These are the academics who were blasted in a stinging judgment by an employment tribunal after they hounded a lesbian lecturer out of her job.
Criminology expert Prof Jo Phoenix, 59, saw her name dragged through the mud at the Open University once her views on the importance of biological sex became known.
Despite assuring colleagues she was not transphobic, a small group of trans activist lecturers refused to set aside their personal politics to allow freedom of opinion.
Instead, ringleader Dr Leigh Downes, a female who identifies as non-binary, led a campaign against Prof Phoenix – publishing an open letter ‘in order to create a pile-on’, which amassed 368 staff signatures
Last week, in an extraordinary judgment, the participants were criticised for their vindictive motives; as well as their evidence, which a judge described as ‘evasive’ and ‘not credible’.
Employment Judge Jennifer Young said: ‘On multiple occasions, whenever gender critical views were expressed at the Open University, Dr Downes complained or tried to get the view suppressed.
‘The claimant’s gender critical beliefs made Dr Downes feel palpably uncomfortable.’
The judge went on: ‘The purpose of signing the open letter was to create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for Prof Phoenix.
‘We conclude that having 368 of your colleagues sign a public letter saying that you are part of a group that is fundamentally transphobic, is stigmatising and damaging.’
Besides Dr Downes, other signatories in the open letter – Dr Helen Bowes-Catton, Dr Nicola Snarey, Prof Peter Keogh, Natalie Starkey and Dr Chris Williams – were found to have contributed to the hostility, despite their claims that they were expressing academic freedom.
The judge dismissed this reasoning and wrote: ‘[It] was not an exercise in academic freedom. There is nothing scholastic about the open letter, it stigmatised the claimant and damaged her reputation.’
Rather than stamp out the febrile atmosphere on campus, departmental leaders at the university left Prof Phoenix to face the onslaught alone and even blamed her for having spoken out in the first place.
Prof Louise Westmarland, a former friend who had unsuccessfully competed for the same job, likened the under-fire professor to ‘a racist uncle at a dinner party’.
The head of the department, Dr Deborah Drake, caused huge distress by comparing Prof Phoenix to controversial US political scientist Charles Murray, whose views have been likened to a racist.
Hellbound and Down 