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“The Situation Is Dire … Nobody Challenges It” — with Prof Dennis Hayes · UK Column Radio

0:06
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, This is Diane Mass Muss and Macadie with
0:09
Speaker 1: UK Column News. I'm happy to be here today speaking
0:12
Speaker 1: with Professor Dennis Hayes. He is the director of Academics
0:16
Speaker 1: for Academic Freedom and I will say in a personal
0:18
Speaker 1: note that he was very supportive of me when I
0:21
Speaker 1: went through my own cancelation as an academic, now happily
0:25
Speaker 1: working full time for UK Column. But anyways, I really
0:28
Speaker 1: wanted to have Dennis on UK column News today for
0:31
Speaker 1: an extended interview. You might remember previously I talked to
0:35
Speaker 1: heathern Key, who was the now former convener of Student
0:39
Speaker 1: Academics for Academic Freedom, and so I think academic freedom
0:43
Speaker 1: is such an important issue. It relates to issues or
0:45
Speaker 1: free speech, It relates to a lot of things that
0:48
Speaker 1: we're facing in this country and I think throughout the West,
0:51
Speaker 1: and so Professor Hayes has been an amazing sort of
0:55
Speaker 1: support for myself and for other academics who have been canceled,
0:59
Speaker 1: including Professor Phoenix, Professor Kak, Kathleen Starck, who I think
1:02
Speaker 1: will be talking about today, and a few others. So Dennis, again,
1:07
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. I want to talk about
1:09
Speaker 1: academic freedom, but first maybe if you could tell the
1:12
Speaker 1: audience a little bit about yourself and what you did.
1:15
Speaker 1: And I know that you're now an emeritus professor, but
1:17
Speaker 1: what were your research areas and what did you do
1:20
Speaker 1: as an active academic.
1:23
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for inviting me onto UK colon News.
1:26
Speaker 2: I'm very pleased to be here. I haven't got a
1:28
Speaker 2: long career in academia. I started with a PhD in
1:32
Speaker 2: philosophy at University of London and Institute of Educational University
1:36
Speaker 2: of London, and then went to teach English as as
1:40
Speaker 2: secondary at secondary schools and then moved into special educational
1:44
Speaker 2: needs teaching, and then I moved into teacher training and
1:49
Speaker 2: then into educational research. So a long career and I
1:52
Speaker 2: was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in twenty ten, which
1:56
Speaker 2: is equivalent of a colonique scholar in the United States,
2:01
Speaker 2: which is very nice to have in my more academic
2:05
Speaker 2: research background. I just selected three things to mention and
2:10
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two I did some work on
2:13
Speaker 2: basildon was published as a book called Basildon the Mood
2:17
Speaker 2: of the Nation, which had been very influential about the
2:21
Speaker 2: state of politics at that present time and what it
2:24
Speaker 2: told me about what was then called Basilden Man or
2:27
Speaker 2: Essex Girl. Was that they were very aspirational. They didn't
2:31
Speaker 2: want to be told what to do or what to think,
2:33
Speaker 2: and they wanted to achieve as much as possible. It's
2:36
Speaker 2: an important area in the country because it has more
2:39
Speaker 2: skilled workers than any other part of the UK, which
2:42
Speaker 2: is its distinctiveness. But that made me think about human
2:46
Speaker 2: beings and how aspirational they are. Then, when I went
2:50
Speaker 2: on to do some work which is most famous for
2:54
Speaker 2: I suppose is work on what we call the dangerous
2:58
Speaker 2: rise of therapeutic education. Katherine Eckleston and I published a
3:02
Speaker 2: book about this. We've worked on it for a long
3:04
Speaker 2: time in two thousand and nine and a second edition
3:08
Speaker 2: came out in two thousand and nineteen, and we looked
3:13
Speaker 2: at how people were being presented, whether there were young
3:17
Speaker 2: people or teenagers, adults or even people are about to retire,
3:23
Speaker 2: as if we were vulnerable, as if they couldn't cope,
3:27
Speaker 2: And it was headlining everywhere in the world by academics
3:31
Speaker 2: discover can't cope students And what we made the point
3:37
Speaker 2: is that there's a new philosophy of human beings coming
3:39
Speaker 2: out that we're now seen as diminished were seen as
3:44
Speaker 2: potential victims, and there was a whole range of initiatives
3:48
Speaker 2: over the years. When we started writing it, everybody was
3:52
Speaker 2: talking about their self esteem, so every reality show woman
3:58
Speaker 2: or man was saying, I myself been hurt. Then it
4:01
Speaker 2: was resilience. Then it was emotional literacy, emotional intelligence. For
4:06
Speaker 2: a period, it was mindfulness. Everybody is concerned about mindfulness,
4:10
Speaker 2: and then happiness, well being, and now it's consolidated around
4:15
Speaker 2: the idea of mental health, the idea that we're facing
4:18
Speaker 2: a mental health crisis. And this says about human beings
4:22
Speaker 2: is you know you need help. You're not able to
4:25
Speaker 2: cope on your own. You will always need an intervention
4:28
Speaker 2: from somebody else. And so when I started to write
4:33
Speaker 2: about higher education, we neglected it a little bit in
4:36
Speaker 2: the first edition.
4:38
Speaker 3: The second edition.
4:40
Speaker 2: Concentrates largely on what happened in higher education because at
4:44
Speaker 2: the time when we published the book in two thousand
4:46
Speaker 2: and nine, we thought, well, our education is different.
4:50
Speaker 3: The idea that everybody is.
4:51
Speaker 2: Vulnerable is not going to spread to universities because their
4:54
Speaker 2: duty is to pursue truth, and you know, that's a
4:57
Speaker 2: difficult and objective method.
5:01
Speaker 3: And we were wrong.
5:03
Speaker 2: I mean, we did call it the therapeutic university even then,
5:07
Speaker 2: but it really came into being over at that ten
5:10
Speaker 2: year period and universities are now the main agents of
5:14
Speaker 2: promoting what we call a diminished human being, the idea
5:17
Speaker 2: that somebody is in perpetual need of therapy. And it
5:21
Speaker 2: was interesting because I wrote two books on Macdonaldization, might
5:26
Speaker 2: call the Macdonaldization of higher education. Here has got a
5:30
Speaker 2: nice picture of chips on it, So it's the thing.
5:33
Speaker 2: You have to be very careful that McDonald's don't sue
5:35
Speaker 2: you for these things. And there's four features to Macdonaldization
5:40
Speaker 2: and they are efficiency, which means you try and get
5:44
Speaker 2: more students through the their degree program. Predictability you have
5:50
Speaker 2: modules set out with learning objectives so that students know
5:54
Speaker 2: what to write and it gets easier for them and
5:56
Speaker 2: the outcomes are predictable. Then you have calculability. The obsession
6:00
Speaker 2: with league tables. Everybody's obsessed by league tables, and it's
6:05
Speaker 2: a way of making people conform and do what is
6:08
Speaker 2: required to become high on whether it's the Research Excellence Framework,
6:13
Speaker 2: which it's a league table of research in British universities,
6:18
Speaker 2: or even the Stonewall getting up on the higher and
6:20
Speaker 2: the stonewalling that university is very keen on doing that.
6:23
Speaker 2: But the other element of it was controlled. The fourth
6:25
Speaker 2: element is controlled. And when we first wrote, when I
6:28
Speaker 2: first wrote about it, it was largely about teacher training.
6:32
Speaker 2: It's teacher training for higher education, which was quite new
6:36
Speaker 2: that started to tell people what they should do and
6:40
Speaker 2: how they should behave and what they should think. And
6:43
Speaker 2: then there's the influence of Advanced HAG which actually people
6:47
Speaker 2: have forgot to get a fellowship. The universities make them
6:49
Speaker 2: get fellowships in Advance HG and they tell you what
6:53
Speaker 2: to think. And of course the latest edition and that's
6:57
Speaker 2: really come out over the last ten years is EDI training.
7:02
Speaker 2: So how you control lecturers and students is through equality,
7:07
Speaker 2: diversity and inclusion initiatives. And these involve looking at all
7:12
Speaker 2: sorts of aspects. I mean, there's a list of them.
7:15
Speaker 2: I mean, most common ones are make sure that you
7:22
Speaker 2: decolonize your curriculum, that you make sure that you don't
7:26
Speaker 2: promote white privilege, that you have an intersectional approach. A
7:30
Speaker 2: lot of these initiatives demand that you have an intersection approach,
7:33
Speaker 2: which is a sort of hierarchy of victims.
7:36
Speaker 3: So you look at the world through the.
7:38
Speaker 2: Victim status, who is more oppressed and you have to
7:41
Speaker 2: then treat them differently because of that status, rather than
7:44
Speaker 2: treating everybody's equal human beings. So I think EDI training
7:48
Speaker 2: is what most academics face in a way that it
7:53
Speaker 2: tells them what to think in the sense it it
7:57
Speaker 2: is controlled thinking, but also so control speech because you've
8:01
Speaker 2: often told what to say, and people be familiar with
8:03
Speaker 2: battles over pronouns.
8:05
Speaker 3: You must accept pronouns.
8:08
Speaker 2: But there is a kickback of this, as you know
8:10
Speaker 2: that the Office for Students, which is the regulatory body
8:15
Speaker 2: for higher education in the UK, just find the University
8:21
Speaker 2: of Sussex for failing to uphold the freedom of speech,
8:28
Speaker 2: not just of Kathleen Stop, but in the governance policies.
8:31
Speaker 2: The important thing is it started with Kathleen Stock being
8:35
Speaker 2: driven out and appalling behavior by staff and students at
8:39
Speaker 2: that university. Nobody defended her once. I think one academic
8:44
Speaker 2: there defended her. We did half half and we've even
8:48
Speaker 2: got UCU members to write in her defense, and the
8:51
Speaker 2: students organized a free speech symposium shortly after she'd been
8:55
Speaker 2: driven out at the university. It was a very good
9:00
Speaker 2: day's event. But no staff from the university turned up,
9:04
Speaker 2: so she was neglected thrown out. So the university had
9:07
Speaker 2: now faces half a million or five hundred and eighty
9:11
Speaker 2: five thousand and five for failing to uphold free speech,
9:16
Speaker 2: and the vice chancellor, Sasha Rosneil, is going to challenge
9:22
Speaker 2: it in the courts. I don't think she's got any
9:23
Speaker 2: chance at all of winning because her case hinges around
9:27
Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer, that around whether the policy documents they
9:30
Speaker 2: have that and the officer students criticized as in inhibiting
9:35
Speaker 2: free speech are actually part of the governors or just policies.
9:40
Speaker 2: But if you look at most universities, and SUSSE is
9:42
Speaker 2: not alone, We've come at least a dozen universities that
9:45
Speaker 2: have similar policies and they're all on the governor's section
9:49
Speaker 2: of the website, so they are connected to governance and
9:52
Speaker 2: the governors must approve them. So I don't think that's
9:55
Speaker 2: going to be the case. But the world is changing slightly,
9:58
Speaker 2: so I'm sure that university is are now looking at
10:02
Speaker 2: what the policies say just to make sure that they
10:05
Speaker 2: don't face a fine.
10:07
Speaker 3: Universities are cash strapped.
10:08
Speaker 2: As everyone knows, and they don't want to get fined,
10:12
Speaker 2: and it may not be as much as that, it
10:13
Speaker 2: may be more.
10:14
Speaker 3: It depends.
10:15
Speaker 2: But you know, we have been writing to some universities
10:18
Speaker 2: to say, you've got this policy, it's time to reconsider
10:22
Speaker 2: it because you're going to be in the potentially liable
10:25
Speaker 2: to a fine with Ariy Farmed, who's the director for
10:30
Speaker 2: Free Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students,
10:34
Speaker 2: looks at your policies. So that I think that is
10:38
Speaker 2: a moment where things have started to formally change. People
10:40
Speaker 2: have been obviously campaigning the freedom of Freedom of Speech
10:45
Speaker 2: Higher Education Bill and been trying to get legislative changes
10:48
Speaker 2: which have been stopped by Ridget Pilison. But there is
10:52
Speaker 2: a moment where people have to be more cautious.
10:54
Speaker 1: Now.
10:54
Speaker 3: I'm ensure that the defem free speech, but.
10:57
Speaker 2: There is a kickback against the kickback. So one of
11:00
Speaker 2: the interesting things that the VC at Sussex said in
11:05
Speaker 2: criticism of the judgment, she.
11:07
Speaker 3: Said that.
11:10
Speaker 2: Free speech absolutism is now the fundamental principle for universities.
11:17
Speaker 2: Free speech absolutism is now the fundamental principle for universities.
11:21
Speaker 2: And I often say that when you get accused of
11:23
Speaker 2: being a free speech absolutist. Basically, it just means you
11:27
Speaker 2: believe in free speech. And so what she's actually saying
11:30
Speaker 2: is she doesn't believe in free speech. She says, can't
11:33
Speaker 2: be an absolutist because lots of speech she doesn't want
11:36
Speaker 2: you to have, or it comes into conflict with equality duties. Well,
11:39
Speaker 2: it doesn't come into contact with theology quality duties unless
11:43
Speaker 2: you word your policies in such a way that they
11:46
Speaker 2: come into conflict by saying you must say this, you
11:49
Speaker 2: must do this, and you must adopt behavior. So the
11:54
Speaker 2: challenge is still there for the defenders of free speech
11:56
Speaker 2: to take take of this moment, make sure that individual
12:02
Speaker 2: academics stand up and defend the free speech in their institutions.
12:07
Speaker 3: Because whatever the law says in.
12:10
Speaker 2: The end, it's up to individual academics to make sure
12:13
Speaker 2: that free speech is upheld.
12:15
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And you know my story. Of course, as
12:19
Speaker 1: I said, you were a wonderful source of support for me.
12:21
Speaker 1: It's a long story, and I guess if it's okay,
12:24
Speaker 1: I'll just summarize it quickly and I'll tell you this,
12:27
Speaker 1: and then I would like you to maybe reflect back
12:29
Speaker 1: on that and tell me if this is similar to
12:32
Speaker 1: what you've seen, because I know that you deal with
12:34
Speaker 1: these cases all the time, unfortunately, as they are continuing
12:37
Speaker 1: to rise.
12:38
Speaker 4: But frequent UK column.
12:41
Speaker 1: Viewers will know a little bit about my story because
12:43
Speaker 1: I've shared it in a little bits. But my cancelation
12:46
Speaker 1: started in April twenty twenty three. I was at a
12:50
Speaker 1: new job as a full professor. Finally I worked for
12:52
Speaker 1: twenty years to become professor and then this all started.
12:56
Speaker 1: Four months after I began my post at Reneaper University,
13:00
Speaker 1: I went to a conference and one of the keynote
13:03
Speaker 1: speakers was.
13:05
Speaker 4: Offended by something that I posted.
13:07
Speaker 1: On Twitter the following day, and it was it was
13:09
Speaker 1: in response to something that she said, and her talk
13:12
Speaker 1: just sort of questioning this idea that she was sharing,
13:16
Speaker 1: and that offended her. And also I think I offended
13:19
Speaker 1: the entire conference because I was there to speak at
13:22
Speaker 1: a panel that I was invited to be on, and
13:25
Speaker 1: the panel was about whether or not the practice of
13:27
Speaker 1: academic referencing was racist and oppressive to people who are
13:32
Speaker 1: not from the West because we are a pote we
13:34
Speaker 1: are putting Western priorities onto the idea of academic referencing,
13:39
Speaker 1: and they're all saying, oh, yes, that's oppressive for people
13:41
Speaker 1: who are coming from Africa and Asia.
13:43
Speaker 4: This isn't right.
13:45
Speaker 1: We have to like not be oppressive to these students
13:49
Speaker 1: that are coming in. So that kind of goes back
13:51
Speaker 1: to that therapeutic idea you've said actually a bit as well,
13:55
Speaker 1: that oh, it's not good for them because it's too
13:57
Speaker 1: much stress. We're seeing that with them saying, you know,
13:59
Speaker 1: we're canceling exam because exams are too stressful and everything
14:02
Speaker 1: now in other universities. But so after the conference, the
14:07
Speaker 1: keynote speaker wrote back to me on what was in
14:10
Speaker 1: Twitter and said that I had offended her because I
14:12
Speaker 1: put a fourth in opinion that was different from what.
14:16
Speaker 4: She had shared.
14:18
Speaker 1: And I got an email from the conference chair the
14:21
Speaker 1: following Monday after the conference thing that I had violated
14:26
Speaker 1: the conference code of conduct by offending the keynote speaker,
14:30
Speaker 1: and I would imagine probably a lot of the delegates
14:32
Speaker 1: as well, because what I said on the panel was
14:34
Speaker 1: at academic referencing were I'm a librarian originally by profession,
14:38
Speaker 1: and I was at a librarian conference and they said, well,
14:40
Speaker 1: the point of academic referencing is to credit the sources
14:44
Speaker 1: that you have cited so that they get credit for
14:47
Speaker 1: their work and so that future people looking for sources
14:49
Speaker 1: can find them. And I said, there's nothing oppressive about that.
14:53
Speaker 1: And so the room went silent when I made those comments.
14:57
Speaker 1: And so then I shared that in information with my
15:01
Speaker 1: head of my department and said just to let you know,
15:05
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is going to be an issue,
15:07
Speaker 1: but here's what's happening.
15:10
Speaker 4: And it kind of went.
15:11
Speaker 1: Back and forth for a while that eventually she came
15:14
Speaker 1: to me and she said, HR has asked me to
15:16
Speaker 1: speak to you because this particular keynote speaker was a
15:19
Speaker 1: librarian at my university where I was a professor, and
15:22
Speaker 1: so she made it into an HR issue, and I said,
15:24
Speaker 1: I've been asked to speak to you, but I'm not
15:26
Speaker 1: going to because I don't think you did anything wrong.
15:28
Speaker 1: Because she saw the tweet and I told her what
15:30
Speaker 1: happened at the conference, so that went away, I thought.
15:34
Speaker 1: A few months later, I was approached again saying that
15:38
Speaker 1: she had filed. Eventually, different steps happened along the way
15:43
Speaker 1: following these HR processes, and eventually led to her filing
15:46
Speaker 1: of formal agreements against me for offending her with a
15:50
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things excusing me of things I never
15:53
Speaker 1: did or said.
15:54
Speaker 4: Really, So then I went through a.
15:56
Speaker 1: Several month process of going answering these questions. I had
16:02
Speaker 1: to go to two separate formal grievance meetings. I got
16:06
Speaker 1: local support from the Union and from you as well,
16:09
Speaker 1: and I was also a member of the Edinburgh branch
16:12
Speaker 1: of Academics for Academic Freedom. As far as I know,
16:15
Speaker 1: I'm the only person at a university who had even
16:17
Speaker 1: signed the academic Freedom pledge that you have. But so
16:21
Speaker 1: eventually that all happen. The grievance wasn't upheld. But then
16:26
Speaker 1: because this mob mentality, which is what's happened to a
16:28
Speaker 1: lot of these other high profile academics, happened to me.
16:32
Speaker 1: So they were looking at my other tweets and saying
16:34
Speaker 1: that I was writing things that were offensive, you know,
16:38
Speaker 1: because I was starting to share my thoughts about gender ideology.
16:42
Speaker 1: I had a tweet, for example, that question whether or
16:45
Speaker 1: not a biological man who now identifies as a woman
16:48
Speaker 1: should be the head of an indometriosis charity because that man,
16:52
Speaker 1: that biological man, cannot experience indomitriosis, because that's a disease
16:56
Speaker 1: that only affects women, and so basically this mob had
17:00
Speaker 1: gathered up a whole bunch of tweets that they thought
17:02
Speaker 1: were offensive because they didn't follow the EDI line or
17:05
Speaker 1: the Decoal innovation line and reported them to my professional body,
17:09
Speaker 1: of which I was president of the devolved Professional Body
17:12
Speaker 1: in Scotland, or the incoming president at the time, and
17:17
Speaker 1: I was called into a mediation meeting and it was
17:21
Speaker 1: a four hour struggle session where people from this organization
17:26
Speaker 1: basically made me feel like a terrible person, and I
17:28
Speaker 1: tried really hard to not break down, but I ended
17:30
Speaker 1: up breaking down crying in the meeting. And then at
17:33
Speaker 1: the end, I said, Okay, I'm just going to take
17:35
Speaker 1: down my Twitter, because if you're going to criticize every
17:38
Speaker 1: tweet that I ever have, then it's not worth it.
17:40
Speaker 4: And they said, oh no, we don't want you to
17:42
Speaker 4: take down your Twitter. That's not fair.
17:43
Speaker 1: You can have your Twitter, but we just want you
17:45
Speaker 1: to know that if you post one more tweet that
17:47
Speaker 1: somebody finds offensive and they report it to us, we
17:50
Speaker 1: have to investigate again. So I took Twitter down and
17:55
Speaker 1: stayed silent on social media, and then another complaint came in,
17:59
Speaker 1: now from the head of my professional body in London,
18:02
Speaker 1: saying that I was being called into a disciplinary meeting
18:04
Speaker 1: because I was now somebody was offended by a post
18:10
Speaker 1: that I wrote against decolonization because in libraries and in universities,
18:16
Speaker 1: because I was saying, this is destroying the history of Britain,
18:19
Speaker 1: this is destroying our record of cultural knowledge because they're
18:23
Speaker 1: taking things out of library collections and taking things out
18:26
Speaker 1: of curriculums and museums because they're too.
18:28
Speaker 4: White or whatever they were saying.
18:30
Speaker 1: So I resigned for my professional body and lost my
18:34
Speaker 1: position as the president of the professional body Silicon Scotland,
18:39
Speaker 1: and things kind of kept continuing to progress at this point,
18:44
Speaker 1: going back into the university. Eventually somebody found something that
18:47
Speaker 1: they didn't like that I said on a podcast that
18:50
Speaker 1: I had actually recorded as part of with my UK
18:53
Speaker 1: con colleague Ben Rubin on his podcast on a Saturday,
18:56
Speaker 1: and I made a comment about gender issues, and that
19:01
Speaker 1: led the university to charge me with gross misconduct because
19:05
Speaker 1: apparently in this university policy, gross miss conduct means anything
19:09
Speaker 1: essentially that they don't like, which includes social media posts,
19:12
Speaker 1: and so they saw this as a social media post
19:13
Speaker 1: that had something that somebody didn't like. And that led
19:17
Speaker 1: them to I got really stressed. I went on sickly
19:20
Speaker 1: because I couldn't deal with the stress anymore. And the
19:23
Speaker 1: GP said signed me off for stress, and then they
19:26
Speaker 1: put me on a performance improvement plan even though I
19:29
Speaker 1: was going through all this stress. And then it just
19:32
Speaker 1: kept building up. And then they started cutting my pay
19:34
Speaker 1: down to fifty percent, and then they cut my paid
19:37
Speaker 1: down to zero, even though I still had a doctor's note.
19:40
Speaker 1: But they're saying, well, you haven't followed the attendance policy
19:42
Speaker 1: or whatever.
19:43
Speaker 4: And so following all that, I.
19:45
Speaker 1: Eventually got this wonderful full time offering with UK column
19:49
Speaker 1: at with a pay cut. It certainly has been a
19:51
Speaker 1: pay cut. But so I resigned from the university in
19:55
Speaker 1: January and started full time with UK column on the
19:58
Speaker 1: first of February. So that is one real life cancelation.
20:02
Speaker 1: When I tell these stories to people, they say I
20:04
Speaker 1: heard about this happening, but people don't actually realize how
20:07
Speaker 1: bad it is. But so I'm wondering, having all said
20:10
Speaker 1: all that, now, is that a similar pattern from what
20:14
Speaker 1: you see when you work with other academics that have
20:16
Speaker 1: been through my situation.
20:18
Speaker 2: As you know, Diane, you appear on our band list
20:21
Speaker 2: on the yes on our website, and it's very influential
20:25
Speaker 2: people use it. So for the last fifteen years or so,
20:28
Speaker 2: we've just simply been collating insistances where people have been
20:31
Speaker 2: canceled or they've been threatened with a ban or been
20:36
Speaker 2: disciplined by the universities. But that list is only the
20:40
Speaker 2: tip of the iceberg because there are hundreds and hundreds
20:43
Speaker 2: of other students, post graduate students, young academics or older academics.
20:49
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter.
20:49
Speaker 2: People say it's often younger academics that get it out,
20:52
Speaker 2: but it isn't always.
20:53
Speaker 3: It can be senior academics like yourself. So the list
20:56
Speaker 3: is very important just as a record of what is
20:59
Speaker 3: going on if people look.
21:00
Speaker 2: At it, and we do say at the top of
21:04
Speaker 2: the list we put people here whose views we may
21:07
Speaker 2: or may not support, because otherwise, I mean the difficulty
21:11
Speaker 2: with Israel Palestine now, so we have you know, israelis
21:14
Speaker 2: calling people sport, Israel calling for bands on Palestine supporters
21:18
Speaker 2: and the books and the opposite. So we don't take aside,
21:22
Speaker 2: but we just log the cases to show what the
21:25
Speaker 2: state of free speech is in universities, and it is dire,
21:29
Speaker 2: you know, it's a chilling effect. But you're quite right
21:34
Speaker 2: in that a lot of this happens in confidence. So
21:40
Speaker 2: people get dragged in because somebody finds something offensive, they
21:44
Speaker 2: report them to the line manager or to the students' union.
21:48
Speaker 2: Often it's the internal processes of the institution itself that
21:52
Speaker 2: then come into play to say, you know, you've broken
21:54
Speaker 2: this rule or this regulation. People don't know about until
21:58
Speaker 2: they get told. It's all is the background of being offensive.
22:02
Speaker 2: And these cases can drag on for months, as you know,
22:06
Speaker 2: and people suffer a lot through the process. And somebody
22:10
Speaker 2: once said about a bandalist that quite a lot of
22:12
Speaker 2: the people eventually aren't psyched were banned, but they can suffer,
22:17
Speaker 2: as Joe feenix, in years of persecution, of difficulties in
22:24
Speaker 2: your private life and in and being threatened financially with
22:28
Speaker 2: losing all your money. It's a terrible situation, but for
22:31
Speaker 2: most people it's actually just a personal torment of being
22:35
Speaker 2: hauled in by a manager. And often there will look
22:39
Speaker 2: for things, so people say all sorts offensive things that
22:43
Speaker 2: are never taken up, but if they want to find something,
22:45
Speaker 2: they will find.
22:46
Speaker 3: Something that they can use. Some people just say we.
22:51
Speaker 2: Found this offense and often it starts with anonymous complaints
22:54
Speaker 2: which we strike out straight away. There are no anonymous complaints.
22:57
Speaker 2: Anonymous complaints don't exist, but they will always find things
23:00
Speaker 2: and some people with examples where some managers have tralled
23:04
Speaker 2: tweets and all sorts of things to do it. And
23:07
Speaker 2: I often say, if you've heard me say it before
23:09
Speaker 2: that people say there isn't a free speech crisis in universities,
23:13
Speaker 2: I'd say not. One senior manager by Chancellor dur say
23:16
Speaker 2: that biological sex is real.
23:20
Speaker 3: It's a challenge.
23:21
Speaker 2: If anybody wants to do it, go on the record
23:23
Speaker 2: and saying biological sex is real. See what happens to you.
23:28
Speaker 2: They will be hounded by the people they've employed in
23:30
Speaker 2: their institution. So there is a real issue with free speech.
23:33
Speaker 2: And when we first set up Academics for Academic Freedom
23:38
Speaker 2: in two thousand and six, of it happens.
23:39
Speaker 3: And things happened almost by accident.
23:43
Speaker 2: I was writing for the Times Higher Educational Supplement as
23:46
Speaker 2: it was then, and I was beginning to be aware
23:50
Speaker 2: of the therapeutic turn. So I had an article pulge
23:54
Speaker 2: I member. It's called here comes the Touchy Feeling Feely
23:57
Speaker 2: Brigade's touchy feeling being great that we now know as
24:00
Speaker 2: the ones who say be kind put that out to
24:03
Speaker 2: get you and stop you saying what they find is offensive.
24:07
Speaker 2: And Roy Harris, who was the emeritus Professor of the
24:10
Speaker 2: General Linguistics at Oxford, was also writing similar pieces. One
24:14
Speaker 2: of them was a love title recommended. It's on our website.
24:17
Speaker 2: It's speaking out for the right to speak. Evil, brilliant
24:21
Speaker 2: piece that talks about the fundamental nature of free speech.
24:25
Speaker 2: Without free speech, you know, all your other liberties are
24:29
Speaker 2: questionable because you don't know whether the two or not.
24:31
Speaker 2: On this you challenge them and particularly fans them.
24:34
Speaker 3: So we thought what should we do?
24:36
Speaker 2: And we met in Oxford a long lunch as it was,
24:40
Speaker 2: and we said, well, what can we do? And we
24:43
Speaker 2: wrote what you'd referred to as our Statement of academic Freedom,
24:49
Speaker 2: and the first obviously read the first bit. I know
24:52
Speaker 2: it off by that academics, both inside and outside the classroom,
24:59
Speaker 2: have unrestd to liberty to question and test, receive the wisdom,
25:05
Speaker 2: and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions, whether or
25:10
Speaker 2: not these are deemed offensive so controversial or proper opinions,
25:15
Speaker 2: whether or not they're deemed defenses. The way back in
25:19
Speaker 2: ninth December two thousand and six, when this hit the headlines,
25:23
Speaker 2: was on the front page of the Times Educational supplement.
25:27
Speaker 2: People said, we're demanding a right to be offensive. Well,
25:30
Speaker 2: we're not depending a right to be offensive. It's that
25:32
Speaker 2: we're not accepting that views should be canceled because somebody
25:36
Speaker 2: deems them to be offensive.
25:38
Speaker 3: Issue.
25:39
Speaker 2: And we also have a second clause which says that
25:41
Speaker 2: academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of
25:45
Speaker 2: this freedom, whether staff or use it as the grounds
25:48
Speaker 2: for discipline, reaction or dismissal. And the idea we had
25:51
Speaker 2: and it's still a challenge today, is to get academics
25:54
Speaker 2: to sign up to this principle, to put your name
25:57
Speaker 2: to it, to show how fearful some people are. They
26:00
Speaker 2: will say, can I sign it anonymously? No, because the
26:05
Speaker 2: whole point was to make a public statement, and we didn't.
26:10
Speaker 2: After we made that public declaration, people signed it and
26:14
Speaker 2: it got a lot of publicity. We then we've got
26:18
Speaker 2: involved in casework. So for years we've been doing massive
26:21
Speaker 2: amounts of casework as well as doing writing and research.
26:23
Speaker 3: And other things.
26:25
Speaker 2: Casework takes up a lot of time, and we're the
26:27
Speaker 2: only free speech group in academia like the Free Speech Union.
26:32
Speaker 3: That take up cases.
26:34
Speaker 2: And if you really want to know how difficult things are,
26:36
Speaker 2: you must we should hear some of these cases. And
26:40
Speaker 2: one of the problems we have is a lot of
26:41
Speaker 2: the cases covered by confidentiality clauses, as you know that
26:45
Speaker 2: if you make something public it can be another disciplinary offense,
26:49
Speaker 2: and a lot of disciplinary policies have that.
26:52
Speaker 3: On the first page.
26:54
Speaker 2: If you make this public, then you're likely to have
26:58
Speaker 2: another charge, and that means you could be signed so
27:00
Speaker 2: one charge to charge it out and people get accused
27:03
Speaker 2: of gross misconduct for absurd things, uses of metaphors people
27:07
Speaker 2: don't like. But I think why when you ask this question,
27:11
Speaker 2: why do people get away with this? Why is this happening?
27:15
Speaker 2: And it brings me back to the macdonaldization issue, because
27:20
Speaker 2: universities are churning out students, you know, the people criticizing
27:24
Speaker 2: fifty percent of population going to universities and getting through
27:27
Speaker 2: degree courses, and whether they're really open up to learn
27:34
Speaker 2: and think the unthinkable. That doesn't happen. You're told what
27:38
Speaker 2: to think and how to produce your essays, and it
27:41
Speaker 2: seems mechanical George Ritzer, who coined the term macdonaldization, describes
27:45
Speaker 2: as a university as factory alike. It's oppressive. The students
27:50
Speaker 2: and staff are controlled by computers and by the bureaucracy.
27:54
Speaker 2: But it doesn't feel like that because students are quite happy.
27:58
Speaker 2: They seem quite pleasant. And that's because and I discovered
28:01
Speaker 2: it in teaching, where people were on teach training courses
28:05
Speaker 2: for fe were being taught to meet certain objectives. The
28:09
Speaker 2: produced portfolios were often three foot high of evidence that
28:13
Speaker 2: they'd gathered all the right ideas and materials to get
28:18
Speaker 2: through the course. But it was done in a really
28:21
Speaker 2: humanist called humanistic way. The students almost hugged one another
28:25
Speaker 2: and the staff everybody was very nice. It was all
28:27
Speaker 2: small group work. It was a lovely experience. But the
28:30
Speaker 2: outcome was that you got you reach the objectives that
28:33
Speaker 2: was expected of you.
28:34
Speaker 1: So it.
28:36
Speaker 2: Was a very bureaucratic factory like things, as Richard said,
28:40
Speaker 2: But because it was done in in a therapeutic way,
28:45
Speaker 2: it seems much nicer. And I used to say that
28:47
Speaker 2: the whole of professional bodies have now turned into.
28:52
Speaker 3: Either therapists or victims.
28:55
Speaker 2: So the people who attack you and the people a
28:57
Speaker 2: lot take a lot of the people we deal with,
29:01
Speaker 2: they'll say, well, we're trying to help you, we want
29:06
Speaker 2: you to have the right ideas, we want you not
29:07
Speaker 2: to offend the victims.
29:09
Speaker 3: So everybody's divided up.
29:11
Speaker 2: What you've said makes you a persecutor rather than somebody
29:15
Speaker 2: who's sportive. So it used to use the label T
29:19
Speaker 2: two V therapy to victims. That's absolutely everywhere, and sometimes
29:24
Speaker 2: it sounds it sounds kind, but it's actually a very
29:26
Speaker 2: cruel process because being forced into therapy, it means you're
29:30
Speaker 2: being re educated, told what to think, and that's difficult,
29:35
Speaker 2: and people won't challenge it, and so that what you
29:40
Speaker 2: do is you just go along with it. So nobody
29:42
Speaker 2: challenges the order to decolonize your curriculum. We've debated this
29:48
Speaker 2: many times. And if if you're bright and you know
29:52
Speaker 2: some of the good literature, you can decolonize before they
29:55
Speaker 2: tell you to do it. I et the best books
29:57
Speaker 2: you can think of that were written by Jane being
30:02
Speaker 2: African scholars, Ken and Malick, many other people. You can
30:06
Speaker 2: get really good writers who don't tell the orthodox line
30:10
Speaker 2: about decolonization. And I always said this, and it's probably
30:15
Speaker 2: a dangerus thing to say nobody ever mentions Ireland in
30:18
Speaker 2: this position. Do you have Jerry Adams and the politics
30:21
Speaker 2: of Irish freedom on your curriculum Note's oldest Colonies? Some
30:25
Speaker 2: would say that's never on there. But what you're expected
30:28
Speaker 2: to do is adopt certain texts. So it's not any
30:31
Speaker 2: attempt to look at the best literature that's been published
30:35
Speaker 2: and outside of Europe or America. It's an attempt to
30:39
Speaker 2: get you to adopt some often very poor literature that
30:43
Speaker 2: castigates people for being part of the hereditary white oppression
30:52
Speaker 2: through colonialism. As you know, we've just put it on
30:54
Speaker 2: our and we have a Heroes and Zero's page, which
30:57
Speaker 2: we did is a bit of fun and every month
30:59
Speaker 2: now Caitlin Thomas from Free Speech Wales does it and
31:02
Speaker 2: we try and find that an interesting person who was
31:06
Speaker 2: the hero of the month.
31:07
Speaker 3: It's always very hard, by the way, we find lots
31:10
Speaker 3: of zeros. So is it the zero?
31:12
Speaker 2: This time is the University of Birmingham where they are
31:15
Speaker 2: one of the lecturers is promoting the decolonization of Shakespeare
31:20
Speaker 2: because he's too white, and the idea that is a
31:22
Speaker 2: genius and his genius is universal has to be questioned.
31:26
Speaker 2: So this constant attack on your culture. Why can't you
31:29
Speaker 2: challenge it because as soon as you challenge it, you're
31:32
Speaker 2: held to be part of that oppression. You're justifying the oppression.
31:36
Speaker 2: And it's the sort of catch twenty two. They tell
31:39
Speaker 2: you you must do this. The legacy is there and
31:42
Speaker 2: you can't challenge it, and you see it playing out
31:44
Speaker 2: every time. But the difficulty with the therapeutic turn is challenges.
31:49
Speaker 2: It makes you feel cruel. You don't care. You know,
31:54
Speaker 2: you believe in free speech.
31:56
Speaker 3: When we have.
31:58
Speaker 2: Shown for the film Adult Human Female, which created all
32:01
Speaker 2: the difficulty, and I think the producers are taking the
32:06
Speaker 2: University and College Union to court today because of what
32:11
Speaker 2: then censoring they show you the film at Edinburgh. But
32:16
Speaker 2: that is what happened to. People say you only want
32:19
Speaker 2: free speech because you want to hurt people. It used
32:23
Speaker 2: to be that people wanted free speech to fight the battles,
32:25
Speaker 2: to fight oppression. Free speech was the way forward. I
32:28
Speaker 2: think that's a position. I still have the idea that
32:31
Speaker 2: you shouldn't have speech means what else do you do?
32:34
Speaker 2: You'll end up fighting. That's the great advantage of speech
32:37
Speaker 2: is it replaces just warring with people you disagree with.
32:41
Speaker 2: I think that's it's more difficult now. At the last
32:45
Speaker 2: and I think you were there our annual conference in
32:47
Speaker 2: November two thousand and four of three, I made the
32:54
Speaker 2: point that defending free speech is now a messier business
32:57
Speaker 2: than it's ever been because a lot of traditional defenders
33:01
Speaker 2: of free speech, you don't like the demonstration with the Hammers,
33:06
Speaker 2: Chance and the pros, so.
33:08
Speaker 3: They want to want to censor it. So it's very
33:10
Speaker 3: very difficult now because people.
33:14
Speaker 2: Really find certain things offensive when they want to stop
33:19
Speaker 2: them happening, so they don't feel offended, but it's it's hard.
33:22
Speaker 2: One of our advisory board members, Harry Saul Markham, went
33:26
Speaker 2: to a protest against the launch of a book on
33:30
Speaker 2: the philosophy of Hammers at LC and he was brave
33:33
Speaker 2: enough to speak out. You know, he said, we've got
33:37
Speaker 2: every right to protest it, but don't call for it
33:39
Speaker 2: to be banned. Don't start banning things because once should
33:43
Speaker 2: do that. You know, how can you object when somebody
33:45
Speaker 2: calls for your books to be banned or you to
33:48
Speaker 2: be banned? So I think the it's a difficult time
33:52
Speaker 2: because of the Israel Palestine conflict, but not just because
33:56
Speaker 2: of that. It's also because if you defendiological set, you
34:00
Speaker 2: won't get dragged into the battles between transactivists and gender
34:08
Speaker 2: critical feminists. But it's a difficult thing and you have
34:11
Speaker 2: to do it. And I think you shouldn't be so
34:13
Speaker 2: neutral on these issues as individuals, not as a group
34:17
Speaker 2: that your brain falls out because you have to take
34:21
Speaker 2: a stand on various things as individuals, and I know
34:24
Speaker 2: that from the Acadomtics recondomic freedom point of view. We
34:26
Speaker 2: have now over sixteen hundred people have signed the statement.
34:32
Speaker 2: We want a lot more people to sign that statement,
34:34
Speaker 2: because that's the statement that says we believe in free
34:36
Speaker 2: speech in the sort of way that John Stuart Mill
34:39
Speaker 2: conceived of free speech, and you have free speech even
34:44
Speaker 2: in the most difficult times. He argued for free speech
34:47
Speaker 2: in the time of war when people were arguing for
34:50
Speaker 2: Fratish side. If you read the footnote in chapter two,
34:54
Speaker 2: he doesn't change his mind even when life gets really,
34:57
Speaker 2: really difficult. So we need more people to sign it
35:00
Speaker 2: and be brave enough to say it. And I think
35:03
Speaker 2: it's in a sense it's a simple thing to do,
35:07
Speaker 2: but it's odd. But the more people who do it,
35:08
Speaker 2: the more people who signed the statement, the less of
35:14
Speaker 2: a chilling environment for free speeks what we have on
35:16
Speaker 2: the universities.
35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the Edinburgh screening of
35:22
Speaker 1: Adult Human Female because I was there as as a
35:26
Speaker 1: board member in Edinburgh and it was a fascinating thing because,
35:31
Speaker 1: as you know, they tried to cancel it twice and
35:33
Speaker 1: then it happened in the third time, and it was
35:36
Speaker 1: an incredible thing that we even passed it off. But
35:39
Speaker 1: they had to hire you know this, but the audience
35:41
Speaker 1: won't know this. They had to hire extra security, they
35:43
Speaker 1: had to have a police presence. Those of us who
35:46
Speaker 1: were there to attend the screening had to register in advance,
35:49
Speaker 1: and we had to bring Ida with us. And by
35:52
Speaker 1: the time we actually got into their room and started
35:54
Speaker 1: the event, Professor Jonathan Hearn who's the chair of here,
35:58
Speaker 1: So Jonathan Hearn, Yeah, he said, welcome to Fort Knox,
36:01
Speaker 1: because that's what it felt like, because we had to
36:03
Speaker 1: go through so much just to get into the room.
36:06
Speaker 1: And what I noticed about the crowd that was there,
36:09
Speaker 1: it was not despite all of us being at the university,
36:12
Speaker 1: it was not full of academics. It was full of
36:16
Speaker 1: just members of the public who had heard the stories
36:19
Speaker 1: that just wanted to becoming and we're curious just to
36:21
Speaker 1: see what was going on, and wanted to see the
36:23
Speaker 1: film and just kind of see what happens just I
36:26
Speaker 1: would imagine other respeech absolutists who were there who were
36:29
Speaker 1: not part of the university. Was my impression of who
36:33
Speaker 1: was there. So it was a very very interesting thing
36:36
Speaker 1: and I think everyone was very relieved that we got
36:39
Speaker 1: through that. And Sharen Benjamin, I want to say that
36:41
Speaker 1: woman is amazing because she really led the whole thing.
36:45
Speaker 1: And when I went to the conference that our conference
36:48
Speaker 1: in London November that you mentioned, it was so great
36:51
Speaker 1: to meet Scherene and well I knew Charen, but to
36:53
Speaker 1: see Shred again and to meet Joe Phoenix in person
36:55
Speaker 1: and all of these people that I admired from a
36:58
Speaker 1: distance through my cancel it and me thinking it really
37:01
Speaker 1: hard nights when I couldn't sleep and thinking well, if
37:04
Speaker 1: those women made it, I can make it too. So
37:06
Speaker 1: it does take us to see that others have spoken
37:09
Speaker 1: up for those of us who come afterwards, to see
37:12
Speaker 1: that it is possible, despite how incredibly hard it is.
37:16
Speaker 4: I want to go back.
37:17
Speaker 1: To what you said about current university culture and part
37:21
Speaker 1: of it is edi. Maybe part of this is therapeutic,
37:23
Speaker 1: but you know, if we're going to talk about oppression
37:25
Speaker 1: in universities.
37:27
Speaker 4: One of the things that I found to be to.
37:30
Speaker 1: Restrict my free speech just as a practicing academic, was
37:35
Speaker 1: that all of these things about learning objectives and rubrics
37:38
Speaker 1: and you have to tell students this and they are
37:40
Speaker 1: expected to learn this by the end. And I actually
37:43
Speaker 1: found that to be rather chilling because it didn't allow
37:46
Speaker 1: me to have any flexibility and creativity.
37:49
Speaker 4: In my teaching.
37:50
Speaker 1: It was sort of like, you have to meet the
37:51
Speaker 1: learning objectives and the learning outcomes and this is what
37:53
Speaker 1: you're going to do, and this is how you do it,
37:55
Speaker 1: and this is what the students will expect, and you know,
37:58
Speaker 1: you have to prove this. And I thought that was
38:00
Speaker 1: very restrictive. And I remember the first my first PhD
38:07
Speaker 1: seminar that I had as when I was a brand
38:09
Speaker 1: new PhD student, and the man who ran the PhD
38:12
Speaker 1: program at my university at the University of North Texas
38:15
Speaker 1: where I got all my degrees the night when he
38:19
Speaker 1: went to our seminar and he asked us to you know,
38:23
Speaker 1: you can write a paper or not. It's up to you.
38:26
Speaker 1: You are PhD students. You are in control of your
38:29
Speaker 1: education now, and we are just here to advise you
38:32
Speaker 1: and support you. And it really that moment made me
38:36
Speaker 1: really realize that as a student, it was my responsibility,
38:39
Speaker 1: especially as a future academic, to take control over my
38:42
Speaker 1: own career and my own autonomy and my own responsibility
38:45
Speaker 1: my own research questions. But it kind of seemed to
38:48
Speaker 1: me after that I've kind of over those twenty twenty
38:54
Speaker 1: five years that I spent from that time until now
38:57
Speaker 1: when I'm gone, that ability to be creative and be
39:02
Speaker 1: restrictive has gone away. And so I think it's so
39:05
Speaker 1: far in the culture now that if we're actually going
39:08
Speaker 1: to get to the point of free speech and universities,
39:10
Speaker 1: we need to do away with all of those sort
39:13
Speaker 1: of play baskets of I don't even know what to
39:17
Speaker 1: call them. They're like these little restrictive bits of things
39:20
Speaker 1: that you can and can't do. It's not even about
39:22
Speaker 1: what you say or what your research or what you
39:24
Speaker 1: try to get funding for. It's actually the practice of
39:26
Speaker 1: how you do your job. And I'm just wondering, what
39:30
Speaker 1: is that part of the therapeutic culture.
39:31
Speaker 4: Is that part of EDI.
39:33
Speaker 1: Or where do you think that's come from because you
39:35
Speaker 1: you survived in academia much longer than I did.
39:39
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we have a branch in America in Nebraska,
39:42
Speaker 2: and I think they raise those very same issues about
39:47
Speaker 2: a lack of critical thinking allowed for students. And I think,
39:53
Speaker 2: to get back to the McDonaldization issue, this is exactly
39:55
Speaker 2: the process.
39:56
Speaker 3: Because and students don't like it.
40:00
Speaker 2: But if you have to write an essay of three
40:01
Speaker 2: thousand words and you have you have six learning objectives,
40:04
Speaker 2: we write five hundred words on each of the learning objectives,
40:08
Speaker 2: you get a mechanical, uninteresting essay. And I've been twice
40:12
Speaker 2: were and one that my students was challenged by and
40:16
Speaker 2: because they've missed one of the learning objectives was a
40:19
Speaker 2: brilliant essay. Somebody couldn't find one of the learning objectives.
40:23
Speaker 2: And another group of students I remember saying, no, we
40:27
Speaker 2: have to write these learning objectives. Because we wrote something different,
40:31
Speaker 2: we'd be marked down or failed. And that's what's telling
40:35
Speaker 2: about it, is that students don't like it. They're don't
40:38
Speaker 2: like being having that mechanized. Some do because it's easy.
40:43
Speaker 2: It's easy for the students and it's easy for the staff.
40:46
Speaker 2: You write a bit on this, a bit on this,
40:47
Speaker 2: a bit on this. The staff comes along, what's it's it,
40:51
Speaker 2: and that mechanized process becomes something that's very easy for everybody.
40:57
Speaker 3: So why would you object to it?
40:59
Speaker 2: That's why would you life hard by I want to
41:01
Speaker 2: look at student essays that ano. They're all written by AI,
41:03
Speaker 2: so it's another issue that is problematic. But you can
41:07
Speaker 2: tell they're equally dull because AI is like writing by objectives,
41:11
Speaker 2: because it just trawls out four or five points to
41:14
Speaker 2: make the point that you want to make, and there's
41:15
Speaker 2: nothing original in it. Academics have let it happen. They've
41:19
Speaker 2: let it happen everywhere. They've let all these systems happen.
41:23
Speaker 2: But I think that the therapeutic point comes out. It's
41:26
Speaker 2: how these things are delivered, Isn't they're delivered nicely? I
41:31
Speaker 2: will you know, you may have that mechanistic essay, but
41:35
Speaker 2: you'll be spending your time in What I always hate
41:37
Speaker 2: is on the cover of our book called The Dangerous
41:40
Speaker 2: Rison that you won't be able to see it, but
41:41
Speaker 2: it has a famous picture of chairs on it, so
41:45
Speaker 2: empty chairs, all empty chairs, and that's something that is
41:50
Speaker 2: evidence of a therapeutic culture.
41:52
Speaker 3: If you have circle time.
41:54
Speaker 2: Then you know, you all sit around and you talk
41:57
Speaker 2: about things, and nothing, no constant thing of any consequence
42:01
Speaker 2: comes a bit. You may have a flip cho Somebody
42:03
Speaker 2: wants to ask me, how have you spot a bad teacher?
42:06
Speaker 2: And I said, anybody with a flip chart. Basically, you
42:09
Speaker 2: just gather people's thoughts. It's called co construction of learning.
42:13
Speaker 2: You gather people's thoughts right down on a sheet and
42:17
Speaker 2: then nothing happens.
42:18
Speaker 3: But it's quite a nice time.
42:19
Speaker 2: You sit there chatting and have a chat with your friends,
42:23
Speaker 2: but you're not challenged about anything. So circle time, flip
42:26
Speaker 2: charts all this are a way of delivering that students like.
42:30
Speaker 2: There's a very famous book called Wilt about teaching in
42:36
Speaker 2: fe by Tom Sharp, and Will's a bit of a
42:38
Speaker 2: scandal as an English teacher, and he doesn't like to
42:40
Speaker 2: do too much work. He has a technique which I
42:43
Speaker 2: called the Wil Technie wants to write a short article
42:46
Speaker 2: called seven ways of skything and that's and the Will
42:50
Speaker 2: Tenny was he listens to what students are talking.
42:52
Speaker 3: About as they go into his class. He teaches them
42:54
Speaker 3: suppostpriuteation in English.
42:56
Speaker 2: And the example he gives some of the girls, we
42:58
Speaker 2: are talking about a murder that happened. So he then says, well,
43:03
Speaker 2: today we'll discuss murder or rape or whatever it was.
43:06
Speaker 2: So all the students break up into small groups and
43:08
Speaker 2: they talk about it, and as they're going out, they're saying, oh,
43:11
Speaker 2: mister Wills's lesson was brilliant today because they've been talking
43:15
Speaker 2: and talking. You know, it's not any critical focus.
43:20
Speaker 3: I think.
43:22
Speaker 2: It's when there's you have to have put some content
43:24
Speaker 2: in that it gets difficult. One of the ironies of lockdown.
43:28
Speaker 3: Iron is one of them.
43:29
Speaker 2: I think it's quite good things is that every education
43:32
Speaker 2: took a step backwards because what happened was, instead of
43:36
Speaker 2: having small groups, you were suddenly faced like this, there's
43:40
Speaker 2: me in front having to say something rather than say, well,
43:45
Speaker 2: all get together in these groups and say what you
43:47
Speaker 2: feel about this.
43:48
Speaker 3: That's always what it is, what you feel about this topic.
43:52
Speaker 2: Staff couldn't do that to produce content, and so you
43:55
Speaker 2: had for a while you had a reversion to the
43:58
Speaker 2: old lecture style of teaching. When you have somebody giving
44:03
Speaker 2: me a lecture to a class sitting in rows. I
44:05
Speaker 2: think that's the sort of methods how you challenge it
44:10
Speaker 2: is you just have to object to it in every
44:12
Speaker 2: way you can. There is a debate on one of
44:15
Speaker 2: our WhatsApp groups. I don't know if you're part of it,
44:17
Speaker 2: that somebody's been told at an the university in the
44:21
Speaker 2: Northwest to do unconscious bias training. She's trying to find
44:26
Speaker 2: out ways of objecting to it. And I was told
44:30
Speaker 2: to do unconscious bias training as part of the Research
44:34
Speaker 2: Excellence framework last time, and I wasn't going to do
44:37
Speaker 2: it because everything that the training package brought him from
44:40
Speaker 2: a commercial company. I don't know what they're buying in
44:43
Speaker 2: half the time, and I couldn't get that's the first
44:45
Speaker 2: sentence without failing in the module. And so I argued
44:50
Speaker 2: for a discussion on unconscious bias. So instead of doing
44:54
Speaker 2: the training and being trained in what to think, we
44:57
Speaker 2: had a discussion about the nature of unconscious pipes.
45:00
Speaker 3: Does it mean?
45:00
Speaker 2: Has it got an irrationale to it? Is there any
45:02
Speaker 2: research evidence for it? And it's great for that because
45:05
Speaker 2: the university can then tick the box. We did the training,
45:10
Speaker 2: everybody participated, but it had a critical element to it,
45:14
Speaker 2: so it wasn't just something you bought in that's going
45:16
Speaker 2: to expose the fact that you've got unconscious biases and
45:19
Speaker 2: you can't overcome them. And you could do that with
45:22
Speaker 2: anything you're told to do. Have a debate about what
45:25
Speaker 2: decolonization means. But of course you can get certain speakers
45:28
Speaker 2: in that won't allow off the group to speak if
45:33
Speaker 2: you're not saying the right things, but if you do
45:36
Speaker 2: it properly. So I think you have to think sort
45:40
Speaker 2: of challenge things slightly sideways from the side, so when
45:45
Speaker 2: they're not expecting so they won't they'll expect everybody to
45:48
Speaker 2: obey the mandatory training or isn't mandatory, it's just the
45:52
Speaker 2: university is saying it's mandatory. They won't expect you to
45:56
Speaker 2: either object or do it.
45:57
Speaker 3: Most people just do it.
45:58
Speaker 2: But you could then, well, rather than do this, let's
46:01
Speaker 2: have debate as we should have in a university. Let's
46:04
Speaker 2: talk about just buy a speaker in. You can tell
46:07
Speaker 2: us about it and we can argue matter is. So
46:10
Speaker 2: there are ways of getting around it. But the climate
46:13
Speaker 2: is not like that. People have given up on discussion
46:16
Speaker 2: and debate. And we've got mow love It coming to
46:20
Speaker 2: speak in Garbia to Salon and she runs the Debating
46:25
Speaker 2: Matters competition, and that's the six form debating competitions that's
46:29
Speaker 2: been going for twenty years now, and it's an excellent
46:34
Speaker 2: model of having to research and present your ideas and
46:37
Speaker 2: your arguments, but debate doesn't happen. I go to so
46:41
Speaker 2: many conferences and so many thoughts where people will give
46:45
Speaker 2: a paper and a lecture will appear and they'll speak
46:49
Speaker 2: for fifty seven minutes out of sixty and then someone
46:53
Speaker 2: will say, well, we've just got.
46:54
Speaker 3: Time for one question. So there is a model that
46:59
Speaker 3: we'd have a speakers.
47:01
Speaker 2: But also, as you know from the Battle of Ideas
47:04
Speaker 2: conference in London, were you, your speakers don't get more
47:08
Speaker 2: than twenty minutes, so there's then an hour and more
47:12
Speaker 2: for debate and discussion. And what that says is we're
47:15
Speaker 2: interested in the audience, interested in everybody getting involved. It's
47:20
Speaker 2: not just listening to the experts and you're just taking
47:23
Speaker 2: it in. There's some people that on the platforms can
47:27
Speaker 2: say things that are less interesting than people who are listening,
47:30
Speaker 2: and when they stand up and speak, you've got to
47:32
Speaker 2: put your hands and would speak.
47:34
Speaker 3: I remember doing your talk once. I can't remember what.
47:36
Speaker 2: The topic was, and we had questions and somebody said,
47:42
Speaker 2: got a note here and he said, it's from Janis.
47:45
Speaker 3: She's got a question. She's too shy.
47:49
Speaker 2: And I said, maybe she's too shy, that these are
47:52
Speaker 2: the thirty year students. I said, where's Janis. This little
47:54
Speaker 2: hand goes up.
47:56
Speaker 3: Janie, stand up, ask your question? Do I have to do?
48:00
Speaker 2: Yes?
48:01
Speaker 3: Do it?
48:02
Speaker 2: So she got up and asked the question. You know
48:05
Speaker 2: so because she's nervous. The way to get over your
48:08
Speaker 2: nerves is to rehearse the question, stand up and say it.
48:10
Speaker 2: So that's what debating masses competition does, and that's what
48:14
Speaker 2: we should all do. Get students to speak up and
48:17
Speaker 2: if end the view of their views and not too
48:20
Speaker 2: and I deal with them in sort of a therapeutic way,
48:23
Speaker 2: just say, oh, well, you're a bit shy, a bit nervous.
48:25
Speaker 3: You can't do it.
48:26
Speaker 2: So for when if you remember from when students come
48:29
Speaker 2: to university, they used to come to fresh As week,
48:32
Speaker 2: and now it's Welcome week, and no doubt the therapy
48:35
Speaker 2: dogs will be there and all.
48:38
Speaker 3: And when we're writing the book.
48:40
Speaker 2: I collected everywhere I got I collect and counseling leaflets
48:44
Speaker 2: and various things, and I got one from one university
48:46
Speaker 2: which you'll say it.
48:48
Speaker 3: I've still got a copy of it.
48:50
Speaker 2: But it said, if we come to this university and
48:52
Speaker 2: you discover the medicine, and you you're studying medicine, you
48:56
Speaker 2: might discover a lot of people are sick, and this
49:00
Speaker 2: may cause you distress. And they said, now, if you
49:03
Speaker 2: come here and do sociology, you might discover a lot
49:06
Speaker 2: of people are poor. That may cause you distress. And
49:10
Speaker 2: it went through restily all the disciplines, saying, if you
49:12
Speaker 2: come here and study things, there'll be things in it
49:15
Speaker 2: you don't like, and it might cause you distress. And
49:19
Speaker 2: I remember and maybe on our heroes and zero students
49:22
Speaker 2: at one of the Cambridge or Oxford. It's always at
49:25
Speaker 2: the elite universities where people were distressed because they were
49:29
Speaker 2: listening to a session on the Industrial Revolution and they
49:33
Speaker 2: had memories, memories, but they knew that their great great
49:36
Speaker 2: grandfather had worked down the minds and it was causing
49:39
Speaker 2: them such distress. Now you're making these things up, bringing
49:44
Speaker 2: out emotions that aren't really there, and it's very reawarded,
49:48
Speaker 2: rewarding you. It's hard to do. And then what do
49:52
Speaker 2: you do with it when somebody's crying because you're dealing
49:53
Speaker 2: with the industrial revolutions traditionally you just say get it rip,
50:00
Speaker 2: I have to try. So you have to find the
50:01
Speaker 2: ways of questioning and talking that without going into full therapy,
50:05
Speaker 2: which is I think people have time out and finding
50:09
Speaker 2: safe spaces. And we had the idea of a safe space,
50:14
Speaker 2: you know, people used to say that's part of the
50:16
Speaker 2: therapeutic culture. Seems to have passed a bit now, the
50:19
Speaker 2: idea you need a save space or cushions for students
50:22
Speaker 2: to go into when they've got the distressing speaker.
50:24
Speaker 3: Perhaps not, I don't know, but the.
50:27
Speaker 2: University should never be a safe space for ideas. That's
50:30
Speaker 2: the important thing. We need to discuss things calmly. But
50:36
Speaker 2: when those people say we want to save space, it's
50:38
Speaker 2: not a safe space for ideas. It's a safe space
50:40
Speaker 2: so you can go and cry if you don't want
50:42
Speaker 2: to listen to these ideas.
50:45
Speaker 1: I remember a time when I was I was closet
50:48
Speaker 1: graded and I was working as a research assistant, and
50:52
Speaker 1: I got really upset Wendy because my academic supervisor gave
50:57
Speaker 1: me a really hard task to do and he wanted
51:00
Speaker 1: it done by the next day because there was as
51:02
Speaker 1: you know, how it works with conference paper submission deadlines
51:05
Speaker 1: and so I had a lot of work to do overnight,
51:09
Speaker 1: and I was like, I can't do this, I can't
51:11
Speaker 1: do this, and I was studying to panic, and he said,
51:14
Speaker 1: you know what, you can do it. And that's the
51:16
Speaker 1: reason I'm making you do it is because I know
51:18
Speaker 1: it's possible. And he left the room and just left
51:20
Speaker 1: me there to work. He certainly didn't send me to therapy.
51:23
Speaker 1: He didn't tell me you know, it's okay.
51:26
Speaker 4: You can cry.
51:27
Speaker 1: He just told me to do it and left and
51:29
Speaker 1: I did it, and I did it the next day.
51:30
Speaker 1: But actually that boosted my confidence a little bit because
51:34
Speaker 1: I just had to trust that because he was my
51:36
Speaker 1: supervisor and gave me a lot of good advice and
51:39
Speaker 1: gave me everything I needed to do the job.
51:41
Speaker 4: It was me believing I couldn't do it.
51:42
Speaker 1: So I think that we are actually doing our students
51:45
Speaker 1: a major disadvantage by by telling them, oh, it's okay
51:49
Speaker 1: if you can't do this or you can't do that.
51:52
Speaker 1: All of the extension, the request that I received in
51:55
Speaker 1: recent years of students who couldn't get their work done
51:58
Speaker 1: on time was all about anxiety. Oh I have stress.
52:01
Speaker 1: And I used to read them and think, yeah, I
52:03
Speaker 1: do too, but I still do my job, you know,
52:05
Speaker 1: and I think it's just really kind of That was
52:08
Speaker 1: the thing, was that the issues of the students who
52:11
Speaker 1: couldn't just like couldn't function at all, I think is
52:14
Speaker 1: because they must have had this before they you know,
52:17
Speaker 1: they came to me and then me asking them to
52:19
Speaker 1: do things like come, I'm coming up with ideas for
52:22
Speaker 1: their own topics.
52:23
Speaker 4: They couldn't even do that. You know, Well, what do
52:25
Speaker 4: you want to do your project on?
52:27
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. Tell me what you want No,
52:28
Speaker 1: tell me what you want to do, What are you
52:30
Speaker 1: interested in? What do you want to learn about? What
52:33
Speaker 1: do you want to write about? And and you know,
52:35
Speaker 1: it's probably actually a good thing that I got canceled,
52:38
Speaker 1: because I was getting so impatient with this inability of
52:41
Speaker 1: students to want to learn how to think critically and
52:44
Speaker 1: approach it that probably it was a good idea for
52:46
Speaker 1: me to get out anyway, even if I had continued
52:50
Speaker 1: to survive the anonymous mob that was after me for
52:53
Speaker 1: two years. So it's probably a good thing. I already
52:57
Speaker 1: have time, unfortunately, and I've really this fascinating discussion with you,
53:02
Speaker 1: and I just want to ask you one last thing. Well,
53:06
Speaker 1: as you know, we've obviously you know, you've invited me
53:08
Speaker 1: to join the FF Advisory Board and I'm really happy
53:11
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. And as someone who
53:14
Speaker 1: is now a member of the media, I want to
53:17
Speaker 1: be able to use my platform the best I can
53:19
Speaker 1: for people in general, not just for students academics, but
53:24
Speaker 1: because this impact all of British society. It impacts the
53:27
Speaker 1: fact that you know, students and their parents and their
53:31
Speaker 1: families are supporting them to go to university. So that's
53:35
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of time and money investment on behalf
53:39
Speaker 1: of the families that support them. And I'm not quite
53:43
Speaker 1: sure that everyone is aware of these issues that are
53:47
Speaker 1: going on, and I'm not sure that the British public
53:50
Speaker 1: would really in all cases appreciate what is happening and
53:54
Speaker 1: the restrictions on what students have to do and the
53:58
Speaker 1: types of research, and the fact that there are people
54:01
Speaker 1: who feel that you know, have more more socially conservative
54:04
Speaker 1: for example, that wouldn't want students to be told that.
54:07
Speaker 4: They have to think this other way.
54:09
Speaker 1: Like, there's a lot of issues and so I'm just
54:11
Speaker 1: wondering if maybe you could say something because I like
54:13
Speaker 1: to interview people and end it with some a bit
54:16
Speaker 1: of action for people or a bit of awareness, like
54:19
Speaker 1: what is something that you would say to the British
54:21
Speaker 1: public in general about all these issues, and is there
54:25
Speaker 1: anything that you could suggest that parents or grandparents or
54:28
Speaker 1: whoever could do to kind of help to fight against
54:32
Speaker 1: these things so that their children and grandchildren and so
54:36
Speaker 1: on can go to university and explore the way they're
54:39
Speaker 1: meant to be exploring at university.
54:41
Speaker 2: I often get asked that in terms of therapeutic education,
54:46
Speaker 2: and I always say, what you should do is look around,
54:50
Speaker 2: look at signs, look at what's going on, because people
54:53
Speaker 2: don't notice, and so you get on the wall. You
54:58
Speaker 2: have things about circle of time. I went to the
55:00
Speaker 2: LC and they had a poster up called overcoming Perfectionism.
55:05
Speaker 2: If you come to the LLC and you want to
55:07
Speaker 2: change the world, it might cause you distress.
55:10
Speaker 3: So you need a course.
55:11
Speaker 2: Look around, see what's happening on notice boards, see what's
55:14
Speaker 2: being offered, and above all, be sensitive to the fact
55:19
Speaker 2: that you're not victims. Don't see yourself as a victim.
55:23
Speaker 2: A student came out of a tutorial the other day
55:26
Speaker 2: and I think it's.
55:26
Speaker 3: A move you could have made many years ago.
55:29
Speaker 2: That tutorial really affected my mental health. Don't see everything
55:34
Speaker 2: through the prism of you having a mental health issue.
55:39
Speaker 3: So don't see yourself as a victim.
55:41
Speaker 2: And have a look around when you go to anywhere,
55:44
Speaker 2: to a university or any institution, and see if you're
55:47
Speaker 2: being treated as a diminished human being. If you're presented
55:50
Speaker 2: first of all as a victim, who's somebody who's in need,
55:54
Speaker 2: no matter how cute the therapy dogs.
55:57
Speaker 3: Are, don't go. Don't go.
55:59
Speaker 2: You don't need therapy. And I think that's the main messages.
56:04
Speaker 2: Don't see yourself as a victim, because that denies you
56:08
Speaker 2: the possibility of having a full life, and certainly denies
56:13
Speaker 2: you the possibility of having a full academic life.
56:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really nice
56:21
Speaker 1: place to end as well.
56:22
Speaker 4: I think.
56:23
Speaker 1: So, Dennis, again, I want to thank you for your
56:25
Speaker 1: time today. I really hope that I'm sure this interview
56:29
Speaker 1: will be shared everywhere because you have a lot of
56:32
Speaker 1: followers now on x and elsewhere for the with the
56:35
Speaker 1: groups for Academic Freedom, and so I'll be really happy
56:39
Speaker 1: to see what kind of response we get from this,
56:42
Speaker 1: because I want to expose this more and more to
56:44
Speaker 1: the British public. Again, as I said, this is the
56:47
Speaker 1: sidal issue. Our universities are being you know, run over
56:52
Speaker 1: by international students because you know the issues around the
56:57
Speaker 1: financial problems and the fact that Internet now students pay
57:00
Speaker 1: more fees than home students do. So I'm going to
57:05
Speaker 1: continue to expose this and so maybe we can have
57:08
Speaker 1: another interview at some point as more things happen and
57:12
Speaker 1: things continue to unfold and we start to see if
57:14
Speaker 1: these edi and therapeutic cultures can hopefully start to go away,
57:18
Speaker 1: and what the fallout will that be from the people
57:20
Speaker 1: who support it all will also be interesting to see.
57:24
Speaker 1: But again I want to thank you for your time.
57:26
Speaker 1: Is there any last thing that you would like to
57:28
Speaker 1: say to the audience before we wrap up.
57:30
Speaker 2: Well, if you're a student or an academic or an
57:33
Speaker 2: alumni of any university, go onto our website and sign
57:37
Speaker 2: the Statement of Academic Freedom. You don't have to be
57:41
Speaker 2: a current student or academic if you sign it, and
57:43
Speaker 2: we do have of course a very dynamic and active
57:46
Speaker 2: student branch, of which are now setting up societies in
57:53
Speaker 2: different universities. So the one thing you can do if
57:56
Speaker 2: you've got any background in the university dealer, a free
58:01
Speaker 2: speech group signed the statement.
58:03
Speaker 3: The more people who sign it, the more impact we're
58:06
Speaker 3: going to have.
58:07
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thanks good for your time. Dennis
58:09
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Thanks again, and thank you all for watching.