As you may have seen, Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, was named an OBE for services to higher education in the 2021 New Years Honours.
Many of her colleagues in academia reacted with the grace, humility and commitment to knowledge and the truth you’d expect from people who believe that Eddie Izzard is a lesbian. Some, who aren’t even academics in the UK, said the news didn’t make them feel safe.
Remember: bravery is turning up to work in an environment where everyone panders to your gender identity, and definitely not working at, for example, a supermarket during a pandemic.
There were accusations that Kathleen Stock is a bigot over a range of issues. (Note: Not one academic provided one single piece of evidence to support these allegations.)
A colleague at Kathleen’s university even chimed in.
Some just resorted to abuse
Others made threats.
Some said she’s not a good enough academic to win an award, again, providing no evidence to back up the claim.
And some simply criticised any praise for Stock.
Which, of course, led to the praise being deleted by equally cowardly academics.
As Siân Lacey Taylder - a trans academic - pointed out, the person the Open University Philosophy account probably didn’t want to disrespect is the fragrant Sophie-Grace Chappell, who said just before Christmas that JK Rowling is creating communities of ‘frightened, marginalised, demonised outsiders with special gifts’.
Now, why would these intellectual heavyweights feel so terribly threatened by Stock’s star continuing to rise? Could it be that they’re worried the game is up? After all, 2020 also brought the Keira Bell ruling, which will mean nothing good for their long-term careers. Is Alison Phipps staring at a future where she might not be able to afford Lego for her students?
And, of course, all these tweets by @OU_Philosophy congratulating others have not been deleted: https://twitter.com/zeno001/status/1345052035209637889
Learning about intersectionality through the medium of lego - not the regular lego but the baby edition - is truly appropriate. Phipps is Poe.