The higher education watchdog has been urged to investigate a “political” campaign to oust Buckingham University’s Vice-Chancellor for being too “Right-wing”. The Telegraph has the story.
A formal complaint has been lodged with the Office for Students following the decision by Buckingham’s governing body to suspend Professor James Tooley, who is well-known in academic circles for his fierce opposition to so-called “cancel culture” and his defence of free speech.
Buckingham University, which was opened by Margaret Thatcher in 1976, is one of the most prominent independent higher education institutions in the U.K.
But the university has come under fire in recent days over the suspension of its Vice-Chancellor.
Prominent donors are understood to have raised concerns with the university about his sudden suspension, and over 30 members of the House of Lords have written to the governing body to express their “serious disquiet” at Prof Tooley’s treatment.
In a letter to the university regulator, the Free Speech Union (FSU) claims that Prof. Tooley’s suspension was prompted by a series of claims made by his wife, from whom he is in the process of divorcing.
“These allegations appear to be vexatious in nature and relate to Prof Tooley’s behaviour in the couple’s private life, e.g. that he keeps a toy gun in his bedside drawer,” the letter says.
The allegations from Prof. Tooley’s ex-wife “have no bearing on his fitness to carry out his public role as Vice-Chancellor of Buckingham” and should have been dismissed as “tittle-tattle”, the FSU say.
The FSU goes on to say that instead, Buckingham University’s governing body “immediately suspended Prof. Tooley, placed him under investigation, kicked him out of his grace and favour accommodation, and set about destroying his reputation by telling Buckingham’s 3,000 students, as well as its staff, that he had been suspended and was under investigation following ‘a number of serious allegations’”.
The FSU says it is concerned that Prof Tooley has been humiliated in this way “because some members of the council [Buckingham University’s Council] disapprove of the various public interventions he has made in defence of free speech and the history and heritage of Great Britain, which, in their eyes, are ‘Right-wing’ points of view and therefore beyond the pale”. …
In a separate letter to all the members of Buckingham University’s Council, a group of 37 peers say that Prof. Tooley’s suspension was decided “seemingly on the basis of unproven allegations” and “appears entirely disproportionate”.
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