Louisa Clarence-Smith has written a piece in today’s Telegraph about the Free Speech Union’s latest case: Dr. Almut Gadow, an Open University Law Lecturer who was sacked for gross misconduct after raising concerns about the inclusion of gender identity ideology in the law curriculum. Among other things, students were expected to use the preferred gender pronouns of trans-identifying male prisoners. Here’s an extract:
Dr. Almut Gadow, 43, has alleged that in 2021-22, the University’s equality, diversity and inclusion department announced plans to “incorporate its political ideologies” across the curriculum.
She claimed that she raised concerns about requirements, including introducing diverse gender identities into the curriculum and teaching students to use offenders’ preferred pronouns.
She said she argued that a criminal lawyer’s role “is to present facts” and that “sex is a relevant fact for offences involving perpetrators’ and/or victims’ bodies”.
Dr. Gadow also argued that “no offender should be allowed to dictate the language of his case in a way which masks relevant facts”.
She also told colleagues that not holding a gender identity belief was a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
Dr. Gadow was told that her posts relating to gender identity in the online forum amounted to “serious insubordination” because she had been told it was not the place for such discussions.
She was told that her persistence in posting comments on issues relating to gender identity and gender identity belief, paedophilia, and sex offending amounted to “serious bullying and harassment”.
The content of several of her posts was a breach of the university’s transgender staff policy because they may “create an environment in the forum that isn’t inclusive, trans-friendly, or respectful”, she was told.
She was sacked for gross misconduct in November.
Dr. Gadow, who is being supported by the Free Speech Union and is crowdfunding for her case, claims she was harassed, discriminated against, and unfairly dismissed because she rejects gender ideology and believes in academic freedom.
She told the Telegraph that she believed the university’s “liberating curriculum” policy was “effectively a checklist of ideological compliance”.
Dr. Gadow has drawn comparisons between her sacking and the experience of Hartmut Gadow, her Jewish grandfather, in Nazi Germany. He was an undergraduate who studied at an illicit underground institution when the Nazis cleansed academia of “wrong thinkers”.
He was repeatedly tried for speech crimes and sentenced to death by hanging, but managed to escape.
Dr. Gadow said: “Generally, this academia being taken over by a political movement, is not a question of Left or Right. It is a question of totalitarianism.
“We have seen it under both regimes. I didn’t think it would happen like that in England, to be quite honest.”
In her legal claim, she hopes to set a precedent that establishes academic freedom as a protected belief.
“Establishing this in law could protect many other academics whose careers are threatened by the rising tide of intolerance on U.K. campuses,” she said.
If you’d like to support Dr. Gadow, please donate to her CrowdJustice fundraiser. As Kathleen Stock says:
This is a very important case, with potentially far-reaching repercussions for the university sector.
It demonstrates the link between highly ideological, terminologically vague equality, diversity and inclusion policies – which are rife across the sector – and acts of discrimination against university members for their lawful beliefs.
It also shows how university pedagogy is being unreasonably constrained by a narrow set of shallow ideas, high on emotion and low on evidence, at the behest of activist groups.
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