Lecturer Colette Colfer has challenged the South East Technological University in Waterford for its assertion that it is ‘unlawful’ not to use a person’s preferred pronouns.
Ms Colfer has told her university that her refusal to comply with its new gender identity policy is on the basis that it compels staff to use students’ or staff members’ preferred pronouns or face accusations of “unlawful discrimination or harassment”.
The controversy highlights both the issue of compelled speech and the decision by the Higher Education Authority to link a university’s ability to raise research funding to its adherence to a charter which pushes universities to take particular positions on transgenderism, amongst other things.
Ms Colfer responded to Wednesday’s launch by SETU of its Gender Expression and Identity policy by saying that she would not be complying with a policy that compelled her to use a person’s preferred pronouns.
She also highlighted the possible implications that such a policy might have for “women’s sports and changing rooms.” That has been the main issue to emerge from other educational institutions internationally where the integrity of sports for girls and women, and indeed their safety, has been seen by many to take second place to an ideologically driven agenda.
Colfer told Gript that there was confusion within third level institutions as to whether such a policy is in compliance with Irish legislation, or whether universities are seeking to ensure that they comply with the Higher Education Authority’s requirement that they comply with the Athena SWAN charter in order to receive research funding.
The March draft of the SETU policy document states that among those consulted were LBGTQ+ activist NGOs Shout Out and the Transgender Equality Network (TENI). The document goes on to state that SETU “seeks to uphold its legal obligations in relation to gender identity and expression,” and refers in particular to the Gender Recognition Act (2015.)
However, as it stands – and Gript will be attempting to clarify this – there appears to in fact be no legal requirement in Irish legislation, and certainly none that would override any existing employment and equality statutes, that would make it compulsory on anyone including third level staff to accept a transgender policy at the possible cost of impacting on their position within a teaching or research institution.
What we do know, and Gript has several times reported on this, is that there is a requirement that all third level institutions in the state comply with the Athena Swan Charter in order to receive research funding. The Athena SWAN charter is the invention of an English NGO. Advance HE, which has amended it to include a clause that refers to individuals having “the right to determine and affirm their gender.”
Not only is this not a generally recognised “right” – it is in fact a highly and hotly contested issue across a whole range of areas – but it is clearly implied that third level institutions must accept this in order to receive funding. Which is explicitly the case as the Higher Education Authority has made compliance with the charter mandatory for funded institutions.
The question must then be posed as to whether SETU, which has a page dedicated to the Athena SWAN Charter from which the above section comes, is more cognisant of the charter rather than Irish law which, again, does not, as far as we know, make it mandatory on anyone to accept another person’s subjective gender definition.
Colette Colfer has previously written about the influence of Athena SWAN. In December 2021, she stated that the charter “poses a threat to individual and institutional academic freedom across the entire higher education sector,” and that she believes that its requirement regarding gender recognition is in clear conflict with the commitment in the 1997 Universities Act of universities to “foster a capacity for critical thinking among its students.”
Ironically, when the then CEO of the Higher Education Authority Tom Boland, made reference in February 2015 to the launch of Athena SWAN here by then Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan, he referred to it as “a self-enforcing system.”
It would perhaps be countered that the compliance with any system that is mandatory in order to receive state funding is anything but “self-enforcing.”
Since then, the English NGO Advance HE has, through Athena SWAN, not only successfully extended its powerful veto over all Irish third level institutions but has also made compliance part of the criteria governing the administration of other state funded bodies including the Economic and Research Institute (ESRI). That is surely an extraordinary and unprecedented situation for a sovereign state to find itself in.
One can only admire the courage of Colette Colfer in challenging this state of affairs and making a stand on behalf of the academic freedom of all of her colleagues and indeed of the student body. Said colleagues should now have the gumption to come out and publicly support her, instead of privately concurring and saying nothing.