Some of you know, and a few of you remember from this list, the name of the
festively-initialled Jethro Cadbury, a friend of mine for many years and one
time work colleague. Though a friend and helper of poets, one in especial,
he is not a poet although he has a fine collection of Upton. He was pathway
leader on the South Thames College Computing Degree franchised from London
Guildhall University. Before that he was Deputy to the Head of Computing at
Carshalton College - me...

I have spoken here of Jethro's dismissal from South Thames College for gross
misconduct following a newspaper article which stated, truly,  that he had
used an A-level question in a first year degree paper and, truly, that he
admitted doing so to a journalist.

The mere fact of his having spoken to the press was deemed gross misconduct.

He took STC to a tribunal

At the tribunal STC argued an interpretation of the academic freedom clause
in his contract which would destroy academic freedom were it widely applied.
The tribunal found for STC, even using words from STC's summation, in which
STC inaccurately summarised Jed's evidence as their own words...

Since then, a complaint about and appeal against the blatant bias and
ridiculous decision has been working its way through the system; and this
morning, at a court hearing in London, his appeal was formally allowed to go
to full hearing.

In today's judgement the bench found that almost none of the relevant facts
had been established properly by STC; that no actual offence had been
established; and that even if he had spoken to the press and said everything
that STC said he said, which Jed denies, it was unclear that any offence had
been committed -indeed, the Judge said, he did not see how problems relating
to standards etc could be dealt with unless staff were allowed to discuss
them openly. How else could things improve if colleges were allowed to
silence discussion?

A number of you sent messages of support - over a year ago - and Jed has
asked me to thank those who did so. You have already been thanked, but those
messages are still in use and may be used again: they show that this is an
issue of wide application.

For myself, I regret that more did not feel able then to send support; but
only a few ever will lift their heads above the parapet though the benefits
of such fights are for all. The implications of today's judgement, should it
be upheld by the full hearing, could be far reaching. That last part of the
Judge's words, which I hope I have reported accurately prior to sight of the
written text, is very much in the spirit of those speaking in favour of the
successful "academic freedom" amendment to the Education Reform Act of
1988 - they urged the then government to pay attention to the necessity of
clarification of the issues raised, but the call was ignored. It may be that
this case will open up the debate, although academic freedom will only form
part of the argument in the appeal and perhaps not the main part

At a time when right to jury trial is being eroded (and all the other
attacks upon civil liberties that I need hardly list to members of this
list), academic freedom is an issue of great importance... Some years ago it
was JC, next time it could be you

end of homily - once more on my friend's behalf, to those who were counted,
thanks


Lawrence Upton



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