Kathleen Stock has criticised “dim-witted, claustrophobic” transgender policies still in place at universities across Britain as she renounced her academic title in “disgust” at her former profession. The Times has the story:
The gender-critical philosophy professor endured years of bullying and harassment over her views on trans issues, a campaign that culminated in her employer, the University of Sussex, receiving a six-figure fine for failing to defend her freedom of speech.
A day after the Office for Students watchdog imposed a record £585,000 fine on the university, Stock accused university leaders of pandering to “student victimhood”.
In an opinion piece published on UnHerd, a platform known for championing free speech, she argued: “All university managers need to do is stop defining concepts such as ‘abuse’, ‘harassment’, or indeed ‘harmful propaganda’ absurdly loosely to pander to rapidly expanding notions of student victimhood and the crazed demands of moronic campaigners.”
The academic, a mother of two sons who came out as a lesbian at the age of 40, resigned from the university in 2021, citing what she described as a “medieval experience” of campus ostracism and protests.
At the time, in a post on X, she praised the university’s leadership for its approach, calling it “admirable and decent”.
However, in the piece published on Thursday, she described the leadership of Adam Tickell, the then vice-chancellor, as “powerless” in addressing problems caused by the university’s policies, particularly those that clashed with free speech and academic freedom.
She went on to accuse the university of acting like “clients”, instructing lecturers like “advertising agencies” to promote trans ideology.
She said: “The most egregious bit of the Sussex policy, in my eyes, was a clause which required that ‘any materials within relevant courses and modules will positively represent trans people and trans lives’. This seemed to me more like an instruction from a client to an advertising agency than a serious pedagogical commitment.”
Stock also took aim at other university policies.
She argued that UCL’s guidance, which commits staff to ensuring no student faces discrimination or harassment due to their gender presentation, reduces lecturers to “deferential intellectual lackeys” by requiring staff to unquestioningly accept a trans person’s view on what language is offensive.
She also criticised Leeds’s trans-equality policy, which combines two clauses from Sussex’s breached guidelines, aiming to ensure the curriculum avoids reinforcing stereotypes and includes positive representations of trans people and trans lives.
She pointed out the ambiguity in defining what constitutes harmful speech, especially when organisations such as Stonewall expanded the definition of “transphobia” to include denying or refusing to accept someone’s gender identity.
Stock said: “Many of these dim-witted, claustrophobic policies are still in place in universities across the land, right now.”
She concluded by renouncing her academic title in “disgust” at her former profession.
Stock said: “I also gladly renounce the title ‘professor’. I’m a former professor at most. In truth, no academic title means much to me anymore, such is my disgust for my former profession. Really, I’m a civilian now, with nobody looking over my shoulder.”
Worth reading in full.
