Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, made false allegations about two academics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donelan wrote to the Prof Ottoline Leyser, the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to \u201cexpress, in the most serious terms, my disgust and outrage at Research England\u2019s appointment of individuals to an advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion who, since October 7, have been sharing some extremist views on social media.\u201d<\/em> This referred to her interpretation of tweets by Professor Kate Sang (Heriot Watt) and Dr Kamna Patel (UCL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prof Leyser responded in a public letter<\/a> on 31 October 2023 by suspending the UKRI Research England Equality Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group. She also launched an investigation into the actions of the two academics. The outcome letter<\/a> was published on 5 March 2024 and found “no evidence in the public domain of support for a proscribed terrorist organisation or the sharing of extremist material and no grounds to remove any individual members of the Research England Expert Advisory Group on EDI<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most academics thought that the tweets by Sang and Patel did not bear the interpretation that Michelle Donelan placed on them. As the evidence was flimsy, this certainly did not warrant a lengthy four month investigation, far less the suspension of the EDI Advisory Group. Hence, some academics boycotted UKRI, resigning from some of its many committees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prof Sang sued Donelan for libel. Donelan settled the case by apologising and paying damages. The most extraordinary aspect is that the damages were paid from public money.<\/strong> It cost taxpayers \u00a315,000 to cover the damages paid. The cost of any legal fees, also charged to the public, has not been disclosed. This has caused much surprise in the media. There are now calls for Donelan to pay for her own legal costs & damages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, this should not be a surprise. This is routine practice in many Universities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 21 Group has received many reports of false allegations. Sometimes this can be a senior academic, (usually male) publicly rubbishing the work of a more junior academic (usually female) as “garbage<\/em>” or “complete junk<\/em>“. Sometimes this can be academic jealousy, a powerful individual resenting a new & creative approach to a subject and so disparaging the quality of a scholar (“her work on her stupid protein<\/em>“). Sometimes this can be accusations of misconduct such as falsifying data or breaching medical research protocols. Sometimes this can be straightforward retaliation, a bully or harasser attacking the very individuals who have exposed (usually) him by inventing a raft of bogus counter-allegations. Whatever the underlying motivation, such false allegations can be career-ending for an academic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us suppose a senior academic at your University defames you and your University HR are ineffectual. This is actually the best case scenario, as usually University HR enters the fray briskly and enthusiastically on the side of the senior academic, no matter what. As a last resort, you decide to take steps to restore your reputation. This may involve hiring lawyers to ask your defamer to retract the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What will happen next may surprise you. You will find that your University will support and may also pay for the senior academic’s legal fees (on their insurance policy). The spurious argument will be — just as with Michelle Donelan — that the senior academic has incurred these expenses in pursuit of his or her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is of course very wrong. It is a scandalous waste of public money (or donor’s money). A university needs to be neutral in any ongoing dispute between faculty, so it is very wrong for it to intervene with payment for lawyers. It is a gross misuse of public money or donor’s money. If some faculty are behaving badly, why is taxpayer’s money being spent on their behalf?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us by all means call for Michelle Donelan’s resignation. But she is not the only one who should be considering her position …<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, made false allegations about two academics. Donelan wrote to the Prof Ottoline Leyser, the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to \u201cexpress, in the most serious terms, my disgust and outrage at Research England\u2019s appointment of individuals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}