Cardiff University and the Stonewall Effect
How Cardiff University and South Wales Police are allowing activists to propagate a culture of fear on the University campus.
Cardiff University lecturers have, this last year, been subjected to a campaign of violent intimidation and threats by transactivists which has shockingly not been taken seriously by both the University and South Wales Police. In June 2021, lecturers at Cardiff University wrote a letter addressed to the Vice Chancellor, simply asking that they reviewed their membership of the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. What followed, was a campaign of intimidation and abuse.
Students and ‘allies’ quickly organised a protest outside the University campus where pamphlets were handed out, complete with pictures of signatories who had signed the letter along with threats of “repercussions” alongside an image of a pointing gun.
What then followed, was a campaign of violent threats and intimidation waged by students. Some of the threats, exposed by a whistleblower, came via the university's LGBT+ Society's Facebook group, where lecturers were threatened with 'kneecapping' by a '2x4' and 'throat punching'.
Interestingly, the whistleblower explained that they felt too scared to challenge the threats and claimed that even those leading the group seemed unable to speak up to object. A letter written up by the Free Speech Union (FSU) explains how the University's Communications Director investigated and claimed they were "unable to identify the authors of the threatening messages", despite the whistleblower providing all the information needed.
The letter also refers to one academic's car windscreen being smashed on campus and how even then, the university considered that they had done all that they could, regards investigating and handing over to the police, who also didn't take things further. The FSU go on to explain how the university failed to investigate fully, stating that even the academics' own research "quickly established the identities" of the students involved in putting out threatening messages.
The gun image appears to have been an older bit of art work, but here is local Cardiff activist, N3KO, boasting about producing the stickers a month before the student protest.
Then, here is one of the Uni protestors, ‘Keira’, saying people should “expect some more stickers from this space…”.
Here are the stickers as seen on campus at the time, as a reminder to the staff, they still need to watch their backs, not forgetting the other serious threats that were doled out, including a car windscreen of a co-signatory being smashed in the campus car park.
The authors of the pamphlet, a local ‘anarchist’ organisation calling themselves ‘ACT NOW Cardiff’, have form on making threats to others. Just months after the University protest, they made threats to women who attended a rally at the Welsh Senedd, to protest gender ideology in RSE in schools and the Welsh LGBTQ+ Action Plan. In their blog post, which can be seen here they make a number of false claims against women pledging to ‘doxx’ and ‘disrupt meetings’, before making threats to “strike first” and “destroy the TERF menace”.
South Wales Police however, did not feel this was serious enough to act on and simply dismissed it. In fact, despite pushing further, with some assistance of a local MP, the police still did not see any problem with the blog and published a lengthy response to say why.
Meanwhile, after Jenni Swayne’s arrest in Newport for stickering, N3KO, who boastfully stickered Newport in response to her arrest, was nominated by a twitter user in answer to a request by Cardiff University Library for display ideas for LGBTQ+ HM. “Great suggestions!” they replied…
…nevertheless, the library account deleted their request for ideas along with their response of “great suggestions!” only when it was made clear to the of the violent and aggressive nature of N3KO’s stickers. Cardiff University however, just did not seem to care as, all the while, a variety of serious threats were being made towards the lecturers who had signed the letter asking them to review their membership of the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. Threats of shooting and knee-capping, along with car windscreens being smashed all contributed to a fearful atmosphere on campus.
The University were made well aware of the group who produced the pamphlets, as were South Wales Police. Even the group’s location was given to the police but the police said they would take no action. Despite all this, those who gleefully supported the aggressive students continued to defend them and played down any lingering impact on the lecturers involved, claiming the gun imagery was just, "tongue in cheek". Try telling that to the academic whose car windscreen was smashed!
Activists claim they are being made unsafe and that they are physically assaulted at the hands of “transphobes”. Then they use these (false) claims to justify their aggression and intimidation. Yet, all these lecturers asked was for the University to review their relationship with Stonewall. The University seem to have failed to act to protect their own staff from harm. This is very serious indeed. That they are also failing to protect their own students from falling into extremism is also very serious.
If Universities and the police allow campuses to become hotbeds of aggressive and extreme activism, which cause fear among academics, what does this say about their commitment to free speech on campuses and their ability to keep everyone safe?
If you are concerned about the affect this is all having on everyone’s ability to speak up and challenge the status quo, please consider signing and sharing this petition. This situation should concern everyone.