Dear vice-chancellors, you should repudiate unequivocally the abhorrent guidance on external speakers recently issued by the publicly funded body that claims to represent you: Universities UK (The week in higher education, 28 November).
This document mandates any British university to accede unconditionally to the conditions imposed by any external speaker who demands a gender-segregated audience.
Indeed, in the UUK document’s Orwellian newspeak, it is the “imposition” of an “unsegregated” area contravening the “genuinely-held religious belief” of the speaker demanding segregation that British universities should oppose so that the “freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully”. [Times Higher Education] Read more
