The BBC reports on UUK’s statement.
Universities UK says it has today requested legal clarification from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
In a letter, Universities UK which represents 132 institutions, has asked the Commission to consider having the issue clarified by the High Court, “or provide a clear and public statement about the law and the relevant policy considerations”.
The row over the UUK guidance has sparked protests from students and some MPs.
UUK actually doesn’t represent 132 institutions, it represents 132 vice-chancellors.
Along with students and MPs the row has also sparked protests from journalists and activists and bystanders like me.
Shadow business secretary Chukka Umunna told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was “horrified”.
While former home secretary Jack Straw said it was “wrong” for universities “to indulge in such extraordinary behaviour”.
That’s good. Jack Straw was terrible about the Danish Motoons; it’s good that he’s better on this subject.
Ms Dandridge told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are not talking about universities enforcing segregation.
“One of the questions that runs through our case study which illustrates this question is, ‘Is this segregation voluntary, have the people who are likely to come to this event agreed to the segregation?’
“That is something that would be fundamentally important to the university in making a decision.
She is so confused. Her question makes no sense. “‘Is this segregation voluntary, have the people who are likely to come to this event agreed to the segregation?'” She talks about “the people who are likely to come to this event” – in other words an unknown – and then talks about whether this unknown has agreed to the segregation or not. That does not work! This is not a set of people who have been asked for their agreement in advance. It’s an unknown set of people, and their “agreement” is simply being guessed at. She doesn’t even know what people are likely to come to the event! It could be a lot of curious secular people, or people who admire the opposition side in the debate. That whole claim is incoherent.
“In practice if the people coming to this event said, ‘We do not want to segregate and separate out men and women,’ it is inconceivable that the university would impose it on them.
Oh really? Because a lot of people going to the Krauss-Tzortzis debate did say exactly that, yet the segregation was imposed anyway. It was imposed by the organizers but the university did nothing to prevent it, or prevent it from being imposed.
Ms Dandridge emphasised that the case study was about a very specific scenario: “We are not talking about teaching, lectures, the core business of universities.”
She rejected comparisons to racial segregation.
Well I reject her rejection.
I am seriously tired of people cheerfully doing things to women that they wouldn’t in a million years do to Other Races.
“It is not something which is so alien to our culture that it has to be regarded like race segregation.”
Really? It’s not? People in the UK are quite accustomed to being told to sit with their own gender in public places? On buses, on the tube, in cinemas, at the theatre, in libraries, in restaurants?
The hell they are. That kind of pious, squeamish, cootiephobic sorting is extremely alien to UK culture.
Mr Umunna told Today a future Labour government would outlaw segregation on campus.
“I was horrified by what I heard…
“Let me be absolutely clear. A future Labour government would not allow or tolerate segregation in our universities.
“It offends basic norms in our society.
“Of course people should be free to practise their religion privately in places of worship and at religious events but universities are publicly funded places of research, learning and teaching and as such there is no place, in my view, for state-sponsored segregation.”
See that, Minnow? Universities are publicly funded places. We didn’t make that up.
Universities UK has today also published legal advice on its guidance from Fenella Morris QC which concludes that it “is lawful and provides an appropriate foundation for lawful decision-making by universities”.
If Fenella Morris QC is correct then I hope Parliament changes that law quickly.
Well, whether or not it is alien, they should want it to be alien. Just like everyone should want street harassment and racially/ethnically motivated violence and denying gay people equal rights to be alien. That some element of bigotry is familiar is a stupid fucking reason to preserve it.
Very true. But it’s also just absurd to claim it’s not alien.
This is exactly about enforcing segregation, as happened for example at LSE. Ms Dandridge is prevaricating on behalf of her employer – or has a woefully inadequate command of english.
Despite the fact that I basically agree with you Ophelia, I have to mention, for about the third time, the high prevalence of gender segregated schools in the UK, especially girls’ schools. It just doesn’t seem to be sinking in, or is it not convenient? Now, I’m all for putting a stop to gender segregated schools as well. But you happen to be the one with a blog? If this is such an abomination to you, get started, and I’ll be right there backing you up.
I never denied that (most) UK universities are publicly funded (receive subsidies from the public purse), but that does not make them ‘public places’ in the usual sense.
Define “usual sense,” Minnow — preferably without your usual nonsense.
And? The fact that some people choose to gender-segregate their children means that adults should expect to find themselves gender-segregated (regardless of choice) in random public places how, exactly?
That’s not the only part of the equation, though. If this speech is being offered in an auditorium, on the campus of a publicly-funded university, with tickets on sale to the public, how is that speech NOT being given in a public place?