The University of Sussex, UK, has said it will not tolerate threats to “academic freedoms” amid calls for a professor to be sacked over her views on transgender issues.

Defenders of Professor Kathleen Stock, an expert in analytic philosophy, have claimed transgender activists have launched a campaign to “bully” her out of her role, The Telegraph said, distributing posters “which call on the university to fire” her over her views.

A group calling itself “Anti Terf Sussex” (Terf stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist) has described Stock as “one of this wretched island’s most prominent transphobes, espousing a bastardised variation of radical feminism in online posts.

In January, “hundreds of academics” criticised the decision to give her an OBE for services to higher education in the New Year honours list, The Guardian reported. In an open letter, they condemned Stock for using her status to “further gender oppression” and said they denounced “transphobia in all its forms”. (News carried by TheWeek)

My comment: Has anyone any idea what they are arguing about? It reminds me of a quote (which I cannot remember accurately) about academic quarrels mounting in virulence and loathing in inverse proportion to the importance of the issues.