Richard Naftalin

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.100.6

There are many regrettable aspects to the Tim Hunt affair, perhaps the most – the words he spoke in jest, pour épater la bourgeoisie.  ‘For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind’…. etc. – in his case a tornado.  As my late friend and Head of Department, Peter Baker was wont to say, ‘Academic freedom is the right of academics to make fools of themselves –occasionally’: he may have said it to me… or himself, or maybe even you.

Nevertheless that is not the only concern.  University College, London’s hasty action in requesting Hunt’s resignation instead of waiting for the storm to abate, as it surely will (or has already), should not be seen as simply a crowd-pleasing, grandstanding gesture by a trigger happy HR department.

It is yet another exercise in administrative power over academe.  Another scalp – useful in making sure that the rest of the pesky academics stay in line.

If they can do this to someone as eminent as Hunt, for no real cause other than temporary embarrassment of an Institution that manifestly gives women a fair deal, what else will they do if someone raises real issues – such as the gross disparity in remuneration between academic and senior admin staff, or the appalling conditions of employment of temporary staff and junior academics?  Men and women alike!

Members of The Society, particularly those who have had an association with UCL, should make known their displeasure at this lapse from UCL’s normally decent commonsensical standards and seek to reverse their over-heavy reaction to Tim Hunt’s lapse in good taste and sense.