UK University Union: Anyone Can 'Self-Identify' as Black or Disabled
University and College Union (UCU) releases new policy on 'self-identity'
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The UK's University and College Union (UCU) has released its new policy for "identity" among staff and students, declaring that anyone can "self-identify" as "black, disabled, LGBT+ or women."
The union says it “represents over 120,000 academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, managers, administrators, computer staff, librarians and postgraduates in universities, colleges, prisons, adult education, and training organizations across the UK.”
The newly released six-page statement from the union mainly focuses on transgenderism and gender identity but also claims people can choose their own race and seemingly pick and choose disabilities to apply to themselves at will.
“UCU has a long history (from predecessor unions) of enabling members to self-identify whether that is being black, disabled, LGBT+ or women [sic],” the document states.
“UCU supports the right of all women (including trans women) to safe spaces,” the statement adds.
"UCU also supports a social, rather than a medical, model of gender recognition that will help challenge repressive gender stereotypes in the workplace and in society."
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The reference to “enabling members to self-identify whether that is being black, disabled, LGBT+ or women” was repeated three times throughout the document.
On the topic of gender identity more particularly, the UCU conceded that “There has been argument that debating gender identity is a matter of academic freedom.”
The organization also claims that the UCU is, itself, a defender and promoter of academic freedom — but that “academic freedom is bound up with other civil liberties and human rights so therefore does not give the right to discriminate. ”
The UCU repeatedly stressed their self-proclaimed status as “champions of equality” and “commitment to intersectionality.”
“UCU is committed to an intersectional approach within all its work,” the position paper declared.
“This is UCU’s positon [sic]. The strength of the Union is to bring members together and to build bridges rooted in equality.
"UCU believes that for true solidarity we need to be speaking to and working with each other and acknowledging and celebrating our intersectional differences.”
The paper also referred to previous UCU commitments to campaign for gender-neutral toilets, the “promotion of non heteronormative and non binary identities,” and ending “the requirement and practice of gender assignment at birth.”
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Research from 2017 suggests some 80 percent of British academics are leftists.
A report by the Adam Smith Institute said that the number of British academics that are liberal or left-wing has been steadily on the rise since the 1960s.
“Conservative and right-wing academics are particularly scarce in the social sciences, the humanities and the arts,” the report found.
"Social settings characterized by too little diversity of viewpoints are liable to become afflicted by groupthink, a dysfunctional atmosphere where key assumptions go unquestioned, dissenting opinions are neutralized, and favored beliefs are held as sacrosanct."
