The Open University (OU) has published the full, independent report by Dame Nicola Dandridge concerning the events that led to gender-critical Prof Jo Phoenix’s employment tribunal last year – and the results aren’t promising for the future of academic freedom at the institution.
Prof Jo Phoenix, who established the OU’s Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN), won her unfair dismissal claim against the institution. The OU’s failure to protect Prof Phoenix from harassment from pro-trans colleagues and trans activists was, the panel’s ruling found, motivated by “fear of being seen to support gender-critical beliefs” and “fear of the pro-gender identity section” of the university.
As confirmed by the evidence of one of the OU’s witnesses during the hearing, Prof Ian Fribbance, “there was more of a gender affirmative [rather than gender critical] culture in the OU”. Specifically in relation to Prof Phoenix’s Social Policy and Criminology (SPC) Department, the panel also determined that “there was a majority of [gender] affirmative supporters”, and that “those who were neutral in the Department would be more likely to take their steer” from senior members of staff who were “on the gender affirmative side”.
Upholding almost 20 of Prof Phoenix’s claims, the tribunal, chaired by employment judge Jennifer Young, said:
We do not consider that the [university] had a proper reason for allowing the harassment to continue without publicly taking action to prohibit it.
Upholding academic freedom did not prevent the [university] from taking action to prohibit the harassment.
We find that the [university] did not provide [Prof Phoenix] protection particularly in the form of asking staff and students not to launch campaigns to deplatform the GCRN, or make calls to remove support for [her] gender-critical research, or use social media to label [her] transphobic or TERF.
As to why the OU remained so passive throughout Prof Phoenix’s ordeal, one damning passage of the ruling notes:
It was clear from Prof Fribbance’s evidence on the public VC statements the OU was focused and concerned with the students and trying to placate them, and Prof Wilson [the OU’s former Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion] admitted that potentially there was a culture of fear about drawing attention to [Prof Phoenix] and her research… We find that the [OU] felt pressured by the loud voices speaking up for gender identity culture within the OU to publicly appease the students and staff.
Following this public embarrassment, the OU commissioned an independent review to be carried out by Dame Nicola Dandridge.
The Dandridge report was published recently, and according to Dr Ed Skidelsky, from campaign group Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF), its findings and recommendations “are far from encouraging for the future of academic freedom at the OU”.
Dr Skidelsky writes:
Rather than addressing the culture of fear and the perceived obligation to agree with a certain viewpoints within the faculty, the Dandridge report primarily concerns itself with the “balance between free speech and EDI”. Indeed, several lengthy paragraphs are devoted to devising ways in which the “manifestation of protected beliefs” can be “proactively managed in advance of disagreements emerging”.
Based on the tribunal judgement, one might have thought that the real issue at the OU was not the “disagreement” itself but rather the continuous harassment of a staff member by her colleagues. However, the report offers little advice on how such behaviour could be “proactively managed” in the future. This is because, according to Dandridge, “unlawful or unacceptable [behaviour] is an HR matter which falls outside the scope of this review.”
Conversely, the report does have something to say about speech or policy initiatives that may provoke the “unacceptable behaviour”. When troublesome ideas that could lead to disagreements emerge, Dandridge suggests they be “anticipated” so that “steps can be taken in advance to mitigate their impact”. Such steps include “proportionality assessments” and the more ominously named “Equality Impact Assessments” or EIAs.
The report offers an example of when an EIA would have been useful during the events leading up to Jo Phoenix’s constructive dismissal. Specifically, it highlights Phoenix’s founding of the Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN), which aimed to maintain “a space within academia […] for rigorous exploration of issues of sex and gender”. Dandridge believes that an EIA could have eased some of tension surrounding this initiative through discussions about “the appropriate material to use” and the “likely impact on other groups of staff”, which would identify “ways of mitigating negative reactions”.
It almost sounds as if the report is blaming Phoenix for the abuse she received. At the very least, it seems to imply that a rough equality of blame attaches to both sides. But what Phoenix did in expressing her beliefs, as part of her academic work, is not remotely comparable to the two years of intimidation and bullying she endured at the hands of her colleagues and anonymous online harassers.
[…] [S]ome interviewees told Dandridge that the efforts to promote EDI at the University had “translated into excessive caution” regarding what could be said, “even when the views in question were legitimate and lawful, albeit contentious.” According to the report, “this approach to EDI had the effect of […] precluding legitimate debate and discussion about contentious matters.” This is more evidence of the stifling culture described in the tribunal judgement, yet Dandridge gives almost no thought to correcting it.
The only remedy she offers is more vague language about the need to balance free speech and EDI, as well as three and a half lines of text urging the University to continue the “ongoing work to set up systems promoting free speech and academic freedom through the development of a new Code of Practice”. In other words, the OU should continue to do what it is already doing. There are not even any proposed guidelines for this new Code of Practice.
Following the publication of the report, the University Council announced that it would accept its recommendations, and instructed the University Executive to come up with a plan for implementing them. This will include the establishment of a working group, a recommitment to an EDI approach that embraces “the full diversity of the OU’s staff and their identities”, and more mandatory training for managers in the “expected standards of behaviour”. In short, a lot of new bureaucracy with a scant chance of changing anything.
Worth reading in full.
