Professor Geoffrey Alderman - News

  A  MILLER'S TALE On Friday 1 st October the University of Bristol issued a statement [1] in relation to Dr David Miller, who until that date (and from 2018) had been Professor of Sociology at that University. The statement told us that Professor Miller was no longer employed by the University, and it explained, in very general terms, why:   We have a duty of care to all students and the wider University community, in addition to a need to apply our own codes of conduct consistently and with integrity. Balancing those important considerations, and after careful deliberation, a disciplinary hearing found Professor Miller did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff and the University has concluded that Professor Miller’s employment should be terminated with immediate effect.   The background - or at least some background – to this decision to dismiss Professor Miller is I think well known. As I noted in the Jewish News last March [2] ...

  The following statement has been issued by  Professor Geoffrey Alderman :   “I have, in my personal capacity, referred to the powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights the letter sent on 9 October 2020 to all English university heads by the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson.   This Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament is currently undertaking an inquiry into Freedom of Expression. It is my view that the policy set out in the 9 October letter amounts to an imminent and explicit assault on that freedom.   In that letter Mr Williamson threatened that higher-education institutions that had not by Christmas 2020 adopted the definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) would be subject to a range of financial and other sanctions.” Professor Alderman has told the Parliamentary Joint Committee that in his view the threatening language employed by the Secretary of Stat...