style=”font-size: 11pt”>It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Sussex authorities that it was precisely their inability to prevent the bullying and harassment of Stock that brought the fine down on them.
Not so much their inability as their unwillingness. They could have acted against the protestors, but they didn't.
Stock was forced out of her position at Sussex – well known even in academia for its leftist sympathies – by naked and hate-filled intimidation. Her crime? Writing a book in which she questioned whether fashionable social attitudes to trans and non-binary issues outweighed the biological reality of male and female sex. Sussex students put posters up around the university campus calling for her to be sacked for her views. Stock even considered employing private security guards to ensure her personal safety while she was on the university premises.
Disgracefully, the university did little, or nothing, to protect or defend their own staff member from the abuse. Eventually, the threats forced Stock to resign.
Encouragingly, the Education Secretary has voiced her support for the OfS’s decision. Bridget Phillipson said that academic freedom and free speech were ‘non negotiable’, that the government had taken powers to enforce such principles, and that ‘robust action’ would be taken against all those who did not uphold these standards. It’s about time.
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