Two statements competing for most craven newspeak capitulation of the week. First @SEBuitendijk Vice Provost @imperialcollege: "I support academic freedom to debate all ideas on social media. Except this. I will stop engaging with wrongthink in order to promote open discussion"
Then there is @PHMMcr We recognise there are different perspectives. "We encourage debate on all issues. Except this. We will remove expressions of wrongthink from our space in order to invite thought and discussion and be welcoming to all. "
And here is today's #newspeak#cravencapitualtion@andywightman "will engage in respectful dialogue" , apologises for "hurt and distress" caused by attending meeting on wome's sex based rights. "Defends free speech" but woman calling male attacker "he" should be shunned
Also, could women calling out their utter disappointment please fuck off #respectfuldialogue
@andywightman Adding to the thread of apologies . Here the @GreensNSW apologise for publishing an opinion piece by a member stating that women exist as a sex
Adding @TheStage to the #whereisyoubackbone list. There is an issue about which people disagree. So we commissioned two pieces to help people understand both sides .... and for that we apologise.
Here is the perfectly reasonable article by @sarahditum
@sarahditum The article that gave the 'right side of history' view was by @ambermb but she apologised almost as soon as it was published being the wrong kind of person (as a bog standard female) to write an article about whether women's toilets should be made unisex.
@sarahditum@ambermb Apologies and non-apologies..... back in June the @nscpcc appointed Munroe Bergdorf as an ambassador, and then quickly changed their mind when they realised they had not done their due diligence on Bergdorf's suitability bbc.co.uk/news/uk-486434…
This was a failure by @nspcc. It was right they they apologised to Bergdorf for their mishandling, but their first priority must be children, not celebrity hurt feelings, or rainbow branding nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/new…
Concerns about Bergdorf being linked to the children's charity were serious: inviting children to make contact directly, and promoting sexualisation of children as 'drag kids'.
150 NSPCC staff responded with a letter saying they were "deeply disappointed about the treatment of Munroe by the organisation" - they said the concerns were pressure from “a relatively small group of people” and they condemned the decision theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
Let that sink in. There are 150 staff at NSPCC who see nothing wrong with an adult inviting vulnerable children to contact them by DM, and in saying kids are never to young to engage in sexualised behaviour for adult's entertainment. No problem at all.... dazeddigital.com/life-culture/a…
Another big fan of 'drag kid' Desmond is Amazing is paedophile Tom O’Carroll (of PIE fame)..... it is just not OK for an NSPCC celebrity ambassador to be promoting this.
@PeterWanless issued an apology mainly to Bergdorf (who was badly treated), but burying the bit where NSPCC recognised the failure of their due diligence processes right at the end. nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/new…
The women of Mumsnet were concerned that NSPCC were brushing its internal due diligence failure under the carpet and taking their eye off the ball of child safeguarding and so they started to investigate.... mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_ri…
What they found out was that the person responsible for booking Bergdorf was an NSCPCC employee with a rubber fetish who posted obscene videos of himself filmed in work toilets and business trips & linking this with his professional Linked-in profile uncommongroundmedia.com/nspcc-employee…
This was the @NSPCC 's initial public response when whistleblowers raised this. They said that supporting staff was their priority & people highlighting their concerns were 'bullying'. They urged people to report them to twitter to shut them up.
Quietly it turns out the NSPCC has come to the conclusion that making homemade porn videos at work was 'inconsistent with the values expected of an employee' of the child safeguarding charity.
Will the @NSPCC and @Independent and @guardian apologise for smearing whistleblowers who raised concerns about whether Munroe Bergdorf and James Makings were suitable for working with the NSPCC as 'bullies' and 'anti-trans trolls'? @PeterWanless ?
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15 months after calling me in for questioning about a tweet, and having sat on the CPS decision that there was no crime for 2 months, the Met bothered to call me up at 7pm this evening to tell me, and then put out this press statement. 🙄
#TheProcessIsThePunishment
Here is the tweet over which they wasted their time, my time, my lawyers time and taxpayers' money.
Minister for Women & Equalities says "We are proud of the EqAct & the rights & protections it affords women. The Govt does not plan to amend legal definitions in the act.”
Hundreds of women are going to Parliament on Wednesday to ask the govt to rethink.
It took 22 more years before 1919 the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed permitting women to become join professions and to become lawyers and civil servants and to sit on juries.
There is new statutory safeguarding guidance out for schools in England which tells them to consider risks and harms to gender questioning children as part of safeguarding.
When this was out for consultation earlier in the year Adam Jepsen, Chief Health and Sex Education Officer of the Family Planning Association said that the government must withdraw it.
"These changes do not support trans children" he argued.
This is not the only topic where university VCs have not defended academic freedom strongly enough, but it is a very good demonstration of the problem.
@bphillipsonMP
Prof @Docstockk was hounded out of @SussexUni
She has been waiting for 3 years for the results of an @officestudents investigation