go to your MP to tell that person you would not vote for them if they supported Net Zero? ——–If your answer is no it means you did NOTHING.
Same was done mainly by the left on Jeremy Vine & Talk TV by that rather hot leftie (that i would actually shag if Laurance reads the comments) Labour can’t bring themselves to blame Lockdown because they not only supported LD but was craving for more of them.
Starmer wants an argument about outcomes, but not costs. Learned nothing from lockdowns. Puerile.
Buddy, Starmer is for Labour as Sunak is for Tory. Two cheeks of the same arse. Voting will get you nowhere but a wasted life. These people work for ‘higher powers’.
Indeed. Next year our PM will either be the man who lost to the woman who lost to a lettuce or the man with all the charisma and personality of a blancmange.
“Jury finds Mark Steyn defamed fake Nobel prize Claimant Mark Steyn – awards $1m dollars damages”
Words fail.
It was clearly rigged, they would not have let it get to court if they had any concern that Mann’s defamation claim might fail, it would destroy the entire false narrative, the Hockey Stick, despite being totally disproven is a totem for the climate zealots.
Its an article of faith.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/breaking-news-jury-finds-against-steyn-climate-fraud-rewarded/
Justice, freedom of speech and science has been brought and paid for we’re screwed.
I never believed Mark Steyn was at risk of a fair trial but I still lived in hope.
I can only wish that the judge is fully boosted.
As you or somebody mentioned, that Hockey Stick was what all the climate BS is based on, they just can’t let that one go, their whole house of cards is based on that.
How can a person who would not provide their data, computer code or methodology so others could check their work ever be classed as anything other than a charlatan?
I should add though that this trial was not about the accuracy of Manns work because the Hockey Stick graph has already been shown by Steve McIntyre to be flawed (wrong) This was not a trial about science.
Reality striking is like the moment when you are all so full of yourself and your abilities and then you suddenly find yourself standing in front of Mike Tyson. Do you go toe to toe with the guy or do you simply realise it will be no contest and pack it in? The reality of achieving Net Zero is pretty similar. —–You want to do it, you think it is a great idea, you think you must save the planet till you realise (a) It is impossible, and (b) It costs astronomical amounts of money and you are going to ask people to pay it all which will leave them incredibly worse off and cold, and it won’t do any saving of planets anyway. ———Net Zero is a bit like facing Mike Tyson. ——You cannot win.—— So is Starmer doing this for votes and trying to show he really cares about the people becoming poor and cold or has he simply had the Mike Tyson reality check.? —-He clearly has not had the reality check in full as he still wants to pulverise the people providing the real energy (Fossil fuel companies)—The people who provide the cheap reliable energy that powers 80% of the world? The Political class of Labour and the Tories still want to take that reliable energy away but at some point Tyson will return and if these dumb eco socialists do not back down they are going to be hit with a devastating uppercut when they might then finally realise that you cannot power Industrial Society on wind and sun. —-Mike Tyson will always win and so will REALITY.
Tune into BBC to find the spitting fury and outrage from the state funded climate change activists who tell their viewers the very opposite of what is true. —-Storms are not getting worse, crops yields are not decreasing and infact are growing etc etc. America is not growing because of Democrat climate policies but entirely because of the fact they pay half of what we pay for energy because they frack. ——–When it comes to accuracy the BBC are about as truthful as Just Stop Oil.
There was some climate doom mongering on the BBC yesterday by the EU. Interesting how they aired that just when many countries in the EU have farmers protests.
Prime Minister for 49 days …. 10 of which were spent in Official Mourning for Her Maj.