TL;DR: The UK university regulator has fined the University of Sussex over a policy which was designed to prevent hateful and bullying views being shared toward transgender people on campus, under what's been decried as an "absolutist" approach to free speech. The fine could have a chilling impact right across the UK's education system.
The regulator who oversees universities in the UK has fined the University of Sussex over its transgender-inclusive policies that banned speakers from making anti-trans statements.
The university has been fined £585,000 by the higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS). It follows a three-year battle over the regulator's rules about protecting free speech and academic freedom on campuses - BBC
The regulator said the university's policies that included a requirement to "positively represent trans people" could lead to staff and students preventing themselves from voicing opposing views. The university plans to appeal the ruling, accusing the regulator of pursuing a "vindictive and unreasonable campaign."
It says that if the ruling goes unchallenged, it will leave the institution and universities across the UK "powerless to prevent abusive, bullying and harassing speech."
Arif Ahmed, OfS director for freedom of speech, said the fine could have been as high as £3.7m and there was "potential for higher fines in the future" - BBC
The investigation started because of the wider debate around Professor Kathleen Stock. She left the university in 2021 amid on-campus protests accusing her of transphobia because of her ‘gender-critical’ books, lectures and views - The Guardian
Who is Kathleen Stock?
Stock is the author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters For Feminism and has a background in philosophy, publishing academic work on sexual objectification and sexual orientation. The book, which takes a trans-exclusionary approach to feminism, was at the centre of the row that ultimately led to her leaving the university.
Stock quickly became a darling of the right-wing press after her departure.
Despite regularly claiming over the past four years that she has been silenced, she has become one of the most common commentators on broadcast TV and in right-wing newspapers on transgender rights. She has picked up a number of newspaper columns and helped prominent anti-trans and so-called ‘gender-critical’ organisations to grow in prominence.
As well as being a trustee for the LGB Alliance for a significant period, she also launched The Lesbian Project to much fanfare. The organisation said it would lobby, build communities and develop research into lesbian communities. However, since launching it has done little more than produce a short blog series and a paid-for podcast.
Analysis: A dangerous precedent from a regulator with an "absolutist" approach to free speech
When I was at university, I learned an important theory during a discussion with a lecturer in the LGBTQIA+ staff group about the approach of 'no-platforming' those with hateful views.
He explained how the absolutist idea of free speech is ultimately self-defeating. The logic is simple: if you allow all speech - even hate speech - that hate speech will be used to end free speech. To put it another way, hateful actors will use democratic principles in order to take over and impose their hateful views on everyone else. One look to the US, and Trump’s control over scientific research and shuttering of the Department of Education this week is a clear example.
That’s why whenever you hear people arguing for unlimited free speech, you should question their intentions. As a society, we've always had rules about where to draw the line on speech or actions that harm people and society. The claims from the right-wing press that free speech is under attack are hypocritical because they, too are arguing for a different form of control over language.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson says she will use "robust action" to uphold the legal right to ‘Academic Freedom’ established by the 1988 Education Reform Act. But as the University of Sussex points out, this free-for-all approach to speech has a detrimental impact. It's the same ideology that Musk shares, and we saw what that meant for the hellhole formerly known as Twitter.
If the University of Sussex is unable to overturn this ruling, it will have a chilling effect at universities across the UK. At their best, our unis are bastions of progressive nurturing, but this precedent would undermine their purpose with hateful views when they should be focusing on imagining a better future for our world.
An increasing challenge
Tackling misinformation is at the heart of what we do here at QueerAF. But a new trend is emerging - and it’s getting worse every week.
To put this newsletter together each week, I trawl an array of LGBTQIA+, mainstream and independent titles so that, alongside our original journalism, we can bring you a week's worth of queer knowledge in less than five minutes.
But recently, as well as unpicking right-wing bias, we're facing a new challenge: news sites that look legitimate at first glance but are actually entirely created by generative AI.
The signs are easy to spot when you look properly. The catalogue of spelling errors or plain gaps in words. The stories which don't quite add up when you scroll past the headline. The images that don't match the news. But at a scan, they seem trustworthy. And the link between them all? Their anti-trans, hateful LGBTQIA+ attitudes and pro-Trumpism agendas.
We were one of the first titles in the UK to rule out using generative AI to write and generate news. We did that not only because of the threat it provides to creative jobs - but also because of its inability to do what only a human can do: see through the subjectivity to properly check facts.
Cutting through the noise, and ensuring you get the facts is critical for our community in this acute time. But it takes real resources. We need your support to stand up for the truth.
The only way to fight back is to build out independent media that has the resources to bring you the information, culture and joyful queer news you deserve.
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