UK Edition
A law lecturer has claimed she was sacked by the Open University after questioning requirements to “indoctrinate students in gender identity theory”.
Dr Almut Gadow, 43, has alleged that in 2021-22, the university’s equality, diversity and inclusion department announced plans to “incorporate its political ideologies” across the curriculum.
She claimed that she raised concerns about requirements, including introducing diverse gender identities into the curriculum and teaching students to use offenders’ preferred pronouns.
She said she argued that a criminal lawyer’s role “is to present facts” and that “sex is a relevant fact for offences involving perpetrators’ and/or victims’ bodies”.
Dr Gadow also argued that “no offender should be allowed to dictate the language of his case in a way which masks relevant facts”.
She also told colleagues that not holding a gender identity belief was a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination claim
Dr Gadow was told that her posts relating to gender identity in the online forum amounted to “serious insubordination” because she had been told it was not the place for such discussions.
She was told that her persistence in posting comments on issues relating to gender identity and gender identity belief, paedophilia, and sex offending amounted to “serious bullying and harassment”.
The content of several of her posts was a breach of the university’s transgender staff policy because they may “create an environment in the forum that isn’t inclusive, trans-friendly, or respectful”, she was told.
She was sacked for gross misconduct in November.
Dr Gadow, who is being supported by the Free Speech Union and is crowdfunding for her case, claims she was harassed, discriminated against, and unfairly dismissed because she rejects gender ideology and believes in academic freedom.
She told The Telegraph that she believed the university’s “liberating curriculum” policy was “effectively a checklist of ideological compliance”.
Comparisons from history
Dr Gadow has drawn comparisons between her sacking and the experience of Hartmut Gadow, her grandfather, in Nazi Germany. He was an undergraduate who studied at an illicit underground institution when the Nazis cleansed academia of “wrong thinkers”.
He was repeatedly tried for speech crimes and sentenced to death by hanging, but managed to escape.
Dr Gadow said: “Generally, this academia being taken over by a political movement, is not a question of Left or Right. It is a question of totalitarianism.
“We have seen it under both regimes. I didn’t think it would happen like that in England, to be quite honest.”
In her legal claim, she hopes to set a precedent that establishes academic freedom as a protected belief.
“Establishing this in law could protect many other academics whose careers are threatened by the rising tide of intolerance on UK campuses,” she said.
‘Important case’
Dr Kathleen Stock, the academic who was hounded out of Sussex University over her gender-critical views, said: “This is a very important case, with potentially far-reaching repercussions for the university sector.
“It demonstrates the link between highly ideological, terminologically vague equality, diversity and inclusion policies – which are rife across the sector – and acts of discrimination against university members for their lawful beliefs.
“It also shows how university pedagogy is being unreasonably constrained by a narrow set of shallow ideas, high on emotion and low on evidence, at the behest of activist groups.”
A spokesman for the Open University said it would “vigorously defend” itself against Dr Gadow’s charges.
They added: “Given these ongoing legal proceedings, we do not intend to comment further at this time, save to say that we strongly dispute the account which we understand Almut Gadow to have given to the media about the circumstances of, and reasons for, her dismissal; the university’s criminal law curriculum and modules; and its equality, diversity and inclusion policies.”