Professor Stephen Curry is leading the campaign to remove Elon Musk as a Fellow of the Royal Society. He’s the author of an open letter calling for his expulsion that, so far, has attracted 2,300 signatures.
Elon Musk was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, a self-governing body of many of the world’s most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists, in 2018. In its 364-year history, only two Fellows have been expelled, one in 1709 for not paying his dues, and another in 1775 for fraud. To expel someone for their political views, which is essentially what Curry is urging the Fellows to do, would be unprecedented and would, needless to say, do far more to bring the Royal Society into disrepute than anything Elon Musk has ever said or done.
Curry is not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He’s a university EDI bureaucrat – a ‘diversitycrat’ – with a long track record as a cancel-culture warrior. He’s also one of the architects of disturbing plans to embed compliance with anti-scientific and discriminatory EDI theories into research funding in the UK.
During Curry’s tenure as Assistant Provost (EDI) at Imperial College, he led the charge against academic freedom and in favour of Critical-Theory based EDI at Imperial. Some of this was comical, such as the following suggestion on Imperial’s website about how to be a good ‘LGBTQ+ ally’: “Offer to accompany a trans or non-binary person to the bathroom, so they do not have to face any potential transphobia alone.” But other aspects of Imperial’s EDI policy were nakedly authoritarian, e.g. the College said it had ‘‘zero tolerance” for “transphobia”, which was defined as “denying [someone’s] gender identity or refusing to accept it”, such as ‘misgendering’ a trans person (woke-ish newspeak for using a person’s correct gender pronouns).
Curry is a vocal supporter of gender self-ID. Writing to the Minister for Women and Equalities in his role as Assistant Provost (EDI), he linked Imperial’s EDI strategy with gender self-ID (a policy which has now been dropped by both the previous and current Government). In doing so, he made no mention of women’s rights, which was surprising, given that only around 20% of Professors at Imperial are female. You might think the Assistant Provost (EDI) would spare Imperial’s female academics a thought. But at Imperial on Curry’s watch, the rights of men who identify as women were prioritised over the rights of women.
As an activist for gender self-identification and an exponent of cancel culture, Curry had a pop at J.K. Rowling, naturally. Curry added to the abuse Rowling received following her decision to speak out on women’s rights by endorsing a vicious thread accusing her of “transphobic dogwhistles” and attacking her for supporting Maya Forstater.
Forstater’s employer was found guilty of discrimination against her due to her expression of gender-critical beliefs – a.k.a. the belief that biological sex is real, important, immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity. Last year, Professor Jo Phoenix won an Employment Tribunal case against the Open University on the same basis. You might think that, as Assistant Provost (EDI), it would be part of Curry’s role to uphold the Equality Act rights of Imperial staff and students with gender-critical beliefs. If so, you would be disappointed.
When Imperial’s Vice Provost (Education), Simone Buitendijk, tweeted about the gender debate, linking to an article in the Spectator highlighting the tension between trans rights and sex-based women’s rights, she was forced to issue a grovelling apology.
Professor Curry claimed to want an inclusive environment where all members of Imperial are free to express their views. All except gender-critical women, apparently.
Curry wrote to the Secretary of State at DSIT in 2023 denying that an issue exists with data collection on sex, ignoring the fact that social statisticians have repeatedly highlighted the problem of not recording people’s biological sex when collecting data. There is no sign that Curry consulted with experts prior to this public political intervention.
It is clear that Curry sees EDI as a weapon to impose radical progressive ideology – what Orwell would have called a “smelly little orthodoxy” – on universities and stifle debate. The views he expressed were always extreme and have not aged well. His role as an architect of the 2019 Research Excellence Framework, which allocates funding to universities, should be seen in this light. UK research excellence matters. It should not be placed in the hands of idealogues. Curry’s targeting of Musk is of a piece with his intolerance of any dissent from prevailing radical progressive nostrums. If disagreeing with elite groupthink is a good reason for kicking someone out of the Royal Society, shouldn’t it have kicked out Sir Isaac Newton instead of making him President?
It would be particularly egregious to expel Elon Musk, given the scale of his achievements in space travel and electric cars. I’m reminded of that scene in Gulliver’s Travels when the Lilliputians try to tie up the hands and feet of the outsized visitor from another world.
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