The University of Sussex has overturned a £585,000 fine from England’s higher education watchdog after the high court rejected claims that the university breached free speech regulations in a case involving a former professor.
The ruling is a damaging blow to the credibility of the Office for Students as the court rejected the regulator’s lengthy investigation involving KathleenStock’s 2021 resignation,which came after protests over her views on transgender rights and gender identity.
Mrs Justice Lieven found that the regulator’s decision was biased towards punishing Sussex as an example to other universities.
So…it’s ok for universities to bully and punish professors for saying that sex is real?
Lieven wrote that the OfS’s final decision to fine the university a record £585,000 “was vitiated by bias because the OfS approached the decision with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision”.
Everyone’s mind should be so wide open that belief in magic changeable sex has plenty of room to move in. Belief that sex is not changeable however is not quite so welcome.
Sasha Roseneil, the university’s vice-chancellor, greeted the outcome as vindication for her university, and said she was seeking an urgent meeting with Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, to discuss the ruling’s implications for England’s universities.
Roseneil said: “We need a regulator that works with the sector, not against it – in the interests of the students of today and of the future. I stand ready to work with the government to find better ways to regulate and support universities in serving the public good.”
Provided the public good embraces trans ideology, that is.
“Meanwhile, I am delighted that Sussex’s foundational commitments to academic freedom and freedom of speech have been recognised by the high court, and that the OfS’s egregious decision against the university, and the fine it sought to impose, have been overturned.
“The University of Sussex has a proud history of being the place where the most contentious issues of the day are aired – where independent-minded, critical thinkers develop their ideas, and where lively and engaged students work out how they understand the world.”
Bullshit. Just ask Kathleen Stock.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘This ruling is a rebuke to the politicians who have wielded the OfS as a political cudgel in campus culture wars. The regulator has lost the trust of the sector, and there now needs to be a complete rethink from government over how it will work to protect higher education.”
As if Jo Grady hasn’t wielded any political cudgels.
This is really crap news.
Leave a Reply