Jo Phoenix, the professor at the heart of UK academia’s gender wars, has issued a fresh call for the Westminster government to implement England’s campus free speech legislation, in the wake of a report into her exit from The Open University, which she condemned as a “whitewash”.
An employment tribunal found earlier this year that Professor Phoenix, a criminologist, was forced to quit the OU because of a “hostile environment” created by colleagues opposed to her gender-critical views and the failure of the university to protect her.
A report into the OU’s organisational culture by Dame Nicola Dandridge, former chief executive of the Office for Students, found that some staff felt that the university’s desire to be inclusive “had on occasions translated into excessive caution as to what could and could not be said, even when the views in question were legitimate and lawful, albeit contentious” – and that this was associated with “a potentially rigid approach that assumed that only one interpretation of principles of [equality, diversity and inclusion] was acceptable”.
Dame Nicola said that the university should support those who identify as trans and non-binary, as well as “those with gender-critical and trans-inclusive views and perspectives”, recommending that it should agree a clearly defined set of principles regarding free speech, equality and employment rights.
But Professor Phoenix, who now works at the University of Reading, claimed that the report “misses the point” of her tribunal victory.
“As far as I’m concerned, the report does nothing. It is just a whitewash. The recommendations are unimplementable in a way that would actually get to the heart of what the problem is,” she told Times Higher Education.
“The report has framed the problem as a problem of academic freedom. And it never was. It was a problem with bullying. And so, in that sense, this report is neither here nor there.”
Dame Nicola’s report recommended that the university should establish “agreed standards of behaviour” that should be “aligned with the OU’s values” and implemented through mandatory training.
But Professor Phoenix claimed that mandating policies “in line with the OU’s values” could place restrictions on research that did not align with the institution’s principles.
Consequently, “the OU have proved yet again why they desperately need – why we desperately need – the Labour government to implement the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. Universities need to stop marking their own homework,” Professor Phoenix said.
The legislation, passed under the former Conservative government, would have opened the door for universities and students’ unions to be fined if found to have restricted academic freedom.
But it was put on hold by the new Labour government, with education secretary Bridget Phillipson citing concerns it would overburden universities and protect hate speech and antisemitic attacks.
Professor Phoenix was among more than 500 academics who recently signed an open letter urging ministers to go ahead with the new law.
“The university sector is in a perilous state at the moment. Academic freedom is being attacked, left, right and centre. It’s been politicised,” Professor Phoenix said.
While she acknowledged that university leaders “are not bad people”, she said “institutional cowardice” is prevalent across institutions, “so having something like the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, with its enforcement mechanisms, actually strengthens the arms of the v-cs to say, ‘Stop it, settle down’.”
Tim Blackman, the OU’s vice-chancellor, said the Dandridge review “gives us valuable learning and insights into how we can and must change”.
“As a university we must ensure that academic freedom and freedom of speech are protected more proactively and that unacceptable behaviours are challenged and corrected whenever and wherever they occur,” he said.
