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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

20 Feb

I want to tell you a story. It illustrates the low level, but unpleasant hassle faced by academics holding views deemed unacceptable by self-appointed defenders of public safety. I'm not going to name names. I'm not interested in facilitating a pile on. The abused is>>

robust and capable of looking after themself. I was sent a screenshot of the abuser's protected twitter narration of the incident. I've also seen it tweeted on here. I've no idea how it was leaked. I've not seen its authenticity challenged. >>

So to the tale. Dr X organizes a seminar with a symposium panel under the auspices of a Faculty in a large well known UK university. Dr Y who is a member of the university with a legitimate interest in the subject matter of the panel registers to >

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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

19 Feb

A banal thought. The test for the limitation of speech in the public sphere must ultimately be some notion of harm actually or potentially caused. So the important questions are what kinds of harm should we care about, who gets to decide, how do they decide and what sort of >>

evidence and argument is admissible. Arguing about abstract conceptions of free speech or preemptively shouting, "no debate" obscures the constitutional conference type of discussion that might help us deal more rationally with the practical issues. Of course if you are wedded to

a "there is no problem, it's all confected" view then this will seem irrelevant. On the other hand if you're actually faced with the claim that the presence of speaker X on the platform, or even the very idea of speaker X, makes a person or class of persons feel unsafe, then

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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

18 Feb

Things ain't simple. It's perfectly consistent to believe the following: 1) a government appointed free speech czar is a terrible idea & undesirable 2) many members of academia don't notice or feel any restriction on the free expression of their views 3) some members of academia

are subject to systematic campaigns of harassment because of their views, in some cases simply for stating undeniable facts (not "facts") 4) Circulating lengthy public denunciations, calling for someone to be disciplined or fired, deliberately misrepresenting what they say,

encouraging frivolous complaints or boycotts are not normal ways of conducting academic arguments and go far beyond the norms of academic free and fair exchange; 5) Some academics deny that such things take place because it suits them not to see it 6) Some are silent because

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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

15 Feb

The idea that between 1841 and relatively recently the Census authorities were completely agnostic about what the population thought the target of the sex question was is ludicrous and shows a complete lack of historical imagination. From 1841 the head of household filled

in the schedule and a census enumerator checked and amended the return. If you want to call that "self-report" fair enough, but all the questions were answered by self-report in that sense. This does not = self-id. It is completely implausible to believe that historically there

was any quantitatively serious divergence between the recorded answers to the Census sex question and biological sex as proxied by what was written on birth certificates after civil registration was introduced in 1837. When reality changes, as it undoubtedly has (though we >>

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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

15 Feb

Trying to control and manipulate the use of language is part of political struggle, to pretend otherwise is absurd. If we all agreed about what constitutes anti-semitic, islamophobic, racist, sexist or transphobic speech, there would be no problem. But outwith a core of >>

shared understanding there is a large zone of contestation. There are zealots that deny that & assert that their & only their understanding is to count. Again, a political rather than a cognitive move. The same can be said of the strategy of taking over hitherto >>

well understood words, investing them with Pickwickian meanings & trading on the conventionality of language. The idea of a government appointed "free speech Czar" fills me with horror. I've little faith that such a person will be some sort of honest broker. But this is

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Colin Mills

@OxSoc

13 Feb

Having occasion to think how different the taken for granted world is for my students compared to the world I grew up in, not least because vast majority of my students didn't grow up in the UK. Take schooling. >>

I grew up in a large Midlands city. My cohort was last to take 11+ but for boys there were no LEA grammar schools or free places in Direct Grants. For girls there were two. So almost all boys went to "bog standard" comps with the girls that were left after selection. Never >>

occurred to me to wonder why the more academically successful kids always seemed to be lads. And then there is diversity. The 3 "grammar stream sets" as they were known were almost entirely white. Out of 100 kids I can remember 3 asian faces & no black faces. >>

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