The elevation of my complaint to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO).
For anyone interested.
For those still curious about my complaint with the University of Edinburgh regarding the conduct of a member of staff in the process of a complaint against me and the Dignity and Respect Policy, after the issue was closed by the university’s complaints team back in February I elevated the complaint to SPSO.
Below is the complaint as I submitted it and I will post the response I received from SPSO in the next couple of days.
(I copied and pasted my comments from a document to their system - apologies for the lack of formatting)
P.S I have been posting this little saga of mine primarily to document and to stamp this experience online even if it never leads to any desired outcome. If you are still reading these I both thank you and apologise to you for putting up with the length of my responses. I have been advised multiple times to keep these kinds of interactions concise, but I find this very difficult. Trying to capture a complex, socio-political historical happening at the same time as trying to capture the dysfunctions of an enormous administration and its bounded rules and practices has not been easy and I am afraid that I have done a bad job that has resulted in the ineffectualness of my efforts. That being said, I also believe what I am describing and suspect that, if it is true, then creating a complex and difficult to pin down emergent and intentional system of manipulation - making use of many knowing accomplices and useful idiots - would be a primary goal for university administrations and even public services ombudsman to achieve so as to continue knowingly or blindly moving forward the agenda that I describe below. Again, thank you. I look forward to moving on from this and sharing with you my plans for what comes next.
What has the university done wrong?
I think the University of Edinburgh's complaints department has unfairly dealt with my complaint about a member of faculty, Barry McGuire former head of DEI for my school. This member of faculty misled me about why I was being called into a meeting as a part of the university formal complaints process and then asked me to commit myself to a policy that would mean I could not express my opinion, a legitimate philosophical position. The person reviewing my complaint chose to interview him and not myself and took his word when he denied my accusations of deceit, bias, and zealotry. This was after highlighting my unwillingness to speak to Barry choosing instead to engage via email suggesting I should have met with him in person sooner - where our interaction would not be recorded and it would have been my word against his. I was singled out for my beliefs and had the complaints procedure initiated against me in an attempt to deter me from expressing my opinion and Barry facilitated this complaint in a deceptive, biased, and zealous manner.
In the same complaint I tried to raise awareness to what I consider to be an ethical violation on the part of a subset of academics - in the academy broadly - who are actively engaged in radical political activism through their research and teaching and are openly seeking to change the social and political landscape through the radicalisation of knowledge production that contributes to a body of work that supports policies they wish to see in place. Policies that have a negative impact on men and women who the policies impact.
I asked that an audit be done on university policy to identify the influence of this movement on university policy on the grounds that its presence and the policies it supports infringe upon human rights of free expression, which the university has a legal obligation to protect. My case is not in a vacuum, the activities of the Free Speech Union and the recent Higher Education Free Speech Act speak to this issue though do not describe its causes or explain it.
It is my opinion that its cause is the institutional capture of universities and the bodies that govern them and hold them to account by this radical political activist scholarly movement whose intellectual history can be traced back through postmodern, neo-Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, communist thought, back through Hegel whose theological logic drives the spectres of communism and fascism. These are entirely destructive doctrines dressed up in the language of social justice, liberation, unity, harmony, etc. Moreover, they have a theological doctrine at their centre and therefore have no place in the policies that govern public institutions of liberal western democracy where the separation of church and state is a foundational principle of our societal organisation.
The university and its complaints procedure have blinded themselves to this in ignorance or acceptance of this movements entry into and radicalisation of western universities. Neither are acceptable.
Detail of the incident (background):
I responded to an email sent by the administration via mailing list where I expressed my opinion about the individuals that shut down the discussion of the movie ‘Adult Human Female’ on campus. I called these individuals childish, tyrannical, and silly. People complained accusing me of bullying and harassment which the universities Dignity and Respect policy defines as 'exposure to the offensive', which is a subjective judgement.
The head of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Barry McGuire instigated stage 1 of the universities complaints procedure saying he found my email problematic, that he wanted to talk with me informally suggesting I familiarise myself with the dignity and respect policy, the code of student conduct, and the complaints handling procedure.
I asked him to clarify what was problematic before I agreed to meet him. I wanted written confirmation of his reasons for meeting before agreeing.
In response to my question, Barry referenced my use of mailing lists, I pushed him on this and it later transpired that complaints had been made and that the complaints were concerned with the contents of my email and not with my use of the mailing system. Information Barry withheld. I had made use of a mailing list but did so intentionally as an act of protest to raise an issue I felt to be important. The university regularly facilitates acts of civil disobedience, and people reply to mailing lists all the time without getting called into meetings. It was the contents of my email that was at issue.
I met with Barry who highlighted the bullying and harassment aspects of the dignity and respect policy and at the end of a long talk, which he reiterated in an email, that he would like me to commit myself to the spirit of the dignity and respect policy with the implication being there could be further escalation if I did not.
So, no matter the means of my communication, if I offend on the grounds of protected characteristics, which is an extremely subjective judgement and gameable principle, then my taking issue with the actions of radical protestors and describing it, along with my impressions, to my peers could be considered offensive enough for the complaints handling procedure to be implemented. I refused. No action was taken.
I complained about Barry dishonestly engaging with me and the ideological climate on campus - that a radical political activist movement is rampaging through the academy and radicalising faculty, administrators, and students, and how this lead to such policies, and I called for a philosophical audit of university policy.
The CHP said they would deal only with my complaint about Barry as they don't deal with complaints about policy. I replied that the complaint did fall within their scope because the university has a legal commitment to protect my right to free expression which the DEI response and Barrys actions failed to do.
1. I am a human being at an educational institute where I have wanted to attend events and talks where some feel they are entitled to decide that these shouldn't happen because they are offended by the subject. This is tyranny that is broadly accepted as justified and righteous direct action by proponents and supporters of the radical critical social justice movement and few criticise it because they do not want to fall afoul of it.
When I express my opinion about this to my peers, some feel they can complain about my speech and members of faculty feel compelled to initiate official proceedings and ask me to commit myself to a policy that does not tolerate what I have said. As highlighted by Barry when I met with him.
It is an interaction that I should never have had at a liberal institute of education. There was no further action taken, so they either chose not to because I stood up for myself and defended my right to free speech which the complainant should have been informed of immediately and directed to engage with me personally if they had issue with what I had said, or what I said does constitute punishable conduct by their rules - making their rules tyrannical and a violation of my rights - and upon defending myself realised that I would highlight this fact if they pursued it any further. Either way, I have been wronged by the very fact of these interactions. By the fact that students can cancel shows, and people within the university feel they can use its policies to censor others or encourage self censorship and that staff are sympathetic to this.
2. The complaints handling team, after informing me that they would only consider my claims about Barry and not my claims about the culture and policies, they asked me to clarify my claims, which I did. I also responded to their not dealing with the policy part of my complaint.
They said that the CHP does not deal with complaints regarding policy as they are at the discretion of the university council. I responded highlighting the part of the CHP that details what they will and what they won't deal with. It clearly states that it will consider claims regarding the violation of laws. The university has a legal obligation to protect the right of free expression on campus. If it has a policy that allows for the censorship of students or faculty, then the university is in violation of its legal obligation to protect my rights. As such, the complaints team ought to deal with that aspect of my complaint.
This was completely ignored, I heard nothing back on this point. My case was assigned and the investigation began. My concern may not be popular, but I have a right to have what I think is happening taken seriously and not ignored at an institutional level. This is how this has affected me.
I would like the university to acknowledge that it has been blinding itself to a radical political orthodoxy dressed up as a social justice movement, that it has taken steps and implemented policy that has had a detrimental effect on the rights of its students an its faculty, academic or otherwise.
I would like a philosophical audit to be done on the contents of policy and the theory that informs policy and practices to identify the presence of radical political activist scholarship that is serving the agenda of this movement. Following this, policies can be written that are not informed by radical politics that actually serve to protect all members of the student and faculty body and not just some at the expense of others.
I would like the university to redraw the line between theory and practice. That academic freedom permits and allows this movement to describe the world as it sees fit and to make normative claims as they see fit to be discussed critically and openly, leaving it up to the general public if they wish to accept their ideas. The infiltration and radicalisation of academia and education to change the social and political reality that people live in through covert, subversive, passive aggressive, and manipulative tactics is a step too far and is not to be protected by academic freedom.
To support this, I implore you to read Isaac Gottesman's (2016) The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race, from the Critical Social Thought Series; as well as his PhD thesis that became this book where he references another author stating that a Marxist cultural revolution is taking place in America (we share an academy) and goes on to detail how the radicals of the 60's oriented toward the field of education for the express intention of reconceptualising the purpose and function of schools and universities so as to bring about their political social desires which is the negation of the current mode of society. Methodologically they have fused their radical political activism with their research, reconceptualising what it means to do research and to be a researcher; redefining these things in relation to the achievement of political goals. See an example of this in another book from the same series: Andrew Gitlin's (1994) Power and Method: Political Activism and Educational Research.
I would like the university to organise events on research ethics and the relationship and rules of engagement between researchers, and policy makers. Particularly concerning the politicisation of some research concerning race, sex, gender, the climate, etc., and the impact that has on the democratic process. If activist scholars can produce work that supports policies they want to have implemented and also study the policymaking process and psychology to inform their interaction with policymakers to be as successful as possible, does this bypass the electorate who will ultimately be impacted by these policies. E.g., Net zero, gender affirming care, non crime hate incidents, etc.