Dr. Laura Favaro had conducted 50 individual interviews with gender studies academics and gathered a variety of other data, including survey information and tweets, when City University shut down her work. Ironically, she was investigating whether social scientists at universities feel censored over their views on transgender issues.
Now allegedly locked out of her email and barred from publishing her findings, sociologist Favaro has enlisted the help of a solicitor to prepare an employment tribunal claim.
A spokesman for City said it was “unable to comment on employment matters relating to individual members of staff” but “we refute the allegations made against us”.
“It feels like a never-ending nightmare, dystopian, so unjust,” says Spanish national Favaro.
The Telegraph has the story.
[City University] has “confiscated” the findings of an academic studying Britain’s gender wars in a row over her “dangerous” research data, the Telegraph can reveal. …Dr. Favaro is now bringing an employment tribunal claim against City for harassment, victimisation and whistleblowing detriment, and claims she was discriminated against for her protected philosophical belief in the reality of biological sex.
The postdoctoral researcher was invited to move from Spain to City’s Department of Sociology to conduct the study, which received £18,000 from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the equalities watchdog, and £10,000 from the British Academy. She produced a summary report on her findings for the EHRC that still has not been published. …
City found following an investigation that there was “no evidence” that the research breached any ethics criteria.
But City allegedly locked the email account Favaro used to communicate with survey respondents, and demanded that she hand over all of her interview and survey data and delete any copies of it, before making her redundant on March 31st, despite her claiming she has a permanent contract. Favaro also claims City rejected her offer to give a talk on her findings.
It means she cannot publish her survey or deposit it in the U.K. Data Archive, as she had hoped to, and feels her career is now in ruins.
Favaro told the Telegraph: “Those with a responsibility to support me have frustrated my ability to progress with the research or denied expected support via actions as well as omissions to act. This includes being ignored, ostracised, bullied, harassed – ending with a dismissal and confiscation of my data.”
Her solicitor Peter Daly, a partner at London law firm Doyle Clayton, said: “Dr. Favaro’s treatment raises significant and concerning questions about the freedom of academics to properly pursue research. We are in the process of preparing an employment tribunal claim on her behalf, which we anticipate will succeed if litigated to a conclusion.”
Worth reading in full.
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