In May, the FSU will publish a major report into the failure of trade unions to defend the free speech rights of their members – not least because it’s often trade unions themselves that their members need defending from.
In the meantime, the stories of unions siding with progressive orthodoxies rather than er, trade unionists continue to pile up.
This week brings another shocking if not untypical example, as the academics who made a 2022 gender-critical documentary launch a discrimination claim against the University and College Union (UCU): the very organisation that’s meant to support them as UCU members – but which instead campaigned against the film being screened.
Deirdre O’Neill, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Hertfordshire, and Michael Wayne, Professor of Media and Film Studies at Brunel University, describe Adult Human Female as “the first UK documentary feature to look at the clash between women’s rights and trans ideology”.
But when a screening was arranged at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, the local branch of UCU wrote to the university calling on it to cancel the event, describing the film as “hate speech”, while also denouncing it on Twitter.
The campaign gathered support from students, and a group of protesters managed to cancel screenings on two separate occasions – in December 2022 and April 2023 – by blocking the entrance to the venue, preventing anybody from seeing the film.
After the second cancellation, its makers wrote to Jo Grady, UCU’s General Secretary, requesting clarification on the union’s stance towards members who hold gender-critical beliefs. She responded by defending the Edinburgh branch’s right to block the documentary being shown.
Now, at a tribunal in Watford, Ms O’Neill and Prof Wayner are claiming that UCU treated them “detrimentally” compared with other members who hold opposing views on sex and gender. They argue that UCU’s conduct amounted to harassment, which “had the purpose and/or effect of violating their dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them”.
Ms O’Neill commented: “Although UCU claims to uphold academic freedom, it only upholds that freedom for those who agree with their views on gender identity, namely that a man can identify as a woman and thereby should be treated as a woman in law and policy.
“We respectfully disagree with that view and think it is bad news for women. But apparently, our film is ‘hateful’ for making that point.”
According to Prof Wayne: “The only way that UCU can try and justify its stance, is to claim that our film is outside the boundaries of acceptable speech. The problem is that for UCU, it is simply not possible to call into question the mantra that trans women are women.”
Documents before the Watford tribunal say that the film examined the ideas of activists that trans women should be treated as women in all legal and social contexts. “Through interviews with academics, journalists, health care professionals and feminist campaigners, the film argues against those claims, and describes the detrimental treatment of women who have dissented from them.”
Not surprisingly, the documents state that Ms O’Neill and Prof Wayne do not subscribe to gender identity theory, “namely the belief that people are born with an internal sense of gender which may or may not correspond to their biological sex”. They also point out that the film-makers’ own beliefs are protected by the Equality Act 2010 and claim that the union is guilty of discrimination under the same Act.
The union – or respondent – denies discrimination, with its own tribunal documents somehow maintaining that, “The respondent’s conduct was proportionate and necessary in the interests of advocating the rights of others. Accordingly, the reason for any less favourable treatment was not the claimants’ gender-critical belief or lack of a belief in gender identity theory.”
The UCU goes on: “The conduct of the respondent was to highlight its commitment to supporting its members that identify as trans or non-binary. The respondent’s conduct was in line with its current support for its trans, non-binary and LGBT+ members.”
A support, it would seem, that not all members enjoy.
The tribunal continues.
More on the story here and here.
Adult Human Female is available on YouTube here.
If you or anyone you know has got into trouble for something said in the workplace, and a trade union has either been no help or has actually joined the witch-hunt, please do get in touch: help@freespeechunion.org.
