After the Phoenix tribunal, and subsequent announcement of an independent review at the Open University (OU), can we really hope for change? Or is the OU response little more than lip service? And what might this mean for students going forward? 

The Open University’s Independent Review 

The day after the damning judgement against the OU in Professor Jo Phoenix’s employment tribunal was handed down, (Jan 2024), the OU issued a petulant statement announcing that it was “disappointed by the judgement” and would “need time to consider it in detail, including our right to appeal”.

Judge Young strongly condemned the OU’s failure to intervene in the ‘creation of an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’ constructed by many of their witnesses. The judge also found the evidence of many OU witnesses to be "not credible". 

Jo Phoenix and I were in the same department, and she acted in an advisory role to me. She was my ‘third party monitor’ until constructively unfairly dismissed, and many of the names and faces involved in her case also appear in mine.

Three days after their first statement on the tribunal judgement, the OU announced that it planned to hold “a major independent review of our internal working environment” and would be “addressing the challenge… of balancing complexities of upholding academic freedom, freedom of speech, and equality and employment rights”.

Any optimism that lessons were being learned was short-lived, however. On 7th May 2024, the OU announced the appointed external legal advisor of those appointed toundertake the review was none other than Smita Jamdar. In extensive social media posts on the subject, Jamdar describes herself as in “despair” regarding sex realist beliefs, and “astonished at just how little I can relate to GC thinking”. She has also published articles arguing that no-platforming isa legitimate expression of free speech, and has describedconcerns surrounding free speech in universities as “flimsy”and a “moral panic”.

Within 24 hours the OU had amended the announcement on its website to remove mention of Ms Jamdar, but it remains a mystery as to why anyone involved considered her suitable for the role in the first place. Only time will tell if others selected will possess the objectivity necessary to produce a balanced review.

Why a student case matters 

The stream of employment tribunal wins bodes well for the future acceptance of sex realist views. However, PhD students are not protected by employment law, nor are they able to draw on the resources of trade unions for advice or representation. This leaves student voices unheard, and the impact on students of discrimination against sex realism within universities goes both unrecognised and unrecorded. 

In place of employment law students may use contract law to bring a case, although it’s still relatively new for students to sue universities. In some ways this makes the process more difficult, but it’s important that universities are made to recognise they have an obligation to students as well as to staff members. The chilling effect of transactivism on students within institutions does not just affect the individuals targeted;the explicit bullying of one individual has the intended effect of inhibiting the thought, speech, and actions of the much wider group.

Punishment of students with sex realist approaches, and bullying and attempts to remove students who complain of staff/institutional misconduct, must be addressed if universities are to re-establish themselves as places where students can learn and undertake research without fear or intimidation. This is not just important for academia; it influences wider intellectual thought and affects every aspect of society.

I have contacted the OU to ask whether documentation relating to my case will be considered as part of the review but have not yet received any response. 

That’s why I need to ask again for your help in raising funds to hold the Open University to account. Please contribute if possible, and/or publicise my case to others. And thank you for your support so far.

Delays in the court system have meant that the higher education ombudsman, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) has rejected my request that they investigate my complaint about the Open University (OU). This makes holding the OU to account in the court even more crucial.

My case is vitally important: I am the only student pursuing a case in this area, and my crucially important research on Grenfell cannot be allowed to be scuppered.

In their most recent correspondence, the Open University’s solicitor admitted, in writing, that the university had put me under investigation after I submitted my complaint. The university never told me I was under investigation, nor what allegations had been made about me, nor who had made them. This is obviously against OU procedures, and any semblance of a fair or transparent process.

OIA investigations focus largely on the university’s complaint process, and so following the OU’s admission the OIA would have been expected to find in my favour in this respect.

However OIA rules state they can’t look at a case which is currently the subject of legal action, and will only consider such a case where the court has issued a stay in the legal proceedings. We applied for a stay of one year in February 2023, but delays in the court system meant it was not granted until November 2023, and we were only issued with the paperwork confirming it had been granted three weeks ago, in April 2024.  We had already applied for an extension to that stay, to continue after February 2024, but again delays in the court system mean that we have not been able to get confirmation from the court that the extension has been granted.

As the OU has now explicitly admitted that they have, by investigating me after I submitted my complaint, deviated significantly from any just or transparent process, the decision of the OIA to not investigate my complaint is extremely disappointing.

It also makes it even more important that the OU is held to account in the court system.

Such delays and obstructions cost money in legal fees, and consume a great deal of time. It is tough and tiring, but I remain undeterred. Please help by donating, and/or sharing the word. Please share the crowdfunder, and explain to others why they should support my case.

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundum!

Thank you for your support.

In June when I launched the crowd-funder I was initially seeking to raise £11,000, part for solicitor’s fees and part to cover the cost of Barrister Alice De Coverley drafting the particulars of the case.

Since that time further solicitor’s fees have been incurred, and the total I need to cover the costs for this stage of my case is now £13,500.  I need to raise this by the end of this month.

Thank you very much for your support.

10/10/2023

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for your email explaining that the Open University is again planning to take disciplinary action against me unless I remove information from my crowdfunding page.

Unfortunately however I am not currently in a position to respond, as:

• I have not yet received the letter of response from the Open University’s solicitor, although it is many months since my claims were communicated to the university by my solicitor, and the deadline for your response has now passed.

• The Open University has still not replied to my request for a review of my data subject access request (DSAR), made over 2 months ago on 07/08/2023, nor to my email chasing this request for review sent on 10/09/2023. As noted in my request the DSAR data issued by the OU neglected to include emails regarding me exchanged between relevant staff, and also contained a number of redactions that required justification as to which exemptions (as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018) were applied. I note your inclusion of 1 of the email threads cited in my request, but that your removal of redactions has not been applied to the 3^rd email in the thread, and despite my request for this information I have as yet still not received the explanation for those redactions, nor for any of the other redactions that have been queried. This is particularly concerning given that earlier this year the ICO upheld my complaint regarding the OUs handling of my data after the OU failed to provide DSAR data until 8 months after my DSAR request was made, 5 months after the maximum legally permitted deadline.

It is disappointing that the OU is again threatening disciplinary action against me while concurrently failing to respond to legal requirements and timeframes, as of course these failures on the OU’s part put me at a significant disadvantage in any proceedings. However once I have received the above information from the Open University I will be in a position to respond.

Kind regards

Pilgrim Tucker