From UnHerd, the thought crime of liking Tweets. 

By Mike McCulloch

University was once a place that prided itself on freedom of thought, academic inquiry and a free exchange of ideas, but in recent years it has turned into something different. As a university lecturer in geomatics, I can attest to this: earlier this month, I received a polite email from my Head of School stating that an anonymous person had sent a list of tweets that I had ‘liked’ over a 24-hour period to the University’s Equalities Team. My supposed ‘crime’ was that I had liked posts saying ‘All lives matter’, ‘Gender has a scientific basis’ and ones opposed to mass immigration.

The complainant extrapolated from that to say that I was black-hating, woman-hating, immigrant-hating … etc, which is not true. In the complaint, this person also targeted my work by claiming that my physics papers had been blacklisted by journals, which again, is not true.

Last week, I was then told of another complaint received by the University and that there would be an investigation.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

Liked Tweets Nearly Cost Me My University Job

From UnHerd, the thought crime of liking Tweets. 

By Mike McCulloch

University was once a place that prided itself on freedom of thought, academic inquiry and a free exchange of ideas, but in recent years it has turned into something different. As a university lecturer in geomatics, I can attest to this: earlier this month, I received a polite email from my Head of School stating that an anonymous person had sent a list of tweets that I had ‘liked’ over a 24-hour period to the University’s Equalities Team. My supposed ‘crime’ was that I had liked posts saying ‘All lives matter’, ‘Gender has a scientific basis’ and ones opposed to mass immigration.

The complainant extrapolated from that to say that I was black-hating, woman-hating, immigrant-hating … etc, which is not true. In the complaint, this person also targeted my work by claiming that my physics papers had been blacklisted by journals, which again, is not true.

Last week, I was then told of another complaint received by the University and that there would be an investigation.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

3 comments:

  1. I know it has ramifications, but I believe academics who value free speech should leave these institutions, they have lost all rationality

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  2. I am glad that the case was dropped. It was notnhing like the gratuitous racism that David Starkey spouted (again) this week for which he has rightfully been sanctioned for.

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    Replies
    1. Barry - I think the comment "so many damned blacks" is what damned him rather than the opinion that slavery was not genocide per se. I think the comment in relation to genocide is permissible even if objectionable. It is part of what makes free inquiry in a way that his "so many damned blacks" does not.
      I actually debated him yonks ago on the Moral Maze.

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