Professor Kathleen Stock was criticised for her gender-critical views (Image: PA/Oxford Union)
University academics have been victims of “bullying, harassment and ostracism” because they refused to sign up to fashionable views about gender and trans ideology. One was subjected to a hate campaign after asking whether children were being harmed by unnecessary medical treatment.
Another was banned from academic conferences after calling for research into the effect of health services labelling mothers “birthing persons” and renaming breast-feeding “chest-feeding”. The findings are being published on Wednesday in a report written by Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at University College London. She said: “The evidence I have collected raises stark concerns about barriers to academic freedom in UK universities.
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"Researchers investigating vital issues have been subjected to sustained campaigns of intimidation simply for acknowledging the biological and social importance of sex.”
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She said harassment was carried out by a small minority of staff but their actions were tolerated and encouraged by university authorities. Campaigners were often co-ordinated through LGBT+ networks embedded in university management structures, although lesbians have been disproportionately targeted for abuse.
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The report came after Dr Kathleen Stock resigned from the University of Sussex in 2021. A student campaign had called for her dismissal after she aired her gender-critical views.
Those who spoke to the inquiry included Professor Michele Moore, who endured a decade of harassment across multiple universities for her research on children and gender identity, which included questioning medical treatment given to young people.
She said: “My entire academic career, life’s work, and academic integrity has been based on accurately analysing the data in front of me. When I found children and young people were being harmed, I was ethically required to report my findings.
"They were alarming findings. Instead of listening to such data, other scholars who had their own personal and political agendas created a pile-on with defamatory campaigns which shook the foundations of my life.”
Dr Karleen Gribble faced co-ordinated campaigns preventing her from speaking at University College London and Edinburgh conferences, after studying the impact of “gender-neutral” language on health services.
She said: “The shift from plain language like ‘women,’ ‘mothers’ and ‘breastfeeding’ in health communications to terms like ‘cervix havers’, ‘birthing persons’ or ‘chestfeeding’ should have been the subject of open discussion and quality research.
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Dr Michael Biggs, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, said: “Prof Sullivan’s comprehensive report reveals the unprecedented level of censorship and intimidation that operates within British universities. Anyone who questions the fashionable American doctrine on gender is met with relentless bullying from a dominant minority of students, academics, and administrators.”
The report, Barriers to Research on Sex and Gender, follows Prof Sullivan’s March 2025 report on the collection of data on sex and gender by UK institutions. A Government spokesperson said: "We are taking strong action to protect academic freedom and free speech, which are fundamental to our world-leading universities.
“This includes introducing new duties on universities to ensure they are robust in promoting and protecting free speech on campus. It also comes alongside the firm steps the Office for Students is already taking, through fines and new guidance, to ensure universities remain beacons of academic freedom.”