A recent report commissioned by the UK’s department for Science, Innovation and Technology shines a spotlight on the suppression of academic freedom in fields of sex and gender research. According to the report, it is not a matter of both sides engaging in a toxic debate, but rather a one-sided attack on gender critical academics.
The second part of the project Review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender, the report is principally authored by UCL professor Alice Sullivan and officially entitled “Report 2: Barriers to research on sex and gender”.
Questions surrounding sex, gender, and single-sex spaces have evolved into one of the most fraught public debates in the country, inspiring countless opinion pieces, protests and online cancellations. Regular readers will be all too aware that this debate has also conquered academia and created what many describe as a “chilling effect” among students as well as academics.
However, the findings of this review indicate that the suppression of academic freedom on this topic only runs in one direction. According to the report, researchers who express the “gender critical” belief that “biological sex is real, important, immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity” face harassment, discrimination, and potential careers setbacks. The same cannot be said for the proponents of what the report terms “gender-identity theory”.
The report is based on publicly available information, such as news reports and court rulings, as well as 140 responses to a call for evidence from academics on either side of the issue. Of the respondents, 56 percent expressed support for gender critical beliefs, 40 percent expressed disagreement, and 4 percent expressed no view in either direction.
Although researchers from both sides of the debate expressed concern over the nature of debate and the potential consequences of expressing one’s views, the nature of their concerns varied in interesting and rather telling ways.
Those who largely agreed with the gender critical position detailed a “range of barriers that they had faced across the research system”. These included “repeated discrimination and abuse”, having “research blocked or delayed by ethics committees” and experiencing “severe personal consequences to their careers, mental health and wellbeing”. In addition, many confessed to having self-censored to avoid such consequences.
Conversely, the academics who disagree with gender critical beliefs expressed a “general fearfulness, fragility and a sense of threat at the idea of exposure to gender-critical views, or simply at the presence of people with such views within universities”. The primary concern among these respondents does not appear to be barriers to their own research, but rather a lack of barriers to the research of others!
Moreover, the reports notes that the gender critical academics “were all concerned with hostility based on their research standpoint”, whereas those who are more aligned with gender identity theory “were as likely to use their response to express concern about hostility to transgender people as to relate responses to their research standpoint”.
Drawing from both news reports and the testimonies of respondents, the report details a staggering number of examples of gender critical researchers being subjected to campaigns of cancellation, public denouncements, open letters calling for disciplinary actions or outright dismissal, and bullying and harassment by colleagues. In contrast, the report also notes that “We are not aware of any equivalent cases of sustained harassment of academics who oppose gender-critical views.”
As the examples continue to mount throughout the report’s 433 pages, the asymmetry in barriers to research on these topics becomes increasingly clear. While the proponents of gender identity theory often fear for the safety of their trans colleagues, despite not detailing any specific examples of actual threats, their gender critical counterparts list a range of formal and informal obstacles impeding their ability to freely do their jobs.
These barriers take three separate forms. First, ethics committees, peer review panels, and data collection policies hamper the ability to conduct research in several areas, including sex-based differences. For instances, the report mentions “examples of university guidance documents which codify a belief in gender- identity theory into rules and recommendations regarding what data should be collected, discouraging data collection on sex”.
Second, events focused on the discussion of gender critical beliefs face “Abnormal management demands and lack of management support”, such as requirements for extra risk assessments, additional security measures, and more “balanced” panels of speakers. In response to a demand from UCL management that more “alternative views” be included in a particular event, one academic wrote that “it is hard to image what would qualify as an “alternative view” on a panel entitled “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls””.
Third, the numerous and occasionally well-publicised instances of bullying, harassment and ostracisms of gender critical academics create a “climate of fear for staff wishing to express views outside the orthodoxy of gender-identity theory”. One researcher testified that the “main way in which my research work has been hampered is by bullying and harassment of me by colleagues”, adding that “senior management was culpable for adding to the toxifying of our research by declaring it ‘harmful’, with no evidential basis”.
The report largely considers the current environment to be a product of a rapidly growing bureaucracy within higher education, which has come at the expense of academic autonomy. Part of this bureaucracy has included “the growth of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) departments”, which has combined with a reliance on external advocacy bodies like Stonewall and Advance HE to “exacerbated these trends, contributing to a lack of critical examination of policy and practice within institutions”.
The findings make it clear that academic freedom in the UK, especially in relation to the topics of sex and gender, is at a critical junction. Universities across the country would do well to read the entire report and do their best to implement the recommendations.
These include prioritising the pursuit of truth as the fundamental mission of the university, reversing the trend towards centralised bureaucratisation, refraining from taking institutional positions on contentious issues, and emphasising freedom under the law rather than ideology. This last point likely requires the retraining of management and HR staff to accurately distinguish between lawful discourse and harassment.
We call on all British universities to take immediate steps to address the issues highlighted by this report. Safeguarding academic freedom is a fundamental task of any institution of higher education and a prerequisite to any of its other missions. As the Barriers to Research report states: “In a climate where wider public discussion has been constrained, it is particularly important that universities provide a space where critical analysis, dialogue and the pursuit of knowledge can occur without fear.”