After an almost year-long campaign by students to boycott his classes, renowned saxophonist Martin Speake has been forced to quit his job at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Speake told CAF that leadership at the London-based institution showed minimal amounts of support, abdicating “power” to the students.
Speaking to Speake, it is clear that he is still deeply marked by the experience. He recalls how the campaign against him “ruined” his life, as the boycott moved off campus and into the music industry at large. “It’s not just the teaching, which is bad enough, it’s every other avenue as well.”, he said describing the near total shunning from colleagues, venues, and former collaborators.
Speake has taught jazz music for 35 years, 22 of which has been at Trinity Laban. “It was really only a three days a week thing,” he explains “but I spent a lot of my own time there with the students as well, rehearsing my music with them; mentoring them”.
Things began to change in February of last year, however, when the principal of the conservatoire Anthony Bowne sent out an email about their Black Lives Matter policy and diversity initiatives, ending it by encouraging staff to “share their experiences”.
Speake decided to take Bowne up on this invitation. He composed a 1170-word response, sharing his own views on racism and biases in the jazz industry. “I’ve taught there for decades, and I thought they would value my feedback as an experienced member [of staff]” he recalls, adding that “I guess that was a little naive”.
His email, which can be read in full here, argued that the UK jazz scene was not systemically racist against blacks; quite the reverse. Often black musicians “have far more opportunities than many others as funding bodies, media, promoters and festivals are biased in this way”.
Moreover, Speake wrote that the true obstacles to equal opportunity in music is “about class not skin colour”, adding that many “poor white, Asian and black children don’t get the opportunity to play music or can’t afford instruments. Not just black”. Speake also suggested having a meeting to discuss the issue in more detail.
Initially, nothing happened after Speake sent his email. “Five weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything” he recalls. Finally, the Director of Music Aleks Szram, who had been copied in on the email, responded and agreed to a meeting.
However, the next morning another message appeared in Speake’s inbox, informing him that several students at Trinity Laban had apparently read his email and were now too “anxious” to go to his classes. As a result, the institution temporarily halted his classes, and according to Speake, even threatened disciplinary action against him.
It is a little unclear how the students got a hold of the email in the first place. While waiting for a response from the principal, Speake had himself shared the email with one third-year student during a conversation about race and jazz in the UK. As Speake recalls, the student subsequently read parts of the email to some of his peers, wanting to share a different perspective with them, but refused to forward them the email.
It is possible that the students who complained never actually read Speake’s email, but merely heard parts of it being read aloud, or even just encountered rumours about its contents. Either way, the controversy quickly gained steam. Speake was largely kept in the dark during most of this, but he was apparently informed that one student in particularly reported feeling anxious about continuing the lessons.
Wanting to smooth things over, Speake reached out to the student in question, copying in the Head of Jazz in the interest of transparency, and suggested having a meeting to discuss everything. “It could have been resolved right then.” Speake said, “That’s the amazing thing about this”.
According to Speake, the student actually agreed to meet with him and other members of the faculty to attempt to work out the issue. However, the meeting never went ahead, as leadership were unwilling to arrange it. “The student said he wanted to resolve this.” Speake recalled, “Why would they not want to do that?”
Instead, a meeting was arranged with every student on the Jazz course – some 95 people – and several members of staff and HR. Martin Speake, however, was not invited, and only learned of what he called the “secret meeting” through one of the students who attended.
Whatever happened during the meeting, it failed to calm the controversy. The next day, Speake was called into another meeting with the Head of Jazz and the Director of Music, and was “emotionally pressured” to allow his email to be shared with every student at Trinity Laban. The result of this, according to Speake, was that his “whole livelihood has been destroyed”.
The release of the email initiated a total boycott of Speake’s classes, and a petition was created demanding “that Martin be removed from his position at our university immediately”.
Speake was quite surprised by this response and the apparent unwillingness of the students to tolerate or at least engage with ideas different than their own. “There’s nothing from my email [in the text of the petition]” Speake says in exasperation “It’s just a rant about me being racist”.
Although a counter-petition defending him was also set up, receiving almost 600 signatories, Speake says that he did not receive much support from either the leadership at Trinity Laban nor his colleagues. “There’s no solidarity”, he explained, “People I’d known for 20, 30 years just stopped talking to me”.
Eventually, the stress and anxiety of the situation became too much and Speake went on sick-leave. As he recalls, most of his colleagues were “immediately ready to take my work”, rather than standing up for him and demanding action from the administration. “In the old days, we called them scabs,” Speake said, referring to the old insult for people who would take the work of union members during a strike. “I guess they just care about themselves”.
In September of 2024, Speake returned to teaching after five months sick-leave, but to his dismay the boycott of his classes resumed immediately. “Every class for weeks, I would just sit there playing by myself” Speake says of the snubbed tutorials, adding that “when I walked down the corridor, I would be ignored by students who I had previously gotten on well with”.
According to Speake, the students refusing to attend his classes were required to give an official reason for not showing up, but beyond that, nothing was done by the leadership to end the boycott. “The power they gave the students, it’s crazy”, he recalled.
After half a term of no students attending his classes, Speake says that Trinity Laban told him that they had to give his work to other colleagues, as the students were “missing out” on their education. At this point, Speake saw no other option then to resign his post with the conservatoire.
No longer working at Trinity Laban, Martin Speake is now bringing two legal cases against his former employer for Employment Discrimination and Constructive Dismissal. However, the damage of the campaign against him was not contained to the music conservatoire.
Since the emails were released, the London Jazz Orchestra, where Speake played for 15 years, asked him to step down. Almost all scheduled shows were cancelled and most venues now refuse to book him. A record label refused to release his latest album, even though it has already been produced.
Speake thinks that many of his colleagues are just scared to go against their peers. “I hear from people who say that they can’t perform with me right now, but that they won’t rule it out for the future”, he explains, “I mean, do they think I’m a racist now, but they won’t think that in six months? No, they’re scared that they’ll be cancelled too”.
In the end, Speake’s main complaint is with the leadership of Trinity Laban for failing to support him and deferring to the students. “On the one hand, students are treated like children if they’re anxious, and the next like adult decision makers on my livelihood”, he said, adding “They’re immature, as you are when you’re 20. I was immature too, but I wouldn’t try to cancel someone, to try to ruin their life”.
Trinity Laban for its part, contests Speake’s account of events. A spokesperson for the conservatoire told The Times that they “encouraged Mr Speake to understand that while institutionally we did not share his views, his rights to hold them were absolutely protected by us”.
She went to say that “[n]o disciplinary actions were taken against Mr Speake on the basis of his personal views”, adding that Trinity Laban remains “committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming culture for all staff and students.”
While Trinity Laban was never going to admit wrongdoing publicly, and is certainly not now with pending legal proceedings, its response is still telling; it indicates that it does not even understand the nature of its own failure. Academic freedom is not merely about refraining from active suppression of speech and thought; it is also about creating an intellectual environment where students and staff are able to share, discuss and explore ideas without intimidation.
An institution of higher education cannot simply shrug its shoulders at a several month-long boycott of a teacher over his views. Moreover, it is outright scandalous to then suggest that other teachers must take over because the students are “missing out” on their education.
Either the students are adults, who can make their own decisions about whether to attend class and then deal with the consequences, or they are adolescents, who can be disciplined when they fail to show up. If Martin Speake’s account of events is accurate, Trinity Laban missed several key opportunities to quell the controversy, and failed in its duty to defend his academic freedom, even if it did not take disciplinary action against him.