What does it take for Cambridge University to expel a student?
(a) making threats to kill a fellow student?
(c) setting fire to a fellow student?
(d) sending emails?
We thank Dr Nuno Oliveira for his testimony below.
I know the answer — because it happened to me.
I am one of the very few students ever expelled by University of Cambridge — recently ranked the UK’s best employer by the Financial Times. On 30 April 2026, I received a notice from the Office of Student Conduct, Complaints and Appeals (OSCCA):
“With immediate effect, you are permanently excluded from membership of the University… You will not be able to complete your PhD … You will not be able to return in the future.”
That was the outcome of an “investigation” launched after I raised complaints about harassment and research misconduct by senior academics — complaints that were never addressed.
Instead, after 36 months of persistence on my part, those involved — and those who had enabled the cover-up — produced witness statements against me. Statements I was never allowed to see.
The issues began in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) during my time as a postdoctoral fellow. Yet the consequences were imposed on my part-time PhD in a completely different department, History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) — one with no connection to the original misconduct.
The University took my job and my research, disregarded the terms of my UKRI grant, ignored every complaint I filed and provided misleading information about my rights
It failed to follow its own whistleblowing and safeguarding policies.
I was placed under sweeping “precautionary measures,” effectively silencing me by barring me from contacting senior leadership, HR, and colleagues by email. It prevented me from speaking to co-authors on my own research and restricted my discussions with a senior professor willing to help. Even my personal belongings — essential for my research — were withheld.
And throughout it all, the list of people aware of these events grew: the University Council, General Board, Board of Scrutiny, Proctors, and College leadership. No one intervened.
What stays with me is not just the lack of support — it’s the message that silence sends.
It tells those responsible that they are untouchable. It tells others that speaking up comes at a cost.
Over the past three years, I have learned how reputation management can eclipse truth. How institutions protect themselves first. And how easily individuals can be erased when they challenge power.
Still, they failed to break me.
If anything, this has only strengthened my resolve to speak out—so others do not have to endure the same.
This is not just a personal story. It reflects a deeper failure across UK higher education.
An institution celebrated globally for excellence has, in this case, demonstrated something else entirely: poor governance, lack of accountability, and a system where hierarchy overrides truth.
The 21 Group applauds Dr Oliveira for his persistence and courage.
HR need to resign now. Immediately.
The scale of problems at the School of Physical Sciences means that there is huge job ahead for the new Head of School.
Darwin College must be looking on with some nervousness
“The 21 Group applauds Dr Oliveira for his persistence and courage.”
Please understand that it is necessary more than persistence and courage to have reports of misconduct from senior members fairly addressed at Cambridge University at the moment, after all one can be accused of “unreasonably persistent behaviour” in the end and be expelled for telling facts that were never addressed. I already described how this disturbing experienced impacted me and my health in previous posts, namely in (https://21percent.org/?p=3449), and thus I will share something else below.
Many months ago, a very senior member of Cambridge told me that he knew very few people who had openly challenged institutional misconduct, namely in universities, and had ‘survived’ and by this he meant in terms of health but also academic reputation. He put me in touch with one person he knew and I met him. This person, a very senior Professor in another University, indeed openly talks about bullying and harassment in academia, namely on the impact of Non-Disclosure Agreements. What people do not know is that he too had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement in his previous university regarding a report of misconduct he had done and that had largely been covered up. When I met him, I could immediately see that he still carried the weight of signing that NDA and for accepting the reference letters from those people he knew were dishonest.
This is the real reason why I was expelled. There is absolutely nothing that Cambridge University can do to silence me. There is no money they can offer me to prevent me from openly challenging the degrading situation we currently are at Cambridge. This is a kind of power that a powerful institution like Cambridge University is not used to encounter. For those who do not understand the timing, I had to be expelled before June, because several people involved in the case of Astronomy were also involved in mine at DAMTP. It would be very concerning if the people who wrote ‘witness statements’ against me were to be shown dishonest and incompetent in a public trial. These managers know that I will speak, that there is nothing they can do to prevent from speaking, and the only thing they had left was preventing from speaking as a member of Cambridge University.
For those who are considering reporting the misconduct they experienced or witnessed, note that you may have a strenuous path ahead if you have to face the individuals I had to at Cambridge University and other institutions, but it will ultimately reveal your real character. I could have finished my degree in silence, and that is what the university and college wanted. I chose not to be silent, and I do not regret it at all.
As you can imagine, my story is not over yet, but ssssssssh for now, it is confidential! 😉
This gladiator knows absolutely no detail about the case of Dr Oliveira. But having said that it is struck by the brutality and asymmetry of the outcome! What could possibly justify this expulsion? Was Dr Oliveira violent towards fellow students, teachers or senior leadership? If the answer is YES then it surely must be in the public interest that UCam spells it out in detail! If the answer is NO then UCam is not commiting an injustice! It is acting in an unlawful and possibly criminal way. Being expelled as a student is an academic death sentence! How can it be possibly justified? Is Lord Smith content with this? I can no longer expect that the American Queen and her cronies have any dignity or compassion left so asking them is a total waste of time. UCam has lost its compass! It is a pit of rot and decay! It stinks of corruption and lack of any form of integrity!
“Being expelled as a student is an academic death sentence”
I am planning to put it in my CV by the way, and will get some merch with something along the lines “I was expelled at Cambridge University for reporting harassment and research misconduct.” I will finish that PhD anyway, do not worry, even if I have to start it from scratch!
Lord Smith knows about my situation since before he was a Chancellor as I contacted all candidates at the time and he was one those who replied. Moreover, Lord Smith has been cced in all the emails, namely those sent to University Council, General Board, Board of Scrutiny, and many others. No one raised their voice, literally no one. This is the real Cambridge that most people do not know.
36 months seems like a massive drag on everyone’s time. Their job is to intervene early and achieve resolution and they obviously aren’t doing that. Regardless of the details there is obviously a basic lack of managerial accountability. In the private sector they’d fire any case manager who left a case that long. Their KPI would be speed of resolution and bad KPIs would see the case officer moved out first before any member of staff faced consequences.
This is a very good point (though 36 months is not long for Cambridge, there are cases going on much longer than that).
But your point is absolutely correct — these cases are grotesque failures of HR. They simply should not be happening.
HR’s job is to sort things out quickly and make sure things don’t escalate.
And also as you say, this wouldn’t happen in the private sector. The HR manager responsible for this would be sacked.
To clarify, 36 months was not the investigation against me. 36 months includes the reports I had done prior to the investigation against me, reports originally done in DAMTP about people from DAMTP but that then got escalated to University HR (who were advising DAMTP on how to respond to my reports) and OSCCA (who were being advised by University HR). For very many months, they gaslighted me or simply ignored what I said and did not run an investigation against those I had complained about. As I became increasingly vocal, namely externally to MPs and journalists (ccing Cambridge leadership), they decided to bring together all those who I had complained about, asked them to produce ‘witness statements’ against me, and these became facts even though I was never allowed to see or challenge the statements. Of course, the investigation against me ignored all the complaints I and third parties had done against the individuals who were never investigated and wrote witness statements against me.
The investigation against me started in August 2025. I received the report of the ‘Discipline Committee’ on April 13 giving me the “extraordinary” opportunity to provide information including medical evidence, when Cambridge University had not done anything except ignore all the information I had sent them, including the letters from my GP, and on April 30 I was expelled. This is the timeline. However, in parallel to this story, we have a Professor who was shown to sexually harass a female student, he continued to teach after the investigation’s report was produced, multiple women came forward to raise concerns about his conduct, and it is not even clear at this stage after several months the report was known if he will have a disciplinary action. The situation is so bizarre that it is hard to believe, but it is very real!
The aspect that ought to be of very significant concern to us all, is the highly personal and retaliatory nature of this conflict. The (trademark) brutality and absence of proportionality has already been noted.
At times on this blog, the grotesque measures taken against this student seemed to happen almost in real time, as and when he spoke up about a particular individual in SPS HR, about conduct on their part which would and should have merited expulsion a long time ago, were they not shielded from investigatory and disciplinary action through their allegiance and collaboration with the legal team.
The University thus enables individuals in advisory roles to become executors on their own terms, and to involve and entice those with a responsibility to ensure that such gross misconduct and conflict of interest never happens, to contribute instead to the execution by allowing their names and their positions to be misused and their witness statements to be written for them.
You are right. This is indeed a very personal and retaliatory conflict. All the people who complained about me, all without exception, those who wrote ‘witness statements’ I never saw (with the exception of one that was uploaded by mistake by a person who damaged many people in the same School), were exactly the individuals I had complained about and who were never investigated themselves. It is a very personal and retaliatory conflict because I exposed their behaviour against me and others, and I will continue to do so with or without Cambridge membership. Of course, the key question is who in the “University” allowed them—or encouraged them—to do that after many months of seeing my own complaints being ignored. To be clear, this was not a decision of the 10 individuals who complained about me, but someone else above them who told them that was the best solution in this particular case. Their hope was that investigation would silence me, at least during in degree, but it did not work as planned…
HR is now deliberately trying to expel students and staff who raised grievances about their conduct. They are literally destroying the organization’s human resources – the opposite of what they are paid to do – in order to save their own personal careers and interests.
This is correct. It is a huge HR scandal, backed up by Legal Services. It needs an independent investigation with the perpetrators held to account. Much of HR/Legal needs to be placed under new management.
The problems, like many in Cambridge, can be traced to the reign of the former Registrary.
I was expelled as staff (2024) and as student (2026) because of the same issues that have nothing to do with my PhD studies, happened in a different department, were never addressed and escalated to an increasing number of people. Very many people know about this and do absolutely nothing to help. Everyone finds an excuse for not intervene. HR and legal services do not act alone. It is a weak senior leadership that allows them do what they do.
It is like the tale of the lady who swallowed a fly (and then a spider, cat, dog, etc). It all starts with something tiny and easily fixed .. and snowballs month by month into a landslide. The problem is always delaying and covering up instead of intervening and fixing problems. By the end millions of pounds in staff time and legal costs are incurred not to mention lost output and reputational ruin for all involved.
It is very important that people openly challenge them, otherwise they will continue to do it. If they can easily expel a student for telling the truth, facts that were never addressed, when so many people know about it, that will give a very fearful signal, and indeed hopelessness, to many people in UCam that experienced or witnessed abuses. We cannot let that happen. Therefore, let’s see what this coming week brings. Note that they expelled the student even before a final appeal…
Of course, there are some senior people complicit in these cover-ups who act as “Responsible Persons”. They know what is going on.
Dr Oliveira has been expelled. His expulsion letter with a justification for this severe and final disciplinary measure cannot be ‘secret’! Can Dr Oliveira please post the letter here, including who signed it.
If the 21 Group lets me post it here, I will. There is nothing confidential about my case, despite all the efforts of Cambridge University and many of its senior managers.
The 21 Group believes in freedom of speech. The 21 Group notes the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act makes it illegal to restrict disclosure of bullying or harassment allegations
OK then. Shall I copy/paste the text here? It’s 9 pages…
I should say that this particular letter with the ‘outcome’ does not have the names of the people who complained about me except those who I am still forbidden from contacting—yes, despite not being a member the “University” still wants to prevent me from contacting hundreds of people—a much larger number than those who complained about me. It includes the person who signed the letter, of course, but this information is not as relevant as one may think. The person who signed the letter is Ms Rose Garner Secretary who presents herself as the “Secretary of the Student Discipline Committee” but it is a Senior Case Handler of OSCCA, and, importantly, managed by a person who complained about me, the Head of OSCCA Ms Nikki Bannister.
The full list of people who wrote ‘witness statements’ against me is Dr Mike Glover, Mr Kris Cressy, Dr Alex Pryce, Ms Nikki Bannister, Ms Neya Omar, Ms Louise Akroyd, Professor Colm-cille P. Caulfield, Professor Raymond Goldstein, Ms Rachel Plunkett and Mr James Wilcock. Equally important are the names of the “Discipline Committee” that made the decisions, the Chair, Professor Graham Virgo (Professor of English Private Law, Master of Downing College), the Regent House member Professor Karen Ottewell (Professor of Contrastive Rhetoric and Written Articulacy, Lucy Cavendish College) and the Student representative, Mr Matthew Copeman (Cambridge Student Union Sabbatical Officer). I would think that they needed external member(s), but what do I know about Cambridge processes and procedures. Regardless, I pointed out that Professor Virgo had conflicts of interest and this issue was not addressed.
Post the PDF of the full letter. 21percent can help you do so.
Sure. I will contact the 21 Group and hopefully it can be done. I can imagine many people getting really upset with that idea as after all it is “confidential” 😉
Note that some of the things written there are incorrect and misleading and were left there to prevent me from sharing the documents. They clearly do not know me.
Post the PDF of the letter!
Dr Oliveira tried to reason with an organisation as a person at a point in time when that organisation was in no fit state to reason with a person as an organisation.
A person in a fit state to reason with an organisation as a person being expelled from an organisation in no fit state to reason with a person as an organisation while the person is trying to reason with the organisation as a person is a completely different outcome to a person in no fit state to reason with an organisation as a person being expelled from an organisation in a fit state to reason with a person as an organisation while the organisation is trying to reason with a person as an organisation.
If a person is in a fit state to reason with an organisation as a person & is expelled by an organisation in no fit state to reason with a person as an organisation while trying to reason with the organisation as a person then it is possible for the expulsion to strengthen the resolve of a person to speak up and for a person to emerge unbroken as happened in Dr Oliveira’s case. That is by no means a guaranteed outcome as there is typically an asymmetry of the impact of an unreasonable organisation on a person as compared to the impact of an unreasonable person on an organisation.
This is what it ultimately comes down to in these cases – was the overall set of organisational actions taken with respect to a person reasonable or unreasonable in the circumstances of the case.
Reasoning with an organisation as a person is completely different task to reasoning with a person or a group of other people as a person. To reason with an organisation as a person it is necessary to understand the organisation as a distinct entity separate from the group of people who happen to be leading the organisation at one point in time. It is necessary to understand the character of the organisation before proceeding with any challenging interaction with the organisation. It is necessary to understand the organisations governance structure, the legal constraints the organisation is under, what the organisation can and cannot do in a situation, what approach to getting the organisation to a more reasonable state has the highest probability of success, what due pressure looks like for an organisation in a given situation.
Dr Oliveira has emerged unbroken and with a strengthened resolve to speak up, no NDA was signed, no financial compensation was taken, one academic career path built together with one academic community might have been blocked but Dr Oliveira is off to find another academic community to build a different academic career path together with …. I too applaud his persistence and his courage …. his character reminds me of the character of another ….. not a person …. but a distinct entity nonetheless.
If I had a PhD student under my supervision in this position I would take the case to Regent House but this is why I am no longer a member of Cambridge or in academia because it’s no longer possible to reason with a university as a person without generating prolonged – years long – unnecessary conflict.
I am not referring to the conflict generated during the whistleblowing situation I encountered as unnecessary conflict because I think organisational compliance with the legal obligation to regulate work-related stress is genuinely difficult to understand both for an organisation and for a person. I think Cambridge has the highest potential of any organisation to work out how to comply with that particular legal obligation in a rational & common sense way.
I mean all the unnecessary conflict involved in surviving in academia which is not something specific to Cambridge. If a PhD supervisor is not being treated fairly & reasonably in academia themselves then it’s much harder for that PhD supervisor to create an educational environment for PhD students where PhD students are treated fairly & reasonably in academia.
“Dr Mike Glover, Mr Kris Cressy, Dr Alex Pryce, Ms Nikki Bannister, Ms Neya Omar, Ms Louise Akroyd, Professor Colm-cille P. Caulfield, Professor Raymond Goldstein, Ms Rachel Plunkett and Mr James Wilcock.”
ALL TO DESTROY A STUDENT!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!! How can they sleep with their conscience????*
@SPARTACUS, the list of people involved is actually much bigger, namely if I include people from college, but the most senior people (apart from Dr Glover) decided not to be directly involved in this expulsion because they have already enough problems, namely because of Astronomy… Can’t you spot who is missing from that list that should be there?
As you will see if the document with the final decision is uploaded, I am even forbidden from contacting Ms Emma Rampton who “stepped down” as Registrary in and no longer works for the University since December, and Ms Alice Benton who retired many months ago… This is a completely new level of surrealism.
Think Neya Omar has gone, she’s no longer listed on the plague ship!
https://www.physsci.cam.ac.uk/school-office-contacts
Ms Neya Omar was HR Business Partner at the School of Physical Sciences and was directly managed by Ms Louise Akroyd. She left recently indeed, but before she did, she submitted a “witness statement” against me. This person is no different from Ms Louise Akroyd for those who know Ms Akroyd. Surely learned a lot from her, including sharing documents to parties who could not read them. The concept of “confidentiality” is a complete joke in Cambridge and that is why I no longer follow it, regardless of their attemtps otherwise.
Note that if you search these people now, several of them changed position in Cambridge, some were Heads of Department, Senior Investigators at OSCCA, or HR managers in Medicine, but moved on to other rules. They are still around though.
roles
The writing is on the wall. There have been a lot of HR departures already. Though to be fair many were resignations of conscience not of wrongdoing. It is now a massive liability to have so many people outside of the university – with absolutely no further incentive to stay silent – and I’m not sure at all what they expected to achieve from the expulsion of Dr Oliveira since then.
“I’m not sure at all what they expected to achieve from the expulsion of Dr Oliveira”
The investigation was done so that I stopped raising my voice. As it did not work and it made it worse, they decided that I should not speak as a Cambridge University member. They want to say that I was expelled for breaching the “Rules of Behaviour” if/when journalists approach them to comment on something that I may say about some senior members of Cambridge, namely those who wrote ‘witness statements’ against me.
It’s defamation – by the actions taken. For which there is no justification.
Standard Cambridge practice.
Do not worry. This time that tactic will not work. I am the one who wants to publish their sham investigation against me; they are the ones who it confidential, “regardless of the outcome, you should not identify or provide details that might identify any individual involved in the investigation or subsequent decision-making process.”
They wish!
This does seem like a remarkable amount of time and energy to produce the rather shameful outcome of expelling one of our students, when considerably less energy and time were required to meet, apologise, and then, god forbid, think about how to get someone’s study and research plans back on track, as a university is supposed, in theory, to do.
You should know that my original complaint at DAMTP (June 2023) only asked direct apolagies. It could have been solved in 10 minutes, but instead the “University” (read in this case, University HR) decided to cover it up. 36 months after, and involving very many people, including all the senior leadership of UCam because they all know about this, several MPs and other externaal bodies, the “University” decided to expel me as a student when the issues had nothing to do with my student status. If this is not mismanagement, I do not know what mismanagement is. The boat continues in route towards the iceberg and it is moving fast (https://21percent.org/?p=3509).
Bureaucracy in universities manufactures the problems it later cites to justify its own expansion.
HR creates these enormous problems deliberately.
If it didn’t, there would be no justification for doubling its size.
Incidentally, the HR Director has been on leave for a while with the automatic message, “Thank you for your email. I am now on leave, returning to the office on Tuesday 12 May. If your query is urgent, please contact: Francesca Karabyn, Executive Assistant, or Nicola Mister”
I understand. She needed a break from the hard work she put into UCam!
sorry, I forgot to paste the job title of the latter, it is actually hilarius:
“or; Nicola Mister, Head of the HR Directorate Office”
“Bureaucracy in universities manufactures the problems it later cites to justify its own expansion”
It is also the case that HR (aided by legal) manufacture the problems they later cite to justify the policies they use and the processes they put in place to punish, defame, demote and even destroy the people they have identified and blacklisted as “problem people”.
Those who won’t allow the loss of integrity, fairness and justice, and refuse to take as read the bullshit coming from HR or the legal services.
Those who refuse to be silent about the growing decay and malpractice in their organisation.
The whistleblowers…
I do not have any doubt that if we keep pushing, they will eventually break because they are simply accumulating scandal after scandal and putting them under the carpet.
We urgently need an independent investigation into HR, and that can be achieved through a Grace. People who vote against such a Grace asking for an independent investigation into HR will show who they support. It needs to be done ASAP.
The problem is : people can avoid conflict with the university for many years by making adjustments for the university but eventually the stressors can become too abnormal to avoid this new legal obligation to raise work-related and/or education-related stress concerns especially if in any kind of safeguarding or governance role.
If have already made adjustments for the university over many years to avoid conflict with the university because it looks like a very difficult organisation to challenge based on other cases then at the point forced to raise health and safety concerns the case could already be in an advanced state of seriousness and the university is then unlikely to offer any mediation so it becomes very difficult to minimise conflict with the university from that point forward.
The university places very little value on mediation & on organisational actions to actively minimise conflict with people. It’s too used to people – especially early career researchers – making adjustments for the university while it stays in an unreasonable state i.e. people taking actions to actively minimise conflict with the university. It currently lacks the ability to work together with people to maintain working relationships in the event of any organisational problems.
Please let’s not forget that we should all be proud with this ranking!
https://www.ft.com/content/6ce8bb29-824b-4ce5-a459-2ead769737e2
Either proud or humiliated. I feel the latter, but many in UCam feel the former, namely Professor Kamal Munir who forgot to mention this investigation to Mr Daniel Zeichner MP when he reassured Mr Zeichner that my health was the priority of “all of us.”
@SPARTACUS, you will like this. “Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough!” by the VC…
https://x.com/Cambridge_Uni/status/2052645141819658648
How is it possible she is not embarrassed by the state of her university. The show must go on!
One must doubt that SIr David was very happy about the whole Vet School saga.
https://x.com/Cambridge_Uni/status/2052645141819658648
Tin-eared does not even begin to describe that video.
All is not well, and there are very serious problems.
Problems? What problems? We now have LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
https://www.camtrainingassoc.com/legoseriousplay
We can even build wellbeing, “extended to multi-session courses that support people with depression and anxiety.” Does that include distress from the current state of Cambridge University and its senior leadership? Not clear.
It’s a bloody omnishambles
“Lego play”? In a time of departmental budget cutbacks please please please tell me this is just a joke and that HR did not actually spend university money contracting for this.
A nurse of a certain college once told me, “I know that you have problems, let’s say, they are here on your right, and you have other problems here on your left. You are in the centre. Let’s assume these problems will eventually be resolved and let’s focused on your health, on how we can improve your health now.” She never realized that the health issues would not improve until the problems were addressed. Of course, she eventually realized it because I explicitly told her, but she still did not want the problems to be discussed in her appointments so that there were no records of them. I continued to talk about the problems in the appointments because they were the cause of the health issues. One day, I asked her the records of our appointments so that I could send them to my GP, and she told me that she could not share my records. When I insisted, she told me that I would no longer have medical appointments following the advice of her “clinical supervisor.” When I asked who her clinical supervisor was, she did not answer. When I complained about this situation, the “complaints officer” labelled my complaint vexatious. Our nurse could not share the records because part of the problems were caused by those who pay her salary, namely by the “complaints officer” himself.
They all know the problems, but do not want to address their route. They live fine with that. Advertising activities like “Lego Serious Play” diverts the attention of members and the public at large from the real problems that should be addressed at UCam. It looks good on the website and attracts sponsors. That is enough for these managers.
A person is either in a job & doing that job or not in a job & not doing that job. There is no intermediate state so there’s no need for overcomplicated thinking. An organisation doesn’t stop because it has challenges otherwise it will have far more challenges. David Attenborough didn’t stop when he had challenges otherwise he would never have learned how to take on greater & greater challenges and his voice – one dedicated to the wonder of life on earth – would not have been heard by so many.
“Dear Nuno,
I wrote to Dr Tett and she replied. As the University has expelled you, we agreed that the request to switch college is moot. We will take no further action unless the decision to expel is reversed.
Best,
Simon”
Possible translation: As HR has expelled you to cover its astonishing mismanagement of your case, we will re-engage if those responsible ever joined Emma in Cambridge exile
I do not think that Lord McDonald liked my response though, namely because I cced Dr Tett as well. I am happy to copy/paste it here if the 21 Group is happy with that. It is respectful 😉
Laura Trott MP:
https://x.com/LauraTrottMP/status/2051683917128696026
“In what world is a formal rebuke the right response to someone threatening to kill another person. This is a huge safeguarding failure and sets a terrible precedent.”
Perhaps someone should contact her and explain the state of Cambridge University…
A person with a high interest in preventing violence has by necessity a high interest in understanding violence as it is not possible to prevent something – e.g. cancer – without a person first having a detailed understanding of that something a person is trying to prevent.
If a person has a high interest in violence but no corresponding high interest in preventing violence the person may also then have no corresponding high interest in understanding violence. The person is then at higher risk of initiating violence which could result in a person entering into a cycle of violence that the person has limited power to bring to an end as the person lacks the understanding of violence necessary to prevent violence.
These are two different scenarios – in one the risk of violence in a community is decreased whereas in the other the risk of violence in a community is increased.
And sometimes what is most offensive is not what is said but what remains unsaid.
That’s what the breaking the silence campaign is all about.
Nuno,
Get in touch with these people, they may take your case
https://freespeechunion.org/contact
Will do. Thank you!
I can imagine many people in Cambridge happy with this, HR included.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/06/gcse-pupils-taught-its-their-civic-duty-not-to-offend/
Just to clarify, can’t we call a person a liar, if they are effectively a liar? Is calling someone what they are, namely when we have evidence of our claims, an offense? This baffles me!
This reasoning assumes there is the possibility that a person using freedom of speech in a particular situation has the potential to offend others. This reasoning does not include the possibility that a person in not using freedom of speech that same situation has the potential to offend their own self. It’s an unbalanced approach to educating a person on how to strike a balance between using freedom of speech and offence. It acknowledges that there may be costs to others of a person taking an action – using freedom of speech in a situation – but it does not acknowledge that there may be costs to a person in not taking that same action in a situation. It doesn’t acknowledge the need to balance offence to others of taking an action – using freedom of speech in a situation – with offence to own self in not taking that action in a situation.
Take the situation above – a student is making threats to kill another student :
A reasonable person would be seriously offended by another person threatening to kill them in that situation. A reasonable person would not offend their own self by not threatening to kill another person in that situation. The person making threats to kill another person in that situation is using freedom of speech to maximise offence and harm to others in the situation. This is not a legitimate use of freedom of speech.
A reasonable person would seriously offend their own self by not speaking up about threats to kill them in that situation. A reasonable person would not be offended by a person speaking up about threats to kill them in that situation. The person speaking up about threats to kill another person is using freedom of speech to minimise offence and harm to others in the situation. This is legitimate use of freedom of speech.
How disgusting and pathetic do you have to be to let this happen! When will Christs wake up? Why is it they’re enforcing an agenda where speaking out comes with consequences but will allow the their own chaplain to drink until she drops.
@Fisherman, I have not yet brought much the issues associated with Christ’s. I can only say that if people think that what the University did to me was bad, I can safely say that what my college did was not better. Surely there is a very good reason for Lord McDonald contacting Dr Tett and asking if I can change to King’s, namely when he knows what is happening at King’s. But one battle at the time, we will get there!
Lord McDonald’s great power comes with great responsibility, however in this case it comes with great arrogance and zero liability. I hope Dr Tett makes the right choice after hearing the full story.
Given my current knowledge of Lord McDonald, it is not even clear that he called Dr Tett as he said in writing he did. But at least in my reply she was cced, so if he did not contact her as he said he did, it was embarrassing to say the least.
On April 22, the 21 Group wrote “Our correspondent “BreakerMorant” remains on watch at the Employment Tribunal in Bury St Edmunds concerning POLIS-related proceedings. The 21 Group knows of many POLIS scandals — there are so many ticking bombs there ready to blow up any time. It’s a department that has been comprehensively mismanaged.” (https://21percent.org/?p=3538)
Will we have an update before May 15? I had a lovely discussion with the Head of POLIS one day before I was told I was going to be investigated, which surely was coincidence, but it would be great to have an update on the official state of POLIS as I discussed that state with their Head given she had been suggested as “Responsible Person” for a complaint I had done on research misconduct that has been frozen for months. I would love to mention these issues and updates in my “appeal” whose deadline is May 15.
BreakerMorant will update on what he knows on 7 June 2026
I can ask Professor Browne what she knows… Unless it is “confidential” 😉
Allegations of staff being systemaitically bullied out over a period of 4-5 years – ranging from endowed professors to UTOs and many, many fixed term staff as well.
I say “allegatiion” to be diplomatic though the number of allegations is insanely high for one single department and many either went to court or are awaiting hearings.
Now imagine you know that and other related issues, and the Head of POLIS is chosen as “Responsible Person” for your own report of misconduct in another department. What would you do? Alternatively, if you prefer, from what was reported above, what do you think a person like me would do upon that choice?
Nothing sums up Cambridge more than someone with a track record of bullying sitting on the HR Committee.
As a rule of thumb, everyone on this Committee is either implicated in misconduct, or is very naive
Who are they? Hmmmm lets check:
https://www.governanceandcompliance.admin.cam.ac.uk/university-committees/human-resources-committee
Chair:
Professor Kamal Munir
Members:
Dr Kirsty Allen
Professor Jude Browne
Joanna Cheffins
Professor Andrew Flewitt
Dr Michael Glover
Professor Julian Hibberd
Professor Nigel Peake (Deputy Chair)
Professor Ricardo Sabates Aysa
Professor Alan Short
Mr Tom Welchman
Professor Jocelyn Wyburd
I have the gut feeling that if there is a Grace asking for an independent investigation into HR, these members will vote against it, but who knows, I may be wrong.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-welchman/?skipRedirect=true
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Mr Tom Welchman says “I am a Director in the Project and Building Consultancy team at Colliers in London.” Funny, I thought we discussed the link between HR and Eddington cambridge development a few weeks ago…
I think the university would care a bit more if people talked about underlying practices, like reported poison pill references, spreading of false rumours, insider hiring, questionable accounting, research funding vetos, reallocation of PI budgets, churning of fixed term appointments. Who knows how fair that is, but if untrue, then a full investigation would help clear the air.
“Who knows how fair that is”
Many people do. However, the individuals involved in the malpractices will resist an external investigation as much as they can because they cannot afford it. To be clear, I was expelled when my own reports prior to this sham investigation were never investigated and my reports were not even considered in the investigation against me. The reason the “university” insists in confidentiality is because they know exactly what they are doing but do not want it widely known.