Mick Hartley

Meanwhile, in Bristol:

The University of Bristol has banned the public from a feminist society’s event with a lawyer critical of the contentious charity Stonewall.

A group of students invited Akua Reindorf KC, a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), to campus for a panel discussion with leading lawyers about protecting women’s rights.

But bosses at the leading Russell Group institution imposed a series of strict conditions, including that it “be limited to staff and students only on the grounds of health and safety and the deterrence of public disorder”.

Women Talk Back, the feminist society behind the debate, was also ordered to pay £340 towards half of the security costs and told it must have “an experienced chairperson”, which left the group on the brink of axing the event.

Instead, the Free Speech Union has intervened to fund a new venue off campus under its Mactaggart donor fund.

In 2021, Ms Reindorf advised the University of Essex in a report to consider cutting ties with Stonewall, which she said had wrongly given staff the “impression that gender-critical academics can legitimately be excluded from the institution”. Ms Reindorf was brought in to review the no-platforming of two professors at the university.

Following her report, Ms Reindorf faced a pile-on from transgender activists.

A backlash to the conditions imposed by the University of Bristol has been led by Claire Coutinho, education minister, who told The Telegraph: “Learning how to have civil discussions about things we disagree upon is central to the university experience….

Raquel Rosario Sanchez, who organised the talk, said: “We are taken aback by the University of Bristol’s demand to exclude the public from this public event, on the basis that their own students might want to protest and cause public disorder.

“By allowing student protestors to dictate what restrictions are put in place for events held on campus, the University of Bristol is giving their misogynist protestors a heckler’s veto.”

Well, it’s what the university authorities have just done in Edinburgh: issued boilerplate nostrums about the importance of free speech while allowing the misogynist protestors to veto an event – the showing of the film Adult Human Female – which they disapproved of. You might almost get the impression they don’t like women speaking out about trans activism.