Mustn't we talk in universities about whether trans women are women?

I have been watching for some time with ever-growing horror a movement of - let's be honest, mostly progressive - folks, aka my friends, that strives to limit what we can and cannot debate in university settings. It happens on various levels and is quite insidious. There's the thing about trigger warnings where we are supposed to warn our students each time they might encounter something in class that might deeply upset, disturb or even distress them. Well, I teach bioethics, there's a fair chance that that could happen in every class that I teach. My students are also all of mature age, so should I really aim my classes at not upsetting their emotional well-being or should I aim to challenge and potentially even upset them? It's a rhetorical question. I begin my classes by issuing a general trigger warning for the rest of the course, including every class without exception. Box ticked. Sorted. Would I change my content based on whether a student might be deeply disturbed by the topic, or a case scenario, or a video clip? Not a chance. What's the point of taking a bioethics class and not being challenged frequently to reconsider how you look at the issues we are considering in class. There is no way to run a class on, say, the ethics of animal experimentation, abortion, euthanasia, even cochlear implants, without upsetting someone.

I'm not a junior faculty member in a tenure track position, 'student led' teaching evaluations will neither make nor break me. I doubt junior colleagues would be able to afford doing the same.

Part of this ongoing campaign to keep universities conflict free, and to avoid 'offending' students are no-platform events. No-platform events are events where particular speakers are no platformed, meaning they are prevented from speaking on campuses. This is either achieved by student organisations declaring particular speakers persona non grata, or by university administrations preventing invited speakers from speaking due to 'security' concerns. This has been going on for some time, mostly in the UK, not so much in North America. Initially the objective was to keep neo-Nazi organisations off college campuses. No platform to the BNP or the KKK, that sort of thing. More recently though the victims were secularist speakers aiming to address Muslim fundamentalism on college campuses (including enforced seating arrangements for men and women attendees, enforced head covers, and other such medieval niceties) and there were invariably 'concerns' expressed and offense taken about their 'racism'. 'Racism' here is the preferred misnomer for critiques of a man made ideology.

The latest round of no-platform campaigning has hit feminist author Germaine Greer. She doesn't think that trans women are women. I do think one can have a legitimate debate about human-made categories such as 'man' and 'woman'. However, I also think it's pathetic that student activists think they ought to prevent such debates from occurring by declaring that people who were born 'male' could now define 'woman' in such a way that it includes some of them and that this should be binding on the rest of society. I understand the desire of trans women that society should see them in the same way as other women, as much as I understand that some feminists as well as other people will find that idea offensive. It's a great debate to have - we should teach classes on this subject.

Alas, trigger warnings will be considered necessary in many universities, student activists queer and otherwise will need to be placated and what not else. None of this is acceptable. If we cannot interrogate (there's that dreaded term) these sorts of concepts and categories in universities, where else should or could we do so? How would we even be able to determine whether our culturally evolved categories about ourselves are fit for purpose? And for what purpose?

What's troubling about this defense of free speech on college campuses is that there is a price to be paid for such open debate, and it is mostly to be paid by trans people, that is people who are subjected already to unacceptable forms of societal discrimination and disapprobation. They will find their claims analysed and critiqued, courtesy of the internets, in ways that will be vicious at the best of times. That is deeply troubling seeing that suicide rates among trans people are as sky-high as they are. And yet, while pleading for civility, I am convinced that a public airing of these issues is what is in the best interest of trans people themselves. It helped liberate gays and lesbians, we had to subject ourselves to debates about normality, and naturalness, whether we suffer from a mental illness, perversion, and what not else. Being able to debunk these falsehoods one by one worked for gays and lesbians. I'm afraid trans people and their allies will have to face these issues head-on, make their case with the best arguments and evidence available and win the argument in the public domain as well as in the academy.

No platforming speakers we disagree with is counter productive. The idea that these issues will go away by suppressing debate about them is naive at best.

United Kingdom of Censorship

The UK is clearly currently losing it on the censorship front. On the one hand, thankfully parliament abolished blasphemy legislation a few years back. On the other hand, the country's Advertising Standards Authority in recent months cancelled two advertisements because they ('potentially' - I like that phrase) offend the feelings of religious folks. The ads were both for - get this - an ice cream. In each of the advertisements, while religious symbols were used, the actual transgression did not take place. Let's leave aside for a moment the question of whether in the age of gay marriage and legal civil partnerships two guys in black dresses kissing each other is a transgression of a kind. Oh, right, the transgression is about the black dress. They're God people. God people don't kiss (each other) it seems. Well then, it's here where the Advertising Standards people moved in. They cancelled one advertisement because they received six complaints from Catholics saying they're - get this - offended by the ad.

Why would a tiny number of complaints (six) justify canceling a nationwide advertising campaign? Advertising is still a speech act, so really the advertising watch dog is saying that freedom of speech may legitimately be curtailed when a - however small - number of religious people complain.  This is surely unacceptable. I get offended all the time by the activities of religious folks (eg Christian aid agencies taking photos of starving black kids to get money out of me so they can use my donations to feed and indoctrinate kids in developing countries). I'm hugely offended by this. If I wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority, would they cancel those ads, too? I bet you that they would not. Should they cancel this ad because I am upset? Of course not. Offense in its own right is insufficient a reason to limit speech acts. Nobody has an absolute right not to be offended (pace Muslim activists who think otherwise)! The very idea that offense could be a reasonable principle for limiting speech acts makes no sense, because on that logic the most fanatic folks (of whatever persuasion) would decide what can and cannot be said. After all, they'd be most likely to be upset whenever the views that they hold fanatically are contradicted. So on this logic the most fanatic would also be the judge of what can or cannot be said with regard to whatever they are most fanatic about. Absurdistan in action. Yet this is precisely the logic of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority. I wonder how long it will take until Il Papa central will declare it a 'saint' :-).

There's another aspect of this that also troubles me. The advertising company that produced these two advertisements will probably think twice about using religious symbols for future ads, seeing that two of its ads were cancelled. Almost certainly self-censorship will occur in the wake of these decisions! Seeing that the new government in Britain has a liberal coalition partner, I wonder whether the powers that are in charge now will do something about this.

Creationist 'Discovery Institute' caught red-handed

The creationist 'think' tank Discovery Institute (bankrolling such intellectual luminaries as WJ Smith) has been caught red-handed. Check out this youtube video. It's self-explanatory. Enjoy.

Don't buy anymore Random House (US) books and products

The US based publishing house Random House (owned by German conglomerate Bertelsmann) has just pulled the book 'The Jewel of Medina' by Sherry Jones off the shelves. It's essentially a story about the Prophet Muhammad's child bride A'isha. As with all novels (as opposed to history books) the author reportedly described some sex scenes between M and A'isha. Of course nobody as been there when/if it happened, so nobody could possibly know. It's a novel after all. For what it's worth the bits and piece that I have seen seemed innocent enough, but then, I'm a small 'l' liberal when it comes to matters sex. The reason given for withdrawing the book is not that it's a bad novel, but that it could (sic!) be (according to Random House) offensive to some (sic!) Muslims, and that it "could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment".

One wonders ... most atheists probably couldn't publish with Random House any longer either, after all, there could always be a small fanatic minority of believers that could react violently. If that is sufficient these days for a mainstream publishing house to execute censorship, we might as well call it a day as far as freedom of expression in liberal democracies is concerned!

Worse in a way, the impact of this decision on writers surely must be some kind of self-censorship. After all, if you know that your content covering religions or religious figureheads could be controversial, you also know that likely you won't be able to sell it to mainstream publishers - well, at least you'd have to be stupid trying to sell it to Random House. My conclusion: for the time being I won't be buying any Random House products (ironically, Rushdie's stuff is still among them - well, I assume that his work could not possible incite violence among a small minority of religious fundamentalists ... or something like that).

Where there is organised Christianity there is censorship

Heinz, ye, the producer of red and white health risks designed to be added to your fries, has recently produced a cute lil ad to promote the sales of its white blubber. Well, to be honest, it's probably a good thing that the sale of its mayo cannot be promoted as much as the company had planned to, given the health risks involved in this fatty product. However, the reasons for why the lil ad never saw the light of the day had nothing to do with our health, but everything to do with organised Christianity exercising its God given right to determine on our behalf what we may or may not see. It threatened Heinz with a boycott campaign because middle-aged guys were kissing in the video. Look at the video yourself. It's about the most obviously non-sexual, non-obscene thing you will have seen in your whole life. So, the issue really was that there were two men kissing, and according to God's earthly reps that just isn't on. Sadly Heinz caved in to the God squad's black (or shall I say, Christ-) mailing. So, in my own little subversive way, without further ado, here's a link to the ad. Check it out! It's lighthearted fun. Even your kids will enjoy it.

Are academic boycotts always wrong? UCU vs Israel's universities

I was just about to head home when I came across a news item on Queen's University's website. The university's Principal, Karen Hitchcock, issued today a spirited defense of academic freedom and a withering attack on the British University and College Union's decision to call for debate on a petition calling for a boycott of Israel's universities because of the country's treatment of Palestinians over the years.

People who know me reasonably well, or read this blog regularly, will know that I do not shy away from saying what I think needs to be said, even if that occasionally puts people off. So, let me begin by saying that I genuinely do not know whether a boycott of Israel's universities would be a good or a bad thing. There are some good arguments in favour of a boycott and there are some good reasons against such a strategy. Martha Nussbaum puts a strong case against the boycott forward in Dissent magazine. Stephen Rose makes a strong case in favour of the boycott.

As a journal editor I found myself a few months back at the receiving end of criticism from an Israel based colleague who requested that the journal state unequivocally that it does not support any boycott of academics working in Israel. I refused at the time, because it all seemed nothing other than grandstanding and pointless arm twisting to me. None of the two journals that I am associated with as an Editor has considered or is considering boycotting submissions from authors situated in Israel. The same is true for any other country on this planet. We have published recently, in fact, a paper from a Sudanese academic. Arguably the government of Sudan is involved in genocidal mass murder (due to lack of oil nobody really cares much about this unfolding tragedy). Should we have boycotted the academic submission an author from Sudan put together (likely with great difficulty!)? We didn't. It did not seem sensible to do so. The author and his/her institution had nothing to do with the actions of their government, so why should we punish him/her? And what would change if we did (or, what would have changed?).

It seems to me that this is the really interesting question. Let's start with the basics then: those who have proposed in the past academic boycotts did so for at least one of two reasons. The first reason usually deployed was that universities were an integral part of an unjust system (eg many, but not all 'white' designated universities in South Africa discriminated against 'black' students in terms of admissions, teaching etc), and they ought to be punished for that. The second reason was that a gradual isolation of unjust regimes (such as that in South Africa) would weaken them and so contribute to their eventual fall. It is for the latter reason that more often than not sport organisations are the first to be called upon to boycott particular countries (sport boycotts are clearly seen to be more harmful to an unjust country's image than academic boycotts...).

Is there evidence that such image damaging activities work? The answer to this is unequivocally that this is the case. Even straightforward dictatorships (which Israel is not) try to maintain the veneer of a legitimate state/government upholding justice, law and order and so on and so forth. This is true even for pariah states such as Zimbabwe with its pseudo elections. One of the reasons for why amnesty international's campaigns are so successful is precisely because they aim at the crumbling veneer of civility of barbaric regimes.

This is then where the debate about academic boycotts should really be situated. I have been told by South African academics (who were opposed to the apartheid state - mind you, while they were reasonably safely ensconded in quite privileged, well-paid academic posts) that the apartheid government suffered tremendously under the various international boycotts and that it truly zapped the regime's morale. In its own right the boycotts would not have taken out the apartheid state, but the undoubtedly played a crucial supporting role.

So, the ethical question we need to ask is, of course, whether upholding academic freedom (by not supporting academic boycotts) is always the right thing to do. My answer to this question, based on the experiences made by organisations such as amnesty international and also based on the history of the boycott against apartheid South Africa, is that it is sometimes morally required to boycott unjust regimes. Such boycotts have been shown to work in the past, and therefore social utility (a desireable social outcome) can be achieved by participating in academic, sports and other boycotts. The position that boycotts are always wrong can probably only be sustained by assuming that academic freedom is of infinite (social?) value. I have trouble seeing how this could be justified/demonstrated.

Queen's University's Principal might well be right in suggesting that an academic boycott of academic institutions in Israel is the wrong thing to do. The trouble is that more needs to be said by way of justification than 'academic freedom' to sustain this point of view. Academic cooperation and collaboration in my humble opinion, areprima facie worthy of protection, but not always, and certainly not at all cost. What is required is a careful balancing of the costs and benefits of engaging in an academic boycott.

There's another issue I have with the Principal's statement. If academic debate and academic freedom are so important to her, how come she wants to preempt the currently ongoing UCU debate by pressuring the union publicly with statements such as her press release?

Let me conclude, perhaps, by quoting South African educator and University of Cape Town academic Prof Neville Alexander. He concluded a paper reflecting on the academic boycott with these eminently sensible words: "I have no doubt that when a state deliberately and systematically abuses human rights, a case can be made for academic boycott as part of an ensemble of punitive strategies to compel the state to right the situation. But sanctions and boycotts are always two-edged weapons. They should never be instituted without careful consideration of the likely effect on those whom they are supposed to help. Due attention should be given to the probable effects of a successful campaign so that the boycott does not become the proverbial cure worse than the disease."

More on Abdelkareem Soliman

Here's the latest on Kareem Soliman's case. I reported earlier about this 22 year old secular Egyptian blogger who has been sentenced to jail for criticising al-Azhar university and allegedly denigrating the Egyptian President.