Eton teacher is sacked for video presenting a non-feminist perspective on masculinity

One eyed Jack wrote: »

. I won’t say epic proportions, but it’s almost as though he’s trying too hard to present a caricature of masculinity, by presenting all the incel talking points.

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

OP, on the first page of this forum you have started threads with the following titles:

• Citizens' Assembly on gender equality only going to focus on helping women, it seems
• Rank Irish political parties on their willingness to discriminate against men/similar
• Eton teacher is sacked for questioning radical feminist dogma on 'toxic masculinity'

With all due respect you're coming across as someone with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. I don't know you, so it won't make any difference to me one way or the other, but for the sake of your own mental health it might be better not to dwell on these topics or consume the media that specialise in pumping it out - reading The Federalist, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express definitely won't do you any good as they are hate merchants whose business model is making their readers as angry as possible to keep them coming back for more.

iptba wrote: »

I am not sure whether you would talk to someone whose views you agreed with like this and whether this is an ad hominem and/or an attempt to shame me into silence? I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder but then lots of people have all sorts of chips on their shoulders about all sorts of things. People join political parties, are involved with different movements, have strong feelings on topics they express on boards, etc.

With regard to those publications, I honestly don’t read them regularly: I get email updates to the Irish Examiner, Irish Independent and Irish Times and look in on some of the articles. Those are the sources I mostly post on. Since Covid started I have started looking at the RTÉ website for the daily figures so read that a bit too. In this case, I just saw the article mentioned on Twitter and then Googled it so as not to just quote a Daily Mail article. I don’t even know what the philosophy of the Federalist is, I haven’t come across it much.

If there are topics like this you or others don’t find of interest, don’t read them. There are a huge number of topics discussed on boards and there’s no requirement to read threads on them all.

Letter from Boys to Provost about Mr Knowland

Target:
Provost of Eton College

Region:
United Kingdom

Mr Knowland's dismissal will be appealed on the 8th of December by the Provost and Fellows. Attached is a letter from the Boys to the Provost asking for Mr Knowland's reinstatement.

Sign this petition if you support the right to free expression at Eton, and would like to see Mr Knowland reinstated.

All members of Eton community may sign if they wish, including OEs.

You only have to enter your name and email.

If you are unable to sign the petition, switch to mobile data instead of WiFi.
If you cannot sign from your mobile, please use your computer.

A Letter from the Boys to the Provost and Fellows, asking for Mr Knowland’s reinstatement.

Dear Lord Waldegrave,

The dismissal of Mr Knowland raises a number of concerns for the boys. We perceive in his dismissal some very grave implications about the nature of freedom in this school, and the moral stature of those in charge.

So that you are able to factor these concerns into your judgement of Mr Knowland’s appeal on the 8th, they are particularised in this letter.

The common opinion of the boys is that Mr Knowland presented the ideas in his video with as much academic nuance and sensitivity as could ever be reasonably expected. He makes at least 41 academic citations. His video is arguably a model for how to convey a contentious argument impeccably. We struggle to identify where Mr Knowland’s video steps out of the realms of academic debate and into genuinely discriminatory private opinion. The boys have concluded from watching the video that the problem cannot lie in the way he sets out the ideas, but in the ideas themselves. This dangerous conclusion must not be confirmed by a judgement against Mr Knowland.

Second, the boys perceive a hypocrisy on the part of the school about its role in the protection of minorities. Mr Knowland is being dismissed for having a different view to the view of the majority. His view is not very uncommon or exceptional. It is simply different. Mr Knowland’s dismissal presents as a gross abuse of the duty of the school to protect the freedoms of the individual, especially where those freedoms run up against the norms held by the majority. We feel morally bound not to be bystanders in what appears to be an instance of institutional bullying.
Why has the school not extended the protection to Mr Knowland that we hope it would to any boy who voiced a similar idea, be it on religious or secular grounds?
Are the boys also bound by the same restrictions to expression? Should boys who express the same idea as Mr Knowland expect to be similarly dealt with? Is there a difference if this idea is voiced privately, or, as with Mr Knowland, in an academic context?

Third, in a meeting on the 24th of November, the Head Master explained the test that he applies to determine what kinds of ideas are illegal. For him, anything that can be deemed ‘hostile’ by any single member of one of the school’s designated minority groups will be censored. We think this test is too severe. Young men and their views are formed in the meeting and conflict of ideas. A conflict of ideas necessarily entails controversy and spirited discussion. The Head Master’s ‘hostility’ test excludes nearly all of what makes up a liberal education.
How can the school reasonably expect teachers to engage in the promotion of free thought inside and outside of the schoolroom when the consequence of overstepping some poorly-defined line of acceptability is to lose their livelihood and home? Is this not an abuse of power?

Fourth, in a previous meeting with Pop, the Head Master stated his view that female teachers would be in some way ‘compromised’ by having to discuss the video in class. This appeared to be the Head Master’s principal objection to the video. Does this not patronise female staff? The undersigned believe that women are no less equipped than a man to contend for or against the video’s arguments.

Fifth, the school now prides itself on being a more compassionate place. This is justified; any B Blocker’s experience will confirm that the school is more tolerant and understanding than when they first arrived, no doubt as a result of your efforts. However, the dismissal of Mr Knowland – at least on the facts available to the boys – points to a heartless and merciless spirit at the top of the school. Mr Knowland is loved by all who have encountered him. He is an obviously and thoroughly good man. We know he has many children, one of whom is disabled. We are struggling to reconcile the school’s opinion of itself as tolerant or compassionate with this instance of cruelty. Mr Knowland’s dismissal truly seems cruel.

There is a sense that, by dismissing Mr Knowland, the school is seeking to protect its new image as politically progressive at the expense of one of its own. If this is true, it points to a complete lack of moral integrity and backbone.

Sixth, it is not really the concern of the boys to what extent the teachers can feel secure in the school, or be confident in the support of their Leadership Team. However, the dismissal of Mr Knowland sets a precedent that we would imagine the teachers are apprehending with some deal of mistrust and fear. Teachers have privately articulated to many boys their inability to speak up about this and other issues for fear of being dealt with in the same way as Mr Knowland. Is the school content that this is a healthy environment?

Seventh, in the meeting on the 24th of November, the Head Master admitted that Mr Knowland’s video was in fact “not the real problem”, and was not the ultimate reason for his dismissal. The Head Master said that Mr Knowland was dismissed for some action subsequent to the video which could not be disclosed to the boys. In the Head Master’s words: for “what happened after the video”. It has been made clear that this subsequent action was Mr Knowland’s refusal to take down the video from his private YouTube page. We urge the Provost and Fellows to recognise that the rightness or wrongness of Mr Knowland’s refusal to take down the video still consists in the rightness or wrongness of the video itself. If, as the Head Master accepts, the video is “not the real problem”, we struggle to understand where Mr Knowland has done wrong. In sum, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing in the video nor in the declining to remove it at the result of a capricious request.
Moreover, we believe the Head Master should not expect absolute obedience from his staff. They are not children. It is unsurprising that the Head Master has had to resort to punishment and threats to enforce such a style of government.

Those who have signed below do not necessarily support the ideas presented in Mr Knowland’s video. We all, however, support his freedom to express them.

We urge the Provost and Fellows to rule in favour of freedom of thought and expression. We hope that you will rule compassionately, and that you reinstate Mr Knowland.

Yours sincerely,

The undersigned

"In addition to this, he was asked over Lockdown to prepare a lecture for a course called “C Perspectives”. Perspectives is aimed entirely at boys in their second-to-last year and intended to encourage intellectual development by exposing us to as wide a variety of different ideas as possible. My year’s course included speakers advocating the criminalisation of abortion, making the case for the moral propriety of the British Empire, and harshly criticising the American government for their historical aggression in foreign affairs. To this end, Mr Knowland wrote a lecture about the “Patriarchy Paradox”, the essential claims of which are simple and non-controversial: first, that there exist genetic differences between men and women which manifest themselves in average differences in interest and personality; second, that not all women would agree that the world would be better off without men in it; and third, that psychologists don’t all agree that these differences are socially constructed."

I believe it was meant to give one side of the argument and another teacher was preparing a lecture to give the other side. I.e two different perspectives for the Perspectives Course

Knowland Knows

Thanks for your comment. My brief was to fill 35 minutes and provide as many debate-starting talking points as possible by airing viewpoints not commonly discussed on the topic. I suppose the short version would be 1) biological differences are real (physical and psychological), 2) they make men better suited to the protector role (although it is not exclusively masculine) and 3) the traditional masculine virtues are rooted in this. To what extent this is flexible or desirable in the future is, you rightly point out, an important discussion to have, e.g., would it be right to conscript women into frontline combat roles in WW3?

Will Knowland: Eton governors back teacher’s sacking
DECEMBER 15, 2020

The decision to sack an Eton College tutor embroiled in a free speech row has been upheld on appeal.

Eton College reported teacher they sacked over 'male superiority' lecture to anti-TERRORISM Prevent programme

English tutor Will Knowland was dismissed for 'gender roles' YouTube lecture

Eton referred him to the local authority because of the controversial lecture

Prevent programme requires schools to report potential pupil radicalisation

Mr Henderson is accused of pushing 'woke' agenda and suppressing free speech

But after reporting the lecture, the LADO found it did not meet the threshold for the Prevent duty and it was referred back to the Windsor school to deal with internally.

Dear All,

Happy New Year!

Thank you for your very kind donations to help me fight my dismissal by Eton College and for having indicated that you'd like to be on a mailing list for updates.

You might have seen the piece in The Telegraph about the Headmaster's failed attempt to refer me under Prevent as a terrorist:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/27/eton-college-attempted-refer-dismissed-master-prevent-duty-advocating/

How did it come to this? John Gray has some suggestions:

The metamorphosis in liberalism that has occurred over the past generation has played a role. From being a philosophy of tolerance aiming at peaceful coexistence among divergent world-views, it has become a persecutory orthodoxy that tolerates no view of the world other than its own. If the contemporary academy is hostile to liberal values as they used to be understood, one reason is the rise of a new liberalism that dismisses these values as phoney and repressive.

https://unherd.com/2019/08/why-the-humanities-cant-be-saved

Only because of your generous support am I now able to mount a legal challenge to this 'persecutory orthodoxy'. It took my job from me before I was fired, and this chilling article by an Eton mother explains why its stranglehold on education must be broken:

https://thecritic.co.uk/eton-needs-a-headmaster/

In addition to the legal challenge, I also plan to keep up the resistance by making more videos. In response to requests I received after 'The Patriarchy Paradox', I will soon post a video on the Frankfurt school's influence on radical feminism.

Although the Headmaster plans to refer me to the Teaching Regulation Agency, potentially banning me from the classroom for life, at least I can continue providing educational public benefit online. Thank you to those of you who suggested setting up a Patreon account for this. If you would like to support the project, please see the details here:

https://www.patreon.com/knowlandknows

Best wishes, and thanks again,

Will

Teacher sacked from Eton over anti-feminist video could be banned from teaching for life after school reported him to watchdog

Will Knowland was sacked from Eton College over video 'The Patriarchy Paradox'
He was told to take the online lecture down but repeatedly refused the requests
College's headmaster Simon Henderson sacked him for not taking video down
He has been referred to the teaching authority and could now get a lifetime ban
By DANYAL HUSSAIN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 01:26, 9 February 2021 | UPDATED: 08:49, 9 February 2021

Speaking to Times Radio, he also claimed the lecture was a 'counter argument' to lessons about 'toxic masculinity' at the college.

He said: ‘To help you understand what that orthodox narrative is, the boys are given half-day training sessions by an external organisations called the ‘Good Lad Initiative’ and that has been described by one of its former members as ‘encouraging boys to seem themselves through a prism of toxic masculinity and dysfunction.

‘Now I don’t think it is fair and responsible to encourage boys to see themselves in this way exclusively.

'I think it’s fair for them to consider the arguments regarding toxic masculinity but they should also be given counter arguments.

‘The aim (of my video) was to provide a counter weight to what they are normally taught on this topics.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6yohTYJ8w0

About TRIGGERnometry:

Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians.

18:07
i don't mean to misquote you i think
18:08
that's what you said yeah
18:10
that's part that what you've just said
18:12
is part of it what else do you mean by
18:13
that
18:15
well i went into education into eton in
18:18
particular
18:19
because i like the excitement of rigorous discussion of debate i like challenging not just other people's viewpoints but my own as well and this is why free speech is so so valuable because it enables that kind of discussion that means that the rough edges can be taken off ideas and one question people often have is well do you think everything in the video is completely true the whole point is that i'm not actually really sure and the discussion should be had so we can all learn more from it like the proverb says the pearl is formed by abrasion we need the marketplace of ideas to be able to actually find out which ones stand attest to that kind of conflict
19:01
that makes sense and

In case anyone is curious about the case, here is an email update he just sent out:

Dear All,

I hope you are well. I am writing with a brief update.

My employment tribunal claim is lodged, but there is a backlog due to Covid: unfortunately, it is likely to be a long wait - perhaps not until early 2023.

Meanwhile, I am teaching online and continuing to challenge the woke stranglehold on various topics in writing, podcasts and interviews https://knowlandknows.substack.com/ as well as in more videos, including one on 'the long march through the institutions' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euAn97CUbzA that might interest you.

With free speech under threat, it's either use it or lose it. The more we self-censor, the more we'll be expected to. The heart of my case is that curriculum content was deemed gross misconduct.

Thank you for your support.

Wishing you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Best wishes,

Will

"Women's Tears Win in the Marketplace of Ideas: How belief in the blank slate plus residual gender double standards create "cancel culture," and the difficulties of fighting back"

https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace

---

Connection to original case:

"One [female] member of staff complained about the lecture, alleging it amounted to harassment in the workplace and was illegal under the Equality Act. (It's not)."