I‘ve written a piece for the Critic this morning on Bridget Phillipson’s decision to sabotage the Freedom of Speech Act on Friday, which is free to read. Here’s an extract from the beginning:
In justifying this act of vandalism, the Education Secretary said the legislation would have imposed a “burdensome” new duty on universities to uphold free speech, trumping their obligations to protect the “safety and well-being of minority groups”.
When I read that I thought, “If only!” I don’t want to endanger the “safety” of minority students, obviously, but we all know what “safety” means in this context: psychological safety – as in “safe spaces” – rather than physical safety. When the Free Speech Union – an advocacy group I run – was involved in producing an early draft of the legislation, along with about a dozen dissident academics, we were acutely conscious of the way “safety” and “well-being” had been weaponised by woke activists to stifle academic freedom and free speech and hoped a change in the law would help universities to refocus on their core purpose.
But as that draft became a bill, and as that bill wended its way through parliament, it was significantly watered down until the new free speech duties were virtually indistinguishable from those already imposed on universities by the Education (No. 2) Act 1986. Far from forcing universities – and only English universities, mind you – to prioritise academic freedom and free speech over their countervailing legal obligations, such as the need to comply with counterterrorism legislation and to protect students from harassment, it only asked them to uphold free speech “within the law”. Exactly what that meant was unclear, given that universities are faced with a morass of competing legal requirements – something the Russell Group complained about.
Phillipson was keen to create the impression that she wanted to “protect” Jewish students from feeling unsafe and briefed the Times that the new Act would have made it harder for universities to deny a platform to Holocaust deniers. But that’s not true, something the Free Speech Union pointed out whenever this canard was repeated during the parliamentary debates.
The new free speech duties in the Act are subordinate to those set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and, as the European Court has made clear, Holocaust denial is not protected by Article 10. Moreover, the Act would only have required universities to take “reasonably practicable steps” to secure freedom of speech and it’s unlikely that any court in the land would decide that that included providing a platform to people touting malicious, intellectually meritless conspiracy theories.
Personally, I think Holocaust deniers should be free to set out their crackpot theories at universities so they can be comprehensively rebutted with evidence and reason, but that’s not something this Act would have made possible.
And this is how it ends:
I have to confess to some grudging admiration for Phillipson. In one stroke, she has been far bolder than any of her Tory predecessors in the last 10 years. I detest her ideology and believe that doing nothing to counter the wave of intolerance sweeping our universities means they will soon lose their “world class” status. But, by God, she’s a far more brutal political combatant than the enfeebled Tories. If you want to win the culture war, Phillipson has shown us how to do it.
Worth reading in full.
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An “unqualified male” helped an 11 year old girl buy a “penis packer” and noone seems to think that’s a possible (definitely) safeguarding issue? That’s possible gross misconduct.
Staff admitting insubordination (definitely gross misconduct).
Female staff not using sanitary products which could lead to possible transfer of bodily fluids, breach of health and safety (definitely gross misconduct).
It’s time to start sacking head teachers who can’t control their schools…
Hear, hear.
Schools are being infiltrated by pedophiles, basically.
Indeed, but this lot are even worse than the grubby scoutmasters and sweaty vicars of yore, because they actively and angrily believe in what they’re up to. They think it is not only right and proper but that objections are evil. The older cohort was perverted in its habits and was rightly punished when found out; but they retained a basic knowledge that their actions were about as wrong as an action can be. This lot are perverts to the very core of their conscientious being and hence much, much more dangerous. What did Solzhenitsyn say? For real evil, give people an ideology…
I don’t think there’s anything that better exemplifies how sick our society has become than the normalised abuse of children. Children are being sacrificed for political reasons and we’re standing by and letting it happen. And that includes me… and, most likely, you. Time we stopped pointing fingers and actually did something.
These people are truly sick in their heads.
Time to start a crowdfunder to pay for some lawyers to disable what some lawyers enabled.
Yes. But…
The only people who seem to benefit from this is the group collectively known as ‘lawyers’.
Students pick you up (staff/me) if accidentally misgendering another pupil. I try to use Christian names in place of pronouns as a strategy (which are often changed anyway to non male female, like George is either) I will therefore avoid they or them but it takes a real concentration and I can slip up and say she or he.
There have been lessons where what all the genders are taught, so students believe it.
The reason I try avoid they or them is because one day I think these youngsters will look back at schooling and will blame adults/education for embedding their confusion and would have preferred support to live and joyfully embraced the biological sex they were born as.
I carefully do not comply with preferred pronouns without being called out myself because I think it is in the interests of the students mental and health well being just my view. I think I am maybe a lone voice but is a taboo to discuss openly so not sure!?
but it can be noticed and one has to navigate it. FSU has guidelines about pronouns so when I was called in to explain myself this helped.
Students wellbeing is my goal.
My goodness, you must be exhausted at the end of a day.
How do you keep this up?
And should you?
Thank you for your reply
yes as you say exactly, but it has been meaningful for many years in other pro active professional aspects. Lots of good experiences!
It is a realty for perhaps a small minority of staff, still working in schools and who are coming towards another chapter which may be earlier than expected, as a result.
If Labour get in it will not be worth the risk to stay.
Let’s call a spade a spade: This is not teachers grilling pupils about gender, it’s people who’ve been hired as teachers due to a total failure of sensible HR procedures pressuring (prepupuescent) pupils to declare themselves to be somehow at odds with their sex.
“it’s people who’ve been hired as teachers due to the success of
a total failure of sensibleHR procedures that create an unstable environment, instil fear and uncertainty, and fragment the wider society”Slight rewording but I imagine these HR procedures are little different from those creeping into the private sector.
Taking over HR was obviously a necessary precursor to hiring people who run around with blood-soaked pants to force pre-teen children into conversations about menstruation in lieu of teachers, IOW, the people who took over HR succeeded (so far) in what they’re trying to accomplish. But that’s not what they were supposed to accomplish, namely, keep the sexual perverts out and not bring them in.
Quote from The Office (the American one): “HR is a breeding ground for monsters”.
For God’s Sake – Parents everywhere: Take you children out of school!
I agree!
My children are mid-twenties, so I don’t have to make decisions about schooling, but I would definitely look at free schools or else home schooling. Maybe parents can join up and share home schooling?
The Not-a-Conservative-Government could stop this tomorrow – if it wanted to.
It doesn’t.
Anyone who wears white linen with no sanitary products when they’re menstruating to stimulate discussion is mentally ill as well as unhygienic and shouldn’t be allowed to teach. I wonder what the rest of the staff make of it all – or are they in agreement with that approach?
I was actually wondering if this entity uses toilets at all or if she’d also prefer ‘discussions’ about other bodily execretions. I don’t think this should be called mentally ill, by the way, as this would make it less of a conscious choice, just uncivilized and quite thoroughly so. People who ‘disagree’ with basic hygieny, doubtlessly while also being favour of 24×7 masking of pupils for her own protection from dangerous germs, obviously shouldn’t let loose on school children.
Where are the parents groups on all of this? ——-But I notice that Disney and other producers of media are starting to change course on this wokery crap. The new Snow White film is apparently going to revert to using dwarfs instead of assorted other inclusive characters, and Unilever are going to stop with their social justice preaching. I had to ask my wife if she would stop using Dove because of that disgusting TV advert where they had black women dressed in business suits staring in utter contempt at the camera.
Thanks to the Politicians