I remember how it was -- JR
UK: Gender-critical teacher, 60, tells tribunal he was sacked after refusing to use trans student's preferred pronouns
A gender-critical teacher has told a tribunal he was sacked after refusing to use a trans student's preferred pronouns.
Kevin Lister, 60, was dismissed for gross misconduct in September 2022 by New College Swindon following complaints by two students.
The maths teacher had refused to refer to a biologically female student, 17, by their preferred male name and he/him pronouns in A-level lessons.
Mr Lister has taken the college to an employment tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal, discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief, and that he suffered a detriment and/or dismissal due to exercising rights under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
The hearing was told that the teenager - known only as Student A - had informed the college in September 2021 they wished to be addressed by a boy's name and with the male pronouns.
Giving evidence, Mr Lister, from Wiltshire, suggested the decision of Student A to use male pronouns had the effect of 'compelled speech' - meaning he and fellow students had to follow their wish, irrespective of their own beliefs.
'I took issue with the demand on me to socially transition children who are unable to make an informed decision,' he told the hearing at the Bristol Civil Justice Centre.
'That is the intention of the policy - to encourage children to socially transition and to push them towards transgender lobby groups.
'Why are we not allowed to question why a student is presenting in the opposite sex?
'It is not the role of a maths teacher to confirm the gender transition and social transition of a student.'
Mr Lister said that, as a teacher, he had an 'obligation to teach facts' and said college policies went beyond the Equality Act and claimed they were 'illegal' as a result.
'I do say this is breaching the Equality Act because you are encouraging the idea that a non-binary person can come into class and say she is a boy and by the afternoon she can say somewhere between the two,' he said.
Referring to the college policy, Mr Lister said: 'It doesn't require gender-critical people to change their beliefs.
'What the policy does require is to be accepting in a way that is contrary to our beliefs.'
Jude Shepherd, the barrister representing the college, suggested the policy did not prevent staff members holding gender-critical beliefs from being 'inclusive and treating people with respect'.
Mr Lister told the hearing that, when Student A informed him by email of their wish to be referred to by male pronouns, he immediately raised a safeguarding concern with the college as he was concerned about their academic performance and whether the two were linked.
'She does not have the right to compel teachers and other students who do not share her views,' he said.
'It is the interpretation of the word "respect" which is at issue here.'
The hearing was told that during lessons Mr Lister, instead of using Student A's preferred pronouns, would point at them.
'I gestured. Some people would say I was pointing. I didn't want to use her dead name but I didn't want to assist with her social transitioning,' Mr Lister said.
During one lesson, Student A asked whether they could enter a nationwide maths competition for girls, and Mr Lister replied: 'Of course you can enter because you are a girl.'
Ms Shepherd asked: 'Do you accept that was an insensitive response?'
Mr Lister replied: 'No, that was a factual response. Student A is trying to subject me to compelled speech and the rest of the class to compelled speech.
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The Potted Plants of Higher Education
By RICHARD K. VEDDER
Throughout most of the nearly seven decades in which I have had an intimate association with American higher education, I have pondered the question: “Who really ‘owns’ the universities?”
Several groups claim at least partial control on many campuses, hence the oft-cited term “shared governance.” But to avoid chaos, some specific individual or group has to have ultimate authority to make decisions regarding the use of university resources. Almost always, that is a governing board: “board of trustees,” “board of regents,” “board of visitors,” etc. I have worked with several such boards and spoken at statewide meetings to them, so I guess some think I am an expert on the subject.
I recently corresponded with a former student of mine now a trustee at a state university, about his board’s reaction to certain major developments at the school, and he replied, “We need to discuss many things but we won’t, and will continue to be potted plants.” He added that board members literally receive scripts for each meeting, even told when to make a motion or offer a scripted comment. In short, the boards are sort of a ceremonial device to maintain the façade that the university has a group in charge of serving the broader public interest, not just rubber stamp decisions made by university power brokers. Votes are almost always unanimous. In reality, the public is being conned into believing that the universities are getting effective external oversight.
Actually, university governing boards come in all shapes and sizes. Most public boards range from perhaps seven to as many as 20 members, but private school boards often number several dozen. Occasionally, boards have activists who believe that not only should they have a major role not only in determining the general direction of the university but also in making more routine decisions, down to who should be appointed the football coach. Sometimes, boards—Michigan State is a good recent example—have nasty internal warfare over control of the board itself.
That said, the “potted plant” model my friend described is probably the most common one. Boards have one truly important job: appointing the president, but then usually take a mostly ceremonial back seat role similar to that of the King of England—nominally powerful but in reality mostly a figurehead. To be sure, appointed trustees sometimes provide useful services to the school, most importantly by their financial gifts, especially critical at private schools, but also at state schools by using political connections to help win favors in the state capital from the governor, key legislators, or regulatory groups—like a state department of education or higher education, etc.
The growing perceived problems of higher education have ignited greater conversations about the role of governing boards. In the case of state universities, is their role to maximize the interests of the university community or to represent the broader public, ensuring that the taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment? A bill—Senate Bill 506—narrowly passed the Virginia legislature but, at this writing, unsigned by the Governor, seems to explicitly state that the trustees report to the University administration, not explicitly serving the broader public interest—in my judgment, a grievous mistake. Similarly, in private schools, like those in the Ivy League, shouldn’t trustees monitor and occasionally even alter actions of the University community that hurt both the school’s reputation and the broader public good?
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis summarily removed the entire board of New College and replaced it with new members who indicated they planned to change the nature and direction of the institution, I at first considered the action excessively radical and disruptive, but upon reflection, I feel it served a useful purpose by calling attention to the importance of imposing some external constraints on what campus communities can do.
It is increasingly obvious that colleges and universities need some adult supervision—public confidence is waning, enrollments have fallen, traditional campus support of free expression and robust viewpoint diversity have deteriorated, and increasingly unethical or even illegal behavior has occurred. Governing boards have a legitimate, more than ceremonial role to play, starting with recruiting able administrators who handle most issues, but also by monitoring campus happenings in a mostly non-intrusive way and constraining inappropriate behavior. The precise optimal role should vary somewhat—religiously affiliated schools, elite private universities, non-elite state schools, including community colleges probably require differing forms of external monitoring—but Boards should be more than rubber stamps or potted plants.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14867&omhide=true&trk=rm
******************************************‘Exorbitant’ fees paid to academic publishers better spent on research and education, report finds
This is certainly a problem. The top journals can basically charge what they like. Any inability to access them would greatly hinder research
Australia’s public research institutions are paying $1bn a year to giant academic publishers, new research shows, amid growing calls for taxpayer money to be redirected away from private enterprises.
The Australia Institute report, released on Wednesday, questioned if more public money should be used for research and education instead of being directed to international academic publishers.
Academic publishes are among the most profitable businesses in the world – raking in massive profit margins approaching 40% – in line with Google and Apple.
The market is dominated by five major houses – Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature and SAGE Publications – and rakes in billions of dollars a year.
The report found Australia’s research institutions and universities spent $300m on journal subscriptions annually, totalling $1bn when additional fees and publication charges were added.
The “exorbitant” fees are charged to institutions and research groups in order to access research that the public largely funds, the report said. One-off access for a single article costs about $50.
Dr Kristen Scicluna, a postdoctoral research fellow and author of the report, said research was being “hamstrung” without appropriate funding and money could be better directed elsewhere.
“This amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars every year – much of it public money – spent on publication and subscription, not research and discovery,” she said.
Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Cathy Foley, has proposed a world-first open access model, recently finalised for the federal government, that would provide a centralised digital library for all Australians to access research papers free of charge, as long as they had a MyGov account or were in education.
Scicluna said Foley’s plan was a “great start” but did not go far enough, instead pressing for reform as to how research grants were awarded.
“It doesn’t do much to disrupt entrenchment publishers have on academic workflow,” she said.
Scicluna’s proposal includes revising grant criteria to reward publication in open access journals that have lower publishing fees and trialling a lottery-based grant system to reduce the power of major journals.
Australia’s two major public grant bodies – the Australian Research Council (Arc) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) – require publications to be open access, with stipulations in place. But receiving a grant depends on an academic’s track record, typically based on whether they have published in prestigious journals.
Scicluna said until grant conditions offered academics alternative avenues for promotion, private publishers would continue to benefit.
The lottery system has been trialled in New Zealand, the UK, Germany, Australia and Switzerland to some success. Grant applications are first screened for eligibility, then awarded randomly to applicants considered equal, to reduce the emphasis on a researcher’s publication record.
“Publishers can just keep increasing prices, so [the] funding universities get through the government to cover the costs of research, salaries and equipment end[s] up going to library subscription fees.”
In Australia, the Council of Australian University Librarians has taken the lead on negotiating open-access agreements on behalf of institutions. The council’s executive director, Jane Angel, said the need for reform came down to equity.
Angel said not advancing open access particularly hindered innovation among people without access to paywalled information – primarily, those outside educational institutions.
“That either predicates that innovation comes or is perpetuated among those who are tertiary educated, or suggests that this is where we expect to find innovation,” she said.
“That is not democratic or progressive, or indicative of the Australia [the education minister] Jason Clare wants where ‘no one is held back, and no one is left behind’.”
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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