Latest / UK Column Radio / The Capture of Academia | UK Column Interviews

Transcript

The Capture of Academia | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:00
(gentle music) - Hello, everyone.
0:09
This is Professor Diane Rasmussen with UK Column.
0:11
I'm really happy to be here today speaking with Professor
0:14
Norman Vitten, who's a professor emeritus of risk at
0:17
Queen Mary University, London. As you'll realize during this
0:22
conversation, Professor Fenton and I have a lot of things in
0:24
common, both that we exited the university system in Britain as
0:29
full professors for reasons of
0:32
truth, and standing for what I think we both believe is a
0:36
case of academic freedom and the real search for answers, which
0:39
is what we were trained to do years ago in the first place.
0:42
So, Norman, you have a great book that you've just written
0:45
and published called The Capture of Academia, and I was really
0:48
happy to read this book. I actually read it.
0:51
I think the first day it came out.
0:53
There it is. Thanks very much.
0:55
Yeah, the first day it came out. I bought it and a few days
0:58
later, Brian Garrett contacted me and he said, "Diane Norman
1:01
has a new book. "You've got to talk to him
1:03
about this, right? " I said, "Yeah, absolutely. "
1:05
So, I welcome again to U.K. column Norman.
1:07
It's really great, as I said, to have you here.
1:10
So, I know you've been with us before, but maybe just like to
1:13
say a little bit about yourself for anyone who hasn't seen you
1:17
previously. - Yeah, so I was in academia for actually 47 years.
1:21
So, I about benefited from the system.
1:24
I was part of it. I benefited from a lot of the,
1:28
what I now consider to be quite corrupt aspects of the system.
1:35
But I came increasingly disillusioned with it, with
1:39
the things like the obsession with the diversity of inclusion,
1:44
infrastructure, which became completely crushing.
1:47
But most of all, the crushing of free thought, critical
1:53
thinking. And the fact that I was
1:57
effectively canceled because of my views on challenging the
2:02
official COVID narrative. And then later, and also things
2:06
like the climate catastrophe, narrative, both of which I felt
2:10
were being pushed by a kind of like globalist, UN agenda, you
2:17
know, agenda 2030, that type of stuff.
2:22
And I was effectively, I had a
2:29
In, you know, I'd been a professor for actually over 30
2:33
years, the last 22, those years were a Queen Mary.
2:38
But in the end, the fact that I was being canceled by
2:44
colleagues who I'd worked closely with, I was being
2:50
canceled from seminars, which I previously given.
2:54
I was infamously canceled last
2:58
H. S. a big NHS conference on a
3:00
topic which had nothing to do with COVID, or any of the things
3:03
that I was supposed to be the Maverick in.
3:07
It was just, I was canceled because of who I was and what my
3:11
public views on those other issues were.
3:14
So yeah, that's, that's my story.
3:17
I went effectively, as soon as
3:20
about things that we weren't allowed to speak about, I went
3:24
from, you know, respected professor to act on a pariah
3:27
very quickly. - It's just amazing to me how quickly it
3:32
happens. And I don't know if it's because
3:34
the current climate is just getting more intense.
3:36
But, you know, I'm about 20 years younger than you believe.
3:39
I was a full professor for four months before I started my
3:43
cancellation process. So I had worked for 20 years
3:45
to get to where I wanted to be, which was my career goal was
3:49
to become professor. And I got there starting January
3:52
2023 was when I started my appointment as professor.
3:56
And then in April 2023 is when it all started to crash down for
4:00
me. So it was a very (laughs)
4:02
soul-destroying experience to get to where you finally were
4:06
thought, this was actually the start of being a senior
4:09
academic and being able to provide leadership and
4:12
continue to work with my students and all the things I
4:15
love doing. And then it just left from
4:18
there. And that was it. - So in your
4:21
case, it was, it was, you challenging the kind of DIY
4:25
ideology and dogma, is that right?
4:28
- Yeah, it, you know, it really started at a conference
4:31
that I was attending at Cambridge in April 2023.
4:35
And it first, it had to do with identity politics initially
4:39
where they said you have to say disabled student.
4:42
You can't say student with a disability because the
4:46
identity comes before the person.
4:48
And after speaking to a disabled student about that particular
4:52
issue, and that student said to me, it doesn't matter about
4:58
yeah, I'm disabled, but I'm also
5:01
And when I tweeted that opinion from that student on the
5:05
Twitter account for the conference, taking the
5:08
conference in, that's when it started.
5:11
And it just went down from there.
5:13
And, you know, it spread into cancellation from my
5:18
professional body where I was being disciplined by them, I was
5:22
the incoming president in Scotland of my professional body
5:29
disciplinary action at my university.
5:31
And it was ultimately charged with gross misconduct.
5:34
And luckily I was able to join UK column full-time before I
5:38
went through that process. I just went off on leave and
5:42
that was it. It is absolutely incredible
5:45
that the crushing autocracy, that whole D I movement.
5:50
I mean, there's a few examples of course in my book.
5:52
I mean, I wasn't affected personally in my challenges to
6:00
particularly public about that. I was always challenging the
6:05
oppressive requirements and mandates that were being
6:09
thrown across with respect to the D I within the university.
6:13
I never went publicly on X about it.
6:16
I have, I've done it since I've been out, I've been very public
6:21
about it on X and on Sussack. But I mean, yeah, just bizarre
6:26
examples. I mean, that were in the book,
6:28
you know, the one that especially sort of along those
6:31
lines, you just can't believe it.
6:33
Things like all in many university reading lists now.
6:38
You have to give the appropriate pronouns to all historical
6:42
figures, including specifically the example cited
6:44
that if you refer to a summer bin lad and you have to refer to
6:48
him as he, him and stuff like that.
6:50
I saw that, but the interesting thing about Cambridge, right?
6:53
'Cause this is in my book as well because I have, there's
6:57
some close ties that came, which I mean, I did a six month
7:00
sabbatical there in the rise of Newton Institute mathematics
7:07
and I have some, let's say close contacts on the inside who
7:11
feed me different bits of information.
7:14
And so I was actually wearing, it was in the book before the
7:18
Jason Arday affair about what they call this so-called
7:22
behavioral attributes framework is what, which is what
7:26
determines, which governs their entire appointments process,
7:30
whether it's appointments or promotion.
7:32
So this can be anything from professor all the way down to a
7:37
cleaner, if you're either applying for a job at Cambridge,
7:41
irrespective of what the position is or a promotion, then
7:44
you have to basically make a case against what they call this
7:53
framework, it has a number of attributes.
7:56
Some of which are completely reasonable, you think, to expect
7:59
to explain how you basically satisfy the relevant attributes.
8:03
They've got things like achieving results,
8:06
communication, stuff like that, and for each of these
8:09
attributes, there's like four or five levels, A, B, C, D, E,
8:13
depending on what kind of job you're applying to.
8:16
So if it's achieving results, there's going to be, you know,
8:20
if you're going from a professor ship, you know, there
8:22
might be, you might have to satisfy the A grade, the top
8:24
grade, whereas if it's a cleaner's job, you know, it
8:27
might be a bit below and things like communication and stuff
8:30
like that. But there's the actual,
8:33
there's one attribute in there, which is called valuing
8:36
diversity, which only has a single grade, which is A.
8:40
And everybody, meaning that everybody, irrespective of
8:43
what job you're applying for, what promotion you're applying
8:47
for, you have to score an A grade on valuing diversity.
8:51
And what does that value in diversity mean?
8:55
What is it you've got to explain in your application that
8:58
you are committed to with respect to valuing diversity?
9:01
Well, I'll tell you what it says.
9:02
These are quotes from the website and you can go on to
9:05
Cambridge's job adverts and you'll see these there.
9:07
Unless they've changed them as a result of me publishing the book
9:13
outspoken about it. I've been talking about it
9:15
'cause people can't sort of, people can barely believe
9:17
what's in there, but it is. It says, so you have got to
9:22
explain how you will promote an inclusive environment.
9:26
You have got to explain how you would challenge or report
9:31
attitudes deemed inappropriate.
9:33
And of course, by that, it doesn't mean attitudes that
9:36
you think are inappropriate. It means attitudes that they
9:39
think are inappropriate. I attitudes which as far as
9:42
they're concerned conform to their political ideology,
9:46
which is of course cultural Marxism, critical race theory
9:50
and all that garbage. D.I.
9:54
And fine, and this is the one it is really interesting.
9:57
You have got to affirm, and I'll read it out when it says, a
10:01
broad range of social and cultural customs, beliefs and
10:05
values. So those are the minimum
10:08
requirements that you have got to satisfy.
10:12
And your application of course, because it's the only
10:15
attribute, which has that single grade, if you fail on those,
10:18
you won't get appointed. Doesn't matter how well you do
10:22
on everything else. That's how they're judging
10:24
people. So you can understand how
10:27
appointments like Jason R.D. occur, because above all else,
10:32
they're satisfying that value and diversity attribute.
10:36
Which they clearly see is the most important one.
10:40
And the interesting thing is that when the book first came
10:44
out at the end of July this year, and it was literally a few
10:49
days, couple of days before the Jason R.D.
10:52
But they came out, and it just occurs to me that I was
10:56
thinking, "Of course this is no surprise for me, "this is
11:00
happening, it kind of completely explains it. " So
11:03
actually, cheekily, because the book is self published on
11:06
Amazon, I'm able to update it with each print run, basically
11:14
of like a paragraph about the Jason R.D. affair in there.
11:18
So people who are getting the book now will see that,
11:22
whereas people bought it, initially wouldn't have seen the
11:25
Jason R.D. added. - That's really
11:29
interesting, and you know what I mean?
11:31
So that whole D.I., I mean, it just dominates everything in
11:36
every, it seems to dominate everything in every university.
11:40
And it's not something you can, it's not something you can opt
11:43
out of. It's kind of like mad that you
11:45
know, when there's a sort of black history month, or LGBTQ,
11:48
whatever activities, you know, you get an email, saying, "It's
11:53
asking how are you going to basically do something "and
11:59
support of these things? "Please tell us what your plans
12:04
are for celebrating "black history month, for example. " -
12:08
Right, and you know, the interesting thing about that
12:10
word diversity to me is that it seems to me there's a
12:13
hierarchy of you are diverse based on some characteristics,
12:17
but not another characteristics, right?
12:19
So that, for example, you're diverse if you come from one
12:22
country, but you're not acceptable if you come from
12:25
somewhere else. - Exactly. - And that's the thing I don't
12:29
understand about the structure. And one of the things that I
12:32
said in my defense of myself, when I was trying to save my
12:36
academic career, was, well, how is this inclusive to
12:40
conservative, religious people who maybe don't, you know, I
12:43
personally don't have an issue as someone being gay, but some
12:46
people do, it's against their religious beliefs.
12:48
So how is it inclusive to them? But I was told that I was being
12:53
bigoted and hateful when I said those things. - Of course,
12:56
I mean, the thing is, of course, the one aspect of
12:58
diversity, which they don't allow, is any diversity of
13:01
thought, that's the problem. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, so this is
13:05
the problem is that you're diverse, but only if you follow
13:09
their ideological lines, it's always subject to their
13:14
political ideology. As I said, that is an ideology
13:19
based on critical race theory,
13:26
- It really is. - Well, it's called identity politics, the
13:29
classic identity politics, which comes out of the critical race
13:31
theory, which again, it's all, it's only about, as you say,
13:35
inclusivity of the things that they believe need to be
13:39
included. Which as you say, it excludes
13:43
any conservative thought, it excludes any religious beliefs
13:47
other than, actually, other than Islam.
13:50
I thought, I'm about cosmopolitan. - I've read well.
13:54
- You don't know any love, really just believe that you
13:58
can have. - Well, that's an interesting point, because one
14:00
of the things that I thought of when I was reading that part
14:03
of your book was, I actually went to Saudi Arabia, because
14:06
as you've mentioned, international funding,
14:07
international students in your book, I had a PhD student based
14:11
in Saudi, as we had a reciprocal agreement with a
14:14
super vision for women in Saudi Arabia in particular,
14:17
because they couldn't access for such a provision otherwise.
14:21
And so, what I used to say to people was, well, when I went to
14:25
Saudi Arabia, I had to cover up, because I'm a woman.
14:29
If I went into the airport in Riyadh, and said that I identify
14:32
as a man, and therefore don't need to wear an abaya, do you
14:35
really think that I would have
14:38
alive? (laughing) And they just went
14:41
quiet. I said, that's inclusivity.
14:43
I said, I'm not a Muslim, that's not my belief, but I have to
14:46
respect their beliefs, so why can't respect everybody's
14:48
beliefs, even if we don't agree with them?
14:50
And for some reason, that just made it worse for me.
14:53
I thought I was trying to use simple logic in a way, but it
14:56
didn't work. (laughing) - I can show it to
15:00
them, I don't know yet. (laughing) Which brings me on
15:04
to, you've mentioned Jason R. Day, and of course, you can
15:07
call him some coverage of this as well as a discussion that I
15:10
recorded with Brian Garish and Ben Reuben, when this all
15:14
happened, we recorded it the week of his death, I believe,
15:17
and then it aired the week after.
15:18
So it was strange time, but when everything was going on, it
15:22
also ties into some of the more sort of issues that only as
15:26
academics really know about, but I think everyone needs to
15:29
know about to understand what drives our systems, and that is
15:33
those issues of the ref, the issues of funding, peer review,
15:37
all of these things. And I think Jason R.
15:40
Day is such a good case study for looking at that because
15:44
I'll let you talk about the ref because you're probably more
15:48
familiar with ref's submissions that I am because I just
15:50
avoided them as much as I could, I knew that I haven't shown
15:53
it. - Because I had years, I was having a long period, I was
15:59
actually in charge of the ref for the whole of my school at
16:03
school of electoral engineers, computer science, Queen Mary's.
16:07
I have more about ref and the problems with it than just about
16:11
anybody. - So if you could explain that maybe for the
16:14
public, I think that's important. - Yeah, so ref, which
16:18
is this research assessment exercise, is takes place every,
16:22
typically every six years, sometimes it's very five
16:25
sometimes, it's gone along as long as seven.
16:28
It was introduced, or about 25 years ago now, to be an
16:36
international system for determining which universities
16:40
get research funding and how much.
16:43
The so called governments block ground.
16:46
Government has a block ground for research funding, which is
16:50
separate from the money it gives to the research funding
16:54
councils where individual academics or groups academics
16:57
can bid for funding on the basis of a particular project
17:02
proposal. So that's separate.
17:03
They have this other block grants and mountain money,
17:05
quite a lot of money. That's exactly something of the
17:10
order of what several billion a year, which they're going to
17:13
award to universities just to do research whatever they want,
17:17
spend it how they want on research.
17:20
The problem is, of course, they decide, well, how they're going
17:22
to determine who is most deserving of this, so you have
17:25
this exercise, where each university has to submit a
17:29
number of research active staff and make a case for how good
17:37
they are. And the way it's typically been
17:42
done, it's varied over the different exercises of the
17:46
different half dozen exercises
17:49
happen. There's about to be another
17:51
one next couple of years. But generally, what happens is
17:54
that each first of all, you have to identify, the university has
17:59
to identify their research active staff.
18:01
And those are people, and this is the critical thing who are
18:05
considered to have had very good peer reviewed, enough very
18:11
good peer reviewed journal articles.
18:13
And we can come onto that whole thing about peer review, but
18:16
that's the main criteria. It used to be the main criteria.
18:19
I can say something else about the new criteria, but the main
18:23
criteria was you've got to have a set of good peer reviewed
18:32
best peer reviewed articles, you would have to make a case
18:36
about how good an impact they were, and that would typically
18:39
be how many citations it got, whether there was any
18:44
exploitation, in particular commercial exploitation, for
18:47
example, as a result of it, whether it led to future,
18:51
whether it led to, you know, researching come, and at the
18:56
main part, they were increasingly after that, that
18:59
was the main criteria. Then they started to add new
19:02
things, like with the sort of research environment, you
19:04
know, how good you were, how good the your department was
19:09
in getting research funding. And then now the new thing is,
19:16
talking about for the next research, exercise 30%, it's
19:19
going to be about how well committed you are to D.
19:24
I have nothing to do with how good, so the whole research
19:31
assessment now is going to partially, quite a significant
19:35
portion, has to take care of how good you are at inclusivity,
19:38
diversity, and all that nonsense.
19:39
But anyway, forget about that, because that's coming up next
19:42
time, and the past hasn't been there.
19:44
And even actually, to credit, actually a lot of advice,
19:48
chances have been, you know, and researchers have actually
19:51
questioned why they need to include that D.
19:55
I, they might be quite happy with it generally, but even they
19:58
realize how dumb it is to say, this is, you've got to explain
20:02
your commitment to that in order to get research funding
20:05
anyway. So basically, the university's,
20:10
then so you have this, it's a ridiculous exercise, because all
20:14
of the universities I've been involved with, where we've been
20:18
involved in a ref, you devote enormous, enormous resources
20:23
to planning for the ref. They have, so every year you'd
20:27
have a drive run with payy consultants, external
20:29
consultants to come in and determine how well you're
20:33
doing and make recommendations about how you can improve your
20:37
ref submission. And eventually get submitted,
20:39
and then they have a panel in each of the different subject
20:43
areas who review each university and each department
20:46
for their ref submission on the basis of that.
20:50
You're then classified as, you
20:55
star, four, three, and you had to be at least four or above to
21:02
get any research funding whatsoever.
21:04
So it's all about how many, and of course, how much money you
21:09
get is then based on, it's not based on the number of
21:13
research active people, academics you've submitted,
21:16
and then you're overall grade. So Oxford and Cambridge, LSE,
21:21
you know, typically come out on the top on this research
21:26
assessment exercise, and they get the bulk of the funding.
21:32
I mean, I was at Queen Mary, so Queen Mary, I think they've got
21:34
the figures in the last time. Queen Mary did very well the
21:37
last time. I was involved, and I think we
21:42
came out, in my for example, my, yeah, I think overall Queen
21:46
Mary came out six or seven out of all of the 180 universities
21:51
that submit, but compared to the top three, you still only
21:57
get, you know, a very small amount compared to them.
22:00
And it's a significant number of minions, but not nothing
22:03
compared to what the top three get.
22:05
The top three or four are well above everybody else.
22:09
'Cause the interesting thing is that about Oxford and
22:11
Cambridge, this is interesting, it's 'cause they do
22:15
unbelievably well on the, you know, in getting this research
22:19
income and that, but if you look at independent, the
22:24
independent student assessments, so there's a complete, there's
22:27
a separate national student assessment exercise, which takes
22:33
place each year where students give feedback, assess, give,
22:38
yeah, provide feedback about the quality of their teaching
22:41
experience in universities. Oxford and Cambridge, the last
22:44
time this was done, the last time I looked at it, 2025, they
22:47
did not, can you believe I didn't get in the top 100?
22:51
So anyway, that's the research, but so that's the research
22:54
assessment exercise, but it's, so it's all based, it's all
22:58
based on peer reviewed publications, more than anything
23:01
else. Yeah, and, and research funding,
23:04
but you get research funding, people get research funding, if
23:09
they're part of, as I've explained in the book, you need
23:12
to be part of research cleek really, and this is the whole
23:15
thing that drives all academic research and why it has become
23:19
an increasingly corrupt. As I said at the beginning,
23:23
I've actually benefited in, you know, at different times my
23:27
career through being part of research cleek.
23:29
Now, what do we mean by research cleek?
23:32
In most areas of research, whether it's in the sciences
23:35
or social sciences or arts and humanity, what happens is
23:40
there'll be certain niche subject areas where cleeks of
23:44
academics form around there, and these can be actually, they
23:47
can be quite big like the climate science cleek, or they
23:52
can be very, very small things like some of the things in
23:55
critical race theory, for example.
23:57
But as long as you've got, as long as you've got cleek, which
24:00
is sort of self perpetuated, so typically it will start off
24:08
gather, get some income, let's say start, start off with some
24:14
research students, then some research assistants and
24:17
postdocs, all working in that same area, and then they then go
24:22
on to become, all of the post grads or the postdocs, then
24:26
eventually, you know, maybe get academic posts, and they do
24:30
the same, they basically continue in that same, very
24:33
niche area of research, right? So you've got basically these
24:37
cleeks of people who all know each other, have all worked
24:40
together, came from the same, you know, originated from the
24:43
same place or the same one or two academics, and they all
24:49
cite each other's work, work in exactly the same areas.
24:52
I've exactly the same ideological conformity to that
24:57
particular research clique, that particular niche area of
25:01
research, and you then basically capture the journals,
25:06
which are relevant to that area,
25:08
stuff. So what happens is that the
25:10
people who get there, you get papers published in the top
25:14
peer-reviewed journals, essentially by being part of a
25:16
clique, of a niche area of research where you're part of
25:19
the clique in that area. And so because there's a
25:25
continual demand on academics to keep publishing papers all the
25:32
done, even if it's an important area isn't very good, because
25:35
you've got to rush it. You've never, there's not such
25:37
idea, like, you know, it's not lacking Einstein's time where
25:40
you can spend your whole, you know, 30 years developing a
25:44
single research hypothesis, and then published that, it
25:47
doesn't work like that, because you're not gonna have enough
25:50
publications, so I need to get
25:53
your career, you've got to keep publishing all the time.
25:55
So it's never properly finished work.
25:56
It's always, in most cases, complete junk, actually.
26:00
Or it's a little bit of research, which are nothing of
26:03
great importance, but because you're part of a clique, as
26:05
long as you're part of a clique, you can get that work published,
26:11
doing the reviewing of it. And anybody who's outside of
26:15
that clique, but who challenges, who wants to challenge some of
26:19
that niche area of research. I mean, again, think about
26:22
climate science has been a very obvious example of this,
26:26
where you've got a massive clique of people, a very, you
26:30
know, you've got enormous departments all churning out
26:32
this, you know, basically part of the same ideological
26:36
framework, which says that, you know, those catastrophic climate
26:40
change, and it's all, and it's man-made, and therefore we've
26:44
got to have these bizarre, global interventions to save
26:47
humanity. That's a mess, clique, and in
26:49
order to get, if you're part of that clique, you can get
26:53
complete junk work published in the peer review journals,
26:57
include the very top ones like nature, science, et cetera.
27:01
But if you're doing work in that
27:04
it, you won't get the work, you won't get it peer reviewed,
27:08
you can't break into it. And in the rare occasions where
27:12
something might slip through, it ends up getting redacted,
27:15
'cause you get a pile in from the clique.
27:17
So we can't have this, this is challenging it.
27:21
And so you've got these cliques, and the peer review is
27:24
such as actually such an unbelievably overrated concept.
27:30
You can't believe because for a start, because of that demand to
27:37
keep publishing, you've got every academic, of course, churn
27:41
that paper all the time, which means there's lots of papers
27:44
that need to be reviewed. Now, when I was in, well, even
27:49
more or less the last 20 years was in academia, because I
27:52
heard a fairly senior position and have been involved in quite
27:57
a number of different new shares of research with its own
28:01
cliques. I was getting at times at 20
28:05
papers from journals, quite, you know, top journals to review a
28:09
week. Of course, I wouldn't be able
28:11
to take on all of them, but I would like take on it many
28:14
times, I was doing three or four reviews a week.
28:16
And of course, to properly review a scientific paper, like
28:19
the ones that I was being sent, because I'm in the era of
28:24
magnetistic software engineering, to do it properly
28:27
really would require many cases three to four weeks of
28:30
solid work. You've got to really understand
28:32
a very advanced piece of research, you've got to go to
28:36
all the source material to properly review it.
28:38
And I'll be quite open, it was very rare.
28:41
Only if it was, let's say, a very close colleague.
28:43
And if the work was something which was so directly related to
28:47
mine where I could see it would actually improve my own
28:50
research if I really could understand everything that's in
28:53
it. Other than that, I would just
28:55
do pretty superficial reviews. And as I said, I was part of
28:58
this corrupt system myself because if it was someone I
29:01
knew and liked, I would much more likely to give it a
29:05
favorable review if it was someone I didn't.
29:06
And if it was, if it was someone I didn't like, but let's
29:10
say, citing or praising my own
29:15
review. And that's what happens, and
29:17
anybody who denies any academic who says, oh, we don't do
29:22
that, they're basically lying. And this is how it works.
29:25
So it's quite, it's very corrupt.
29:27
And it gets even more corrupt because with the, it becomes,
29:32
it's become so difficult for journals to get people to
29:36
agree to do reviews because of this unbelievable pressure on
29:39
academics. They don't get paid as a part
29:42
of the corruption because you don't, you, academics don't
29:44
get paid. The journals, journals make
29:47
their money out of academics results as academic time
29:52
because the academics are the ones who write the papers and
29:55
also ones who review the papers.
29:56
The journals just make the money out of the academics.
30:00
So that's got even worse because now academics, in order to get
30:06
your papers published, you normally have to now, they'll
30:09
say, you have to make it open access.
30:11
But it's all online now. And the journals say, well,
30:14
you need to pay for open access. And for a top journal, it's
30:17
about $2 and a half thousand, or two grand, five, 2,000 pounds.
30:22
And unless you've got some research, let's show
30:24
university pays for that or you've got a research grant,
30:26
you can take that from, you can't get, you know, no matter
30:30
how good your research, you're a young researcher without those
30:33
funds. You're not going to get your
30:35
research published in a peer review journal.
30:36
And so you get these predatory journals which look like their
30:40
peer at proper peer-reviewed journals, but they're praying on
30:43
younger researchers and they'll say, well, peer review
30:46
and publish your paper and it'll only cost you $500, not to
30:50
an half thousand dollars. So you've got that sort of
30:53
corruption going on. All of this stuff's going on.
30:55
So the idea of peer review journals is, and it'd be in the
31:02
sort of the test of hype. This is like, you know, it's
31:05
in a peer review journal. That means it's high quality.
31:07
It's complete nonsense, right? It's all about being part of the
31:10
click. And it's exactly the same now
31:13
for getting research funds. You know, if you're prior to
31:17
the research councils, you've got no chance of getting
31:20
funded now if you're not part of a click and you're not
31:24
conforming to the particular niche ideological research,
31:28
which is why. I mean, so definitely, I mean,
31:36
the government publishes and there's a website which
31:38
publishes all of the funded grant that gives from the
31:42
various research councils. So just a cursory look down
31:45
there. You'll find, you know, a
31:46
quarter of a million, three quarters of a million pound
31:50
for pregnant men and an exploration of trans mal
31:54
experiences of practice as a reproduction.
31:57
Two point million, a two million
32:01
cultures, global circulations of identity politics and
32:05
representation, a million quid for decolonizing knowledge,
32:09
identity power and university curriculum.
32:12
That's a sort of not, I mean, those are of course in more
32:15
industry of humanities. Of course, which of course is
32:17
because of, so you get all the DEI people are committed to
32:21
the DEI nonsense or I've getting
32:24
stuff. But you'd be amazed now even
32:28
in the sciences, the, for example, the engineering
32:32
science research council, says you have now got to, if you
32:36
are going to make any proposal for a research project in any
32:43
area, you've got to submit not just the normal research
32:46
proposal which describes, you know, what your research
32:50
objectives are, you know, how you're going to carry that out
32:53
and stuff like that. You've got to have this DEI or
32:56
they could, it's quality diversity, inclusion,
33:00
submission, which explains how you are going to further the
33:04
aims of equality diversity, inclusion, as part of your
33:09
research. And you think, what the hell
33:11
does that mean, you know? So I can tell you what it means
33:15
for things like, so I was involved for example, a lot of
33:19
the work I was doing in the last five or 10 years my career
33:22
was in risk assessment in medical decision-making.
33:26
So we'd been involved with clinical specialists in
33:32
particular in areas of chronic diseases, right?
33:35
And so there would be proposals around new treatments,
33:39
for example, or new early diagnosis for particular,
33:42
let's say chronic diseases. And you'd get a research
33:45
proposal based around that, which was maybe talking about
33:48
that, maybe setting up a clinical trial or an
33:51
observational study or something like that.
33:53
And basically, what would happen is that, unless you could make
34:03
ethnic minority, that's what they're looking for for that
34:08
type of study. So you can see how that was
34:11
going, right? But even if you've got like a
34:14
mathematical, what pure mathematical one, how you're
34:16
going to put the di-stuff into that, what I'll tell you, what
34:20
they're expecting. They were expecting you to say,
34:22
how are you going to make sure that you're going to be
34:26
sufficiently inclusive in how you make the appointments to
34:29
research fellows in that? And stuff like that, how are
34:33
you going to make sure that when you do the technology
34:38
transfer, the results that you're going to be able to
34:42
target ethnic minority communities, it's that insane,
34:45
right? And again, just as with the,
34:48
like the Cambridge behavioral attributes framework, if you
34:51
don't pass, if you don't pass your DI submission on your
34:56
research proposal, then look at that first.
34:58
And if it then that's, if you haven't passed that, you won't
35:00
get, they won't even look at the research proposal.
35:03
This is the insanity. This is where we've ended up
35:05
with. It drives everything.
35:07
It's just, as I said, it's oppressive, it's oppressive and
35:11
it needs to be completely dismantled in my view. - No,
35:15
absolutely. And you know, in my field is,
35:17
you know, I was in a professor of social informatics, so
35:20
information science informatics and so I was frequently in
35:23
departments with people like you and computer science and
35:27
mathematical structure programming.
35:28
And, and you would think that our disciplines would not be
35:32
that influenced by ideology because we're supposed to be
35:35
based on actual data, not based on ideas and theories.
35:38
And yeah, let's actually look at what's actually happening
35:40
with information and data and looking at those kinds of things
35:43
as much of an objective point of view as possible.
35:46
But what I was finding and sort of especially my last
35:49
couple of years of when I was receiving, when I was in grant
35:54
panels and peer-reviewed articles, it was like they were
35:56
specifically going out of the way to ask research questions
35:59
that were targeted toward DEI. You know, whether or not they
36:02
were actually intellectually curious about this problem or
36:05
not. So one of the areas in my field,
36:07
that's kind of one of the more softer sides of informatics is
36:10
looking at what kinds of information needs people have.
36:13
So how can we, you know, from a professional point of view as
36:16
a librarian, which is the sort of the practical side of my
36:19
field, how do we create services and libraries or online
36:22
that meet people's needs and they can work with them easily?
36:25
So I was seeing research questions for thousands of
36:28
dollars and pounds and euros, depending on which country I was
36:31
in, of how do we meet the information needs of LGBTQ
36:35
people? Now, how is that really, really
36:38
any different from anyone else that they were just like, they
36:42
were just inserting those words in there to say, well, here's
36:44
a certain group that we're going
36:47
particular demographic, but there was really nothing in the
36:50
proposal that was actually any different from any other
36:53
defining group if you wanted to put it that way.
36:56
And I was seeing the same thing in papers.
36:58
And it was just, it was all embedded, even in the
37:02
engineering fields. You wouldn't think DDI would
37:04
matter to, you know, a building and instruction, but they
37:08
would find a way well, it has to be built to meet the net zero
37:12
specifications because with 2050, we will be decarbonized,
37:15
et cetera. And no matter what you think
37:18
about whatever field, you know, maths is now racist, for
37:21
example, right? Because we're using a Western
37:23
system. I was in trouble for saying
37:26
that, in fact, academic citing referencing is not racist and
37:30
oppressive. It's just respectful and helpful
37:32
to people. And that was also part of my
37:35
cancellation as a librarian. And it's just amazing how all of
37:38
the stuff has embedded into every field.
37:39
And you think maybe I'll go down this route or look at this
37:43
paper. This doesn't sound like it
37:44
could be captured. And there it is.
37:45
There's somebody with the pronouns in there.
37:47
You know, there's the DEI statement or their land
37:51
gratification, which is something that they do now in
37:54
America and Australia, saying this used to be the ancient
37:57
people of the et cetera tribe. It's no longer Canada.
37:59
It's now this trial. I mean, that's exactly not a
38:03
statement. As you said, there's quite a
38:07
push for decolonizing mathematics.
38:09
Yeah. But for school level, and the
38:11
universities. I mean, we were told, so I was
38:14
in, you know, as I say, in an engineering computer science
38:18
engineering school. And yet, we were effectively
38:23
mandated to include in all of our taught modules some
38:31
component, which was basically explaining how we were going
38:36
to further the calls of EDI. So that would be-- so you're
38:42
quite-- how are you going to effectively make your calls on
38:46
statistical risk assessment, or whatever, which was, in my
38:50
case, how are you going to make that more inclusive?
38:54
You know, how are you going to make-- how are you going to
38:57
improve the diversity? So there was no getting away
38:59
from it. And something that goes--
39:01
which, again, people might not-- outside universities might not
39:04
be aware of. And this is very important.
39:07
And what's interesting about this, because there's always one
39:10
to whether these things are even legal, but in just in so
39:14
many universities, and certainly ones I've been in,
39:17
there were increasing numbers of scholarships being
39:21
advertised only to blame students, which is a cause black
39:26
and ethnic minority, ethnic students.
39:29
And we had some interest in discussion.
39:33
Less and almost laughable discussions about this.
39:35
Because I remember-- we-- when
39:40
when these were first advertised, a Queen Mary, and
39:45
now in our department. And in staff meetings, I was
39:49
quite sort of cheekly raising concerns about this.
39:52
So actually, Mike and such, just
39:57
exactly-- who exactly is included in this fame
40:01
criteria, right? And they started to give us some
40:04
examples. I said, what about-- so it's
40:08
like a Black Asian-- what about someone from Turkey?
40:13
And it was agreed, actually, yeah, Turks were-- if you're
40:18
from Turkey, that's allowed. That's part of it.
40:22
I said, well, what about Israel? Oh no, but Palestinians were.
40:30
So already, you get this kind of obvious problem of racism
40:35
coming into this, blatant racism.
40:38
But it got more ridiculous than that.
40:39
Because it turns out that they
40:45
this. But they determined that
40:49
people from Ireland weren't included unless they had gypsy
40:57
heritage. So Irish people were included as
41:02
And then he got onto the issue of, well, what about people who
41:06
self-identify as Black, even if they are not?
41:10
And they were categorical that if you self-identify as Black,
41:14
even if there's no evidence that you are, then you were
41:17
allowed to apply for these scholarships.
41:18
I mean, this is the insanity that we're talking about.
41:21
It reminds me of-- this is not about academia, but it reminds
41:24
me of a man that I saw in the Newcastle train station a couple
41:27
of weeks ago in the women's lube.
41:29
Like, completely, totally a man,
41:32
But I guess if he says he's a woman, it was OK for him to be
41:35
in there. And I was in there alone with
41:37
him. And I was not comfortable.
41:39
The issue of this whole racism identification issue, one way
41:44
that I-- when I was in my process of getting further and
41:48
further into trouble, they were talking about migrants.
41:51
And the information needs of migrants.
41:53
There's another information group.
41:55
And they have them in their mind what they think a migrant
41:59
is. And I'm sure people all have
42:01
that sort of idea of what a migrant is today in Britain.
42:05
But I said to them, you know what?
42:06
I'm a migrant. I said, you know, I'm white.
42:10
I have blonde hair. English is my native language.
42:12
But I am a migrant. I came here to recruit it here
42:16
to teach your children at British universities.
42:18
But my information needs have nothing to do with the type of
42:23
characteristics that you are speaking about, which is,
42:25
apparently, people with no skills, no English speaking
42:28
abilities, no money, no access to place to live.
42:31
That was not my case. But again, you know, their
42:34
identities and their categories that they like to put people
42:37
into never work well. But you give them a counter
42:39
example. They don't know what to say.
42:41
All they do is get angry and defensive.
42:43
They don't want to hear the bigger picture of things, which
42:46
is unfortunately called function of that point.
42:48
No, the brains just can't deal. It's not even serious.
42:51
Yeah. That's a failure.
42:54
So easy to catch these people out.
42:56
And it doesn't change at the end of the day.
42:58
They just double down. You can't change their minds
43:03
because they're so-- let's say the capture is so complete.
43:06
The book is called the capture of academia.
43:09
And unfortunately, they have captured the minds of most
43:15
young people incidentally who now goes through the
43:19
university system. Because of course, the whole
43:21
point is, as I say, as I keep talking about with the capture
43:25
academia, it's if this nonsense just stayed in academia, it
43:31
wouldn't be a problem for the course.
43:32
It doesn't because they indoctrinate the people who, in
43:36
each cohort, then go on to become the politicians, the
43:39
lawyers, you know, the regulators, the policing,
43:42
increasingly, and the regulators, you know, and that's
43:47
how they've captured all the institutions over the years, I
43:50
really believe that even though we know that most normal
43:55
people in this country don't buy into this nonsense,
43:59
unfortunately, the people who get into the key positions in
44:04
all of the key institutions to state do, that's the problem,
44:07
that's where we're at, just look at the whole has-- we know
44:12
that just look at the two tier policing, for example.
44:14
That's one error. We never believe that that
44:16
could have happened and it has, because the people are now
44:20
getting the positions, who are getting the important positions
44:23
in the police force and getting the promotions, are the ones
44:26
who are completely bought into this EDI ideology.
44:33
That's complete, and you have to, in order to get to those
44:36
positions, there's no resistance there's no resistance
44:39
to it. And the problem also is that
44:42
they become the teachers, not only the teachers of next
44:45
generation, but the people who write the curricula for the
44:48
next generation. And so what we've got now is
44:51
that things like, as you say, not just the DEI stuff, but all
44:55
the climate change nonsense net zero, that the propaganda in
44:59
the curricula that goes right down to the, in fact, infant
45:03
school level. Now, it literally goes to
45:05
infant school level. - Yes. - In junior elementary and high
45:09
school level. So the kids coming out of
45:13
schools and going into universities, and of course,
45:16
thanks to Blair, that's still over 50% of school levers, which
45:25
academia. They're already primed,
45:26
they've already gone through one, or several stages of
45:30
indoctrination to this EDI net zero conformity.
45:34
And they're perfectly primed then to get it in the
45:37
university, even if they're not studying those subjects,
45:40
'cause they get it from, it's everywhere in the universities,
45:43
all the student activism is based around that.
45:46
And of course, you know, the cultural Marxist thing, I mean,
45:50
all of the activity on campus is from, sort of Marxist-type
45:56
groups, Marxist-Islamist groups, increasingly the ones
45:58
who dominate campus activities.
46:00
So even if the subject of students studying has got
46:04
nothing to do with any of that, right, that's where they
46:06
get on campus, that's what they're seeing in the posters,
46:08
that's what they're seeing in the student debates, et cetera.
46:12
So for example, any conservative groups who wanna set up a
46:16
store in the university, or wanna have a debate, or wanna
46:19
invite a speaker, it doesn't happen because the
46:24
universities can't provide the security for those events to
46:28
happen. This is happening all the time.
46:30
I mean, there's loads of examples of this going on right
46:33
now where even the most modest or conservative type activity
46:38
gets threatened. And the universities turn around
46:40
and they say, well, we believe in free speech.
46:43
We're not stopping free speech. We just can't afford to police
46:46
those events. We can't afford to have the
46:48
security of those events. And therefore, the only events
46:55
anti-for-aligned. - Yeah. - And so you get the most radical
47:01
student activity dominating campuses. - And that's what we
47:07
inclusivity is the extremism, especially on that sort of
47:11
leftist angle on the certain sides of political situation,
47:14
the certain sides of ideology,
47:17
And those who are not on that side are not included
47:20
essentially, but we're back to it.
47:22
It's just, it's really, really difficult.
47:25
And I, you know, I... (laughing) - There's something I
47:31
not gonna put it out this picture.
47:32
I know it sounds, people sound racist for this, but I've got to
47:44
experiences, I've got where is it?
47:47
So it's a, it's basically a university.
47:51
Queen Mary University, I've got it, I've got it.
47:54
Queen Mary University has its, if you go onto their website for
47:58
their mission statement, the 2030 mission statement, it
48:01
actually says their mission statement, and it's the only
48:04
mission, it's about there's no
48:05
It says their mission statement is to be the most inclusive
48:09
university in the world. And what the hell does that
48:12
mean? So you think any university, I
48:17
it's a 2020 university, I said it can six in the last research
48:22
assessment exercise overall. You think its mission statement
48:25
would be something like to be the best in researching this
48:29
area, to produce the most high quality teaching in this area,
48:32
whatever. No, it's mission statement,
48:34
it's to be the most inclusive university in the world, which
48:41
see what this inclusivity means. This was the latest of the
48:45
time of writing this. This was the latest set of
48:49
people, the six people who were on the student executive,
48:54
student union executive. - That does not look diverse or
49:02
inclusive to me. - Exactly. There's nothing included on
49:06
that. - No, no, no, no. There's some, but as far as
49:09
they're concerned, that that's a cheaper.
49:10
I'll tell you another final anecdote maybe about that
49:14
inclusive, it's inclusivity. So Queen Mary has one of the
49:19
highest of course proportions of
49:23
because of where it is in the East End of London.
49:26
And in my school, which is a course electronic and computer
49:30
science poem, it's especially, it was especially so.
49:32
So at the undergraduate level, let me tell you this and this is
49:36
an exact, the quotes in there, I've got the evidence of nobody
49:39
consuming over this because I've got the emails to back this
49:43
up. So Queen Mary had, at the time
49:46
when I wrote it, had 79% of it's, in my school, 79% of it's,
49:56
universities were BAME or classified as BAME.
49:59
So only 21% were basically white British.
50:07
Students. We got an email sent round
50:12
saying, how this is a great statistics.
50:15
We're doing really, really well. But we've got to get that
50:20
number 21% number even lower. And I kid you not, that's what
50:25
was, that was the aim of this inclusivity mission to get it
50:30
effectively, it seems to me to get the, to get the BAME
50:33
component to 100% on the white British down to zero.
50:37
That's inclusivity. - And who are the taxpayers in this
50:40
country? The white British people who
50:42
have been here their lives and their answers have been here
50:45
forever and we're sending, we want to send their children to
50:48
these universities and they fight for a place.
50:50
They don't get as much a chance sometimes in my experience
50:53
because they don't pay as much in fees as the overseas
50:56
students. So they actually, in my, the
50:58
universities I worked at in Scotland, they had sometimes
51:00
less of a chance over competitive PhD places, for
51:04
example. - Because it's an exciting case for foreign
51:07
students pay for, we know that. But, and there's another thing.
51:10
No, but it's, even the UK based bank students will get
51:14
preference, will get preference over the white British.
51:19
We know this in lots of areas. In particular, in the high
51:23
demand subjects, like medicine, medicine, you would definitely
51:27
be at an advantage if you are a BAME applicant, rather than a
51:32
white British applicant. But the other thing, the one
51:35
other thing, I mean really hard, I have to leave as my final
51:38
point. In actual fact, this is another
51:41
really concerning thing that I bring out in the book, is the
51:44
fact that certain, certain countries, namely, and I'll say
51:48
it, it's the China, the Chinese Communist Party.
51:54
It basically, we basically subsidise their students to come
52:00
here, they pay less. In fact, their PhD students pay
52:04
nothing. There's a scheme called the
52:06
Chinese Scholarship Council scheme, which at the time when
52:09
I left, was funding 650 Chinese Communist Party approved PhD
52:14
students a year across 40 different universes in UK.
52:19
Queen Mary's one, we had, we took on 65 of these, I believe,
52:25
a year. Six, we took on, I'm sorry, it
52:31
was 650 in total. I think Queen Mary took on 80,
52:35
I'm not sure what, what the number was.
52:37
But those 650 students, we take them on, on zero fees.
52:47
Why am I asked, but I'm never, this was like, I spent ages
52:51
trying to understand, I've never got any proper answer.
52:54
Well, the answer was, oh, it's great, isn't it great to have
52:57
all these top class PhD students studying with you
53:00
'cause you're gonna get the benefits of, you know, joint
53:02
research out, you're gonna publish more papers, you're
53:05
gonna get, but all this and all that.
53:06
Actually, they're the hardest and worst students to
53:08
supervise a PhD. - I was gonna say, they're a lot of work,
53:11
they're a lot of work. - Yes. - And the Chinese scholarship, the
53:16
Chinese, under that program, what they get is a very
53:19
minimal living allowance from the Chinese Communist Party.
53:24
And even that's not enough to keep them actually going, so you
53:27
end up, not only will we be paying their fees, which are 25
53:30
and average of 25,000 pounds a year, which means that each
53:35
cohort per year was costing the British taxpayer about 50
53:39
million pounds, just in the fees alone, in the no fees basis
53:44
alone, and 50, that's worth 50
53:51
But in addition, we were having to basically fund them,
53:54
give them sort of teaching assistant posts, which they
53:58
were completely unqualified, just because we felt sorry for
54:00
them, because they couldn't live on the wage, on the stipend
54:03
they were getting from the Chinese Communist Party.
54:06
And at the end of this, incidentally, all of them have
54:10
to actually, the end of the three or four years they're
54:14
here, they have to go back to China, which means that there's
54:18
this massive technology transfer going from us into the
54:21
Chinese Communist Party. They're all Chinese Communist
54:24
Party approved, these students, so you've got that.
54:27
And also, interestingly, they're not applying for the
54:30
crappy, critical race theory courses.
54:32
They're applying for the hard sciences, these students.
54:35
So they're getting the best of the advanced technology, and
54:40
it's going straight back to China, and we're paying for it.
54:43
That's where we are, universities.
54:44
It's completely insane. - Yeah, and it's true as well.
54:47
I would say sort of a similar scheme with the Commonwealth
54:50
scholarships. So we had students from Pakistan
54:53
and Commonwealth related countries who are also not
54:56
qualified to be in the place that they receive, but they get
55:00
the money from their own schemes, and then we're expected
55:04
to teach them, and then actually, in my experience, it
55:07
actually decreased my publication rates because I was
55:11
doing very remedial teaching skills where they didn't have
55:14
the English skills. They've, you know, maybe got
55:16
their way through there. English language was the
55:18
answer they shouldn't have. So they didn't have good
55:20
English. They certainly didn't have any
55:22
basic research skills, and somehow this is supposed to
55:25
help me make me more research productive, which was actually
55:28
an opposite. I would've been better off on my
55:30
own. (laughing) - Exactly, that's so.
55:33
- So unfortunately, Norman, this has been a great conversation,
55:36
very dynamic. I've really enjoyed this.
55:37
I always ask people, "Is there
55:41
say? " I know that you had your last
55:42
chapter in your book on how we reform the systems, but maybe
55:45
we should let people buy the book so they can find out your
55:48
ideas or do you want to talk about them?
55:49
- Yeah, there's a book, you can find it on Amazon, or
55:53
Amazon, any countries on Amazon, or just search, I mean,
55:57
I'm on X, prof, and Fenton, or one word, but if you just go
56:02
to NormanFenton. com, then you'll get all of the links to
56:05
the book. And what I will say is a private
56:07
word. So this book is actually
56:08
compared to all my previous books.
56:10
I need to 100 pages long, and it's actually quite an easy
56:14
read, compared to, you know, my sort of previous books, and at
56:18
200 pages, it's only about the fifth of the size of a typical
56:23
university D.I. manual. (laughing) There's some
56:28
inspiration. I was wondering why I had such
56:30
a good time reading it. - That's really great.
56:35
Well, thank you again for your
56:38
helping us, I think those of us who have lived through it can
56:41
speak from our own experiences and for those of us who
56:44
understand the system. I think we need to do as much
56:46
of this as possible to inform the public who are paying the
56:49
taxes, who are sending their children to universities, whose
56:52
hard earned money is going towards D.I. enabled research
56:57
essentially. And, you know, is this really
56:59
what we want for our country and for the future of Western
57:02
education? What I look back to the Scottish
57:07
quite disappointing when we think about the fact that, you
57:10
know, David Hume Tower at the University of Edinburgh was
57:12
renamed George Square because we can't talk about David Hume
57:14
anymore because he was a white man.
57:16
You can't do that. So, but anyways, I want to thank
57:20
you again for your time and your
57:23
as you enjoyed it.
57:26
Enjoy it. - Yeah, and I will put
57:29
your ex-account and the write-up that we do for the
57:31
interview so people can just go to that and easily access all
57:38
So, thank you again and we will keep working for the truth
57:42
and for getting it out there. So, appreciate your help once
57:45
again. Thanks again, Norman. - Okay,
57:46
thanks. Bye.