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Adam Tickell, the vice-chancellor at the institution, said: “We are investigating activity on our campus which appears to have been designed to attack Prof Kathleen Stock for exercising her academic freedoms. Disturbingly, this has included pressuring the university to terminate her employment… Everyone at the university has the right to be free from harassment and intimidation. We cannot and will not tolerate threats to cherished academic freedoms and will take any action necessary to protect the rights of our community.”… a University of Sussex spokesperson said: “We were extremely concerned to see the harassment towards our staff member and took immediate action in response to this, which is continuing”.
In their “manifesto,” the students say that Stock is one of Britain’s “most prominent transphobes” who “has spent years campaigning for the exclusion of trans people from ‘women’s only spaces’, and against trans and non-binary people’s right to self-identify as any gender.” They write: “Our demand is simple: fire Kathleen Stock. Until then, you’ll see us around.” They have also put up flyers around the campus calling for Stock to be fired and have engaged in demonstrations.
According to The Guardian,
An “anonymous, unaffiliated group of queer, trans, and non-binary students” at the University of Sussex is calling for the school to fire philosophy professor Kathleen Stock for her views and activism regarding trans women.
While it is unfortunate that the students seem to lack an appreciation of the value of academic freedom, the students themselves have under UK law a right to freedom of expression, including the right to (unwisely) call for one of their professors to be fired, and to do this in writings, on social media, on flyers, and through in-person demonstrations. They also have the right to publicly condemn her views. It is unclear from reports whether the students have done anything besides this.
A photo from the antiterfsussex Instagram feed depicting people (whose faces are obscured by smiley-face images) demonstrating against philosophy professor Kathleen Stock.
Clearly, academic freedom protects Professor Stock from termination on account of her views, and there is no indication that this campaign has any traction with anyone in a position to affect her employment status.
