Women’s Voices in Academia

Conference notes that

A: Universities have a duty to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom. 

B: Freedom of speech is under threat in UK universities. Female academics who believe that sex is binary and immutable, a belief that has come to be known as ‘gender critical’, have been unjustly and disproportionately targeted by their institutions. [Source: GC Academia Network]

C: Academics, students, visiting speakers and non-academic staff have been subjected to abuse, harassment, intimidation, defamation, cancelation, black-listing, lengthy disciplinary investigations and loss of positions as a result of their beliefs. [Source: The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education by Alice Sullivan and Judith Suissa in the Journal of Philosophy of Education.]

D: Gender critical beliefs are a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010. [Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in Forstater v CGD Europe]

E: In 2019, 60 percent of UK universities were listed as ‘Stonewall Diversity Champions’. [Source: Stonewall website] 

F: In May 2021 the Reindorf Report, an independent review commissioned by Essex University, found that the University had breached the rights to freedom of expression of two professors. It recommended that the institution apologise and take a number of actions including reviewing its relationship with Stonewall. It said, ‘this relationship appears to have given University members the impression that gender critical academics can legitimately be excluded from the institution’.

Conference recognises that: 

i. Freedom of speech is the bedrock liberal value.

ii. The preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution reminds us that we seek to build a society ‘in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity’. 

iii. It also says, ‘we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation’

iii.  It further affirms ‘we will at all times defend the right to speak, write, worship, associate and vote freely . . .and to promote the free movement of ideas.’

Conference believes that: 

a) The preservation and advancement of equality and human rights is predicated on the ability of various groups in society to be able to articulate their positions in open debate.

b) Universities have allowed their ability to uphold academic freedom and equality principles to become compromised.  

c) Proposed government legislation sends a necessary signal to universities about their responsibility to uphold and safeguard academic freedom.

Conference deplores: 

1)  The climate of violence, intimidation and abuse of gender critical academics and students.  

Conference calls for:

1) Universities to uphold their duties regarding both academic freedom and their public sector equality duty, and to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation within their organisations.

2) The negotiating of sex critical and gender critical beliefs to be achieved by open, rational, and respectful debate, in the spirit of liberalism and in accordance with the principles of J S Mill.