Scottish law lecturer hits out after gagging by university over 'trans' comments

A top law lecturer who taught Scotland’s First Minister during her student days has hit out at the UK’s biggest university after being censored for stating that trans women are men in a debate about free speech.

Edinburgh-based Harry Potter author JK Rowling has faced a storm of abuse on social media and accusations of transphobia over her views on gender issues

Alistair Bonnington, 68, a former honorary professor of criminal law at Glasgow University, posted his views in an Open University (OU) online forum during a discussion about 18th-century writer Voltaire, an advocate for freedom of speech.

The academic, who has been studying English literature with the OU, was expressing his thoughts on planned hate crime laws in Scotland that would allow men to self-identify as women as well as the furore around author JK Rowling’s views on gender.

He wrote the SNP’s new Bill “would make it a crime for anybody to deny that a ‘trans’ woman (i.e. a man) was a real woman”.

Mr Bonnington said: “It looks like feminists in Scotland can look forward to incarceration. Poor JK Rowling may need to become an exile like Voltaire.”

But he later discovered his comments had been deleted by university moderators.

Now he has hit out at the establishment for “infantile and anti-intellectual behaviour”.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mr Bonnington said: “For the university to do what it did is an absolute joke.

“Universities should be places where free debate can be had between people who hold different views.

“If we're not allowed to debate things in universities then things have got into a bit of a mess.

“That’s just Stalinism basically and I find it quite shocking for free speech to be treated as an expendable commodity by a university.”

A female student replied to Mr Bonnington’s statement with the comment “trans women are women”.

Although his post was removed, the response was not, prompting another student on the course to question the decision, asking “surely you have to be impartial, you can’t just take down one point and leave another standing?”

Mr Bonnington said: “I’ve taught in universities for over 25 years, but it seemed to me extraordinary that a university would be basically enforcing a particular viewpoint.

“It’s an incredibly infantile approach and anti-intellectual.”

He has since received a disciplinary letter from the university, stating that he had breached forum rules.

Mr Bonnington has said he will not take legal action, but will likely drop out of the university.

“I’ve handled a lot of free speech cases,” he said.

“Universities don’t seem to understand that free speech means what it says.

“It means you can have views with which other people disagree.

“I could enforce my legal right by going to a court, but I would rather call it a day and come out of the course.”

The OU has defended its actions.

A spokesman for the organisation said: “We will not allow views to be presented in a way that is hostile or degrading to others.

“This does not infringe our statement on academic freedom, which supports opinions and arguments – including those that could cause offence to some people – to be openly and freely expressed.”

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