Laura Favaro: gender studies ‘groupthink is forcing scholars out’

A sociologist who is suing City, University of London for unfair dismissal, claiming that she was forced out for highlighting how gender critical feminists have been censored, has criticised a climate of “compliance, groupthink and scholarly mediocrity” in UK gender studies.

Laura Favaro, who was research fellow at City’s Gender and Sexualities Research Centre, said she was ostracised at her workplace and denied access to her research data after writing an article for Times Higher Education about how female scholars feared career damage if they criticised the idea that transgender women should be considered the same as natal women in all aspects of public life.

The feature drew on conversations with 50 gender studies academics on both sides of the gender debate carried out for a British Academy-backed project. It described submissions by gender critical feminists being rejected by journal editors on ideological grounds, as well as their support for the bullying and censorship of academics.

In the wake of its publication in September 2022, Dr Favaro’s article was praised for exposing the persecution faced by gender critical scholars, and their inability to speak freely, but was also criticised as an “attack on trans people”. Senior scholars interviewed anonymously for the study broke cover to express their anger, claiming that Dr Favaro had breached ethical rules – claims she said were dismissed as “baseless” by a City investigation.

Dr Favaro said, however, that her employer failed to offer any public support, withdrew line management support and blocked access to her research database. According to her employment tribunal claim, for which she has crowdfunded more than £78,000, she was made redundant when her “fixed-term contract had expired – despite the fact that I have a permanent contract”.

In an interview with Umut Özkirimli – whose book about academic cancel culture, Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke, was published in March – Dr Favaro said her research highlighted an “exodus of feminists from gender studies” who were intent on “escaping ‘scholarship that is thought police’”, with the trend going beyond her discipline, resulting in a “forced or voluntary departure of critical thinkers from academia”.

Policies such as “no debate”, which have been embraced by some university gender studies departments and backed by the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall until recently, had created an “environment that fosters compliance, groupthink and scholarly mediocrity or timidity, and where narcissism, bullying and despotism find fertile ground”, continued Dr Favaro in the interview, which will be published next month in the peer-reviewed journal Teknokultura: Journal of Digital Culture and Social Movements.

Criticising the “scholarly paralysis” caused by no-debate policies, she said many gender studies scholars now believe “engagement with any ideas external to their ‘echo chambers and bubbles’ must be avoided at all costs, as must ‘honest conversations’. Rather, the mandate is ‘be for your team and toe the party line’.”

In a statement, City said it was “unable to comment on employment matters relating to individual members of staff” but added: “We refute the allegations made against us and reject the context in which they are presented.”

The university said that it had a “legal obligation to protect freedom of expression that we take very seriously.” It also took its “obligations with respect to ethics and integrity very seriously” and made clear that “any personal data processed in the course of any research [should be] processed in compliance with data protection legislation,” it added.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com