Apology withdrawn
Julie Bindel on the bit where they say it and the bit where they take it back:
The University of Essex is fast becoming an example of what happens when institutions capitulate to extreme transgender ideology.
In May the university apologised to two female academics for preventing them from taking part in seminars following baseless accusations of transphobia. The university admitted that they had made “serious mistakes” to Professors Freedman and Phoenix, who are not employed by Essex, and in a damning report, barrister Akua Reindorf criticised the university’s actions. The Vice Chancellor assured both academics that recommendations in the report would be actioned.
But that was May, you see. This is August. You do the math.
Students and staff kicked up a fuss about the Reindorf report, citing a “significant negative impact on student and staff wellbeing” – which is pseudo-acadamese for “it will make us feel bad.”
Within six weeks, the VC apologised to staff and students for releasing the report — before exams and during pride month no less — and for “anyone having been made to feel unsafe as a result of the Review”.
In other words he shoved Freedman and Phoenix back under the bus.
In the latest episode of this shameful debacle, last week the university informed Freedman and Phoenix that it plans to publish their personal data that had previously been redacted. The two academics told me that, according to the university, they made transgender and nonbinary staff and students feel physically unsafe. Why? For simply holding the views that sex is immutable and that spaces like prisons should remain segregated according to biological sex.
Prisons and perhaps rape crisis centers, hmmm? Anyway, under the bus with them. Karens.
Despite the initial apology, the University has done nothing to remedy the appalling treatment of Freedman and Phoenix. Essex told Phoenix that it was ruling out any possibility of investigating the violent, potentially illegal, threats made against her by a student.
Well you see she makes the violent threat-making student feel unsafe.
Are counselors at Essex now working with the affected souls who were made to feel unsafe? Are they helping to compose the violent threats against Freedman and Phoenix as part of a complex “healing process?”
We all know that anything said to a “TERF” is as acceptable as it would be to a NAZI sympathizer or holocaust-denier.
My take is, that the University should remind students that they are transitioning from childhood to adulthood, and this is a ripe growth opportunity to learn how to deal with feelings of inadequacy internally, rather than demanding that the world around them conform to their fantasies and beliefs. The world doesn’t owe validation to anyone, especially not students.
The impression I get is one of gutless leadership, that simply capitulates to the most recent criticism, even when that contradicts prior capitulations.
“These women are transphobes and should not be allowed in that seminar!” Ok, you’re right, we won’t let them in the seminar. Please don’t hurt us.
“Barring these women from the seminar was a terrible decision, and here are the steps you need to take to make sure this doesn’t happen again!” Ok, you’re right, we should have let them in the seminar, and we’ll do the things you recommended. Please don’t hurt us.
“This report makes me feel unsafe!” Ok, you’re right, we shouldn’t have released it. Please don’t hurt us.
That’s no way to run an organization.
But much history of the nasty kind has been made by people who think otherwise.
They can’t have the courage of their convictions when they’re too pusillanimous to have any.
The ‘hurted feeewings’ argument is amazingly parallel to the plaints against Critical Race Theory. Interweb trolling and mob violence are truly bipartisan.
Blasphemy is translated from the Muslim and Hindu as “hurt religious feelings.”
Michael,
This topic is well covered at the link below. Nobody cannot possibly have a justifiable right to be not offended.
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MqLawJl/2014/21.pdf