TRIGGERnometry - Teacher Cancelled by Eton for Controversial Lecture Speaks Out

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is a show

00:00:40.180 for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people our terrific guest today is

00:00:46.540 a teacher who was dismissed from eaten over a controversial lecture well nolan welcome to

00:00:51.180 trigonometry thank you for having me it's great to have you on i've given you the brief introduction

00:00:55.820 and we'll get into the story itself.

00:00:57.800 But before we get into it,

00:00:58.840 just tell everybody a little bit about who you are,

00:01:01.560 how are you where you are, and where do you work out?

00:01:06.240 So, interesting question about how I ended up where I am.

00:01:10.400 After studying English at university,

00:01:12.260 I knew we wanted to be a teacher.

00:01:14.260 So I've just constantly been working in schools since then.

00:01:17.420 Mixture of schools, so secondary modern school in Kent,

00:01:20.740 and then other end of the spectrum, which is Eton.

00:01:23.560 between that Highgate School in London for a few years as well and I've always been very passionate

00:01:29.300 about the importance of balanced debate in education open rigorous discussion and it's

00:01:34.920 because of that that when I was asked to not only allow the cancellation of a lecture intended for

00:01:41.760 a hot button controversial issues debating course at Eton to be cancelled at Eton but also to remove

00:01:48.440 from my private YouTube channel that I am where I am now. I ask questions about why this debate

00:01:54.980 couldn't be had. If not at Eton, why not allow people to explore the issues online in their

00:02:01.100 free time, especially because I'd agreed with Eton to put a disclaimer on the channel when I

00:02:08.060 set it up saying it was nothing to do with Eton's personal views. So I was a bit puzzled why students

00:02:13.820 weren't allowed to practice the importance of independent critical thought at least in their

00:02:18.740 own time if it wasn't allowed at the college itself yeah we'll get into the story itself but

00:02:23.460 we have a large international audience as well and most people even in this country haven't been

00:02:28.600 to Eton I don't know if you've been to Eton yeah I went they fucking loved me I have been to Eton

00:02:36.240 just as a visitor and I just want just tell everybody a little bit about what is it like

00:02:42.700 what is this institution about you know who are some of the people that it's produced what is the

00:02:47.600 point of Eton like because I think that is actually an important piece of this definitely so it's got

00:02:52.740 a long and very rich history of debate all boarding schools have a room in them called debate as

00:03:00.200 testament to that there's also a purpose-built debating hall where often speakers who might be

00:03:06.160 no platformed elsewhere such as George Galloway or Jermaine Greer have come to speak and the boys

00:03:11.900 have engaged with their ideas. Students also run their own societies independent from normal

00:03:17.480 lessons and they might invite external speakers, could be sometimes politicians or CEOs or prominent

00:03:24.700 authors to come and stimulate the kind of argument that the school is famous for. So when there was

00:03:30.880 a sense that the range of ideas was being narrowed, that made me feel that something very

00:03:36.820 important at Eton and precious to it was at risk. And so you say it was something important and

00:03:44.200 precious and I agree with you. What were these issues that were controversial that you were

00:03:50.200 talking about? Well the course is the college's flagship debating course called Perspectives

00:03:56.360 and it is for boys in lower sixth, so about 16, 17 year olds. And the theme for this term was

00:04:04.860 identity. So the ideas that might be to do with sex, for example, or race or class, all the kind

00:04:12.500 of issues that come under the umbrella of identity politics, you could argue. And obviously, these are

00:04:17.940 all controversial topics in the media and culture at large. So it's important for boys to be engaging

00:04:23.140 with them. And over the last few years, what I've noticed is that some of these were being treated

00:04:29.140 in a way that, in my opinion, was partisan. And schools have a duty to be non-partisan

00:04:34.300 in the presentation of political topics. Can I just stop you there? What do you mean by

00:04:38.200 partisan? So one-sided. So taking one particular line and not exposing students to consider the

00:04:45.900 strongest arguments from the opposing side. As an example of that, one of the students

00:04:52.760 was complaining that he felt that gender theory was being presented as fact in PSHE lessons.

00:04:59.140 and I had found that in trying to encourage wider debate around that resources which were described

00:05:05.980 as excellent were being blocked in case it caused upset. Now it's difficult to see why a resource

00:05:13.080 which on the one hand the person blocking says is excellent shouldn't be allowed to go ahead for the

00:05:18.520 purpose of stimulating student discussion just because it might cause upset to somebody.

00:05:22.960 freedom of speech involves the freedom to upset and also the freedom to receive information that

00:05:30.000 might upset so it goes to the heart of what education is all about really. So you created

00:05:37.580 this lesson right you then went to teach these lessons and then what happened? Well it's important

00:05:44.280 to give a bit of background about what creating the lesson involved. So I asked a few people

00:05:50.960 senior to me would this be a good idea for a topic to talk about the concept of toxic masculinity

00:05:56.700 and patriarchy in a way that isn't often touched on and he said that would be interesting good to

00:06:02.800 stimulate debate so then I did some reading made sure everything in the lecture was referenced

00:06:07.900 fully because I wanted to keep it to a high standard which is what the Eton boys expect

00:06:11.580 and honoring the academic prestige and scholarship of the institution so there are over over 40

00:06:18.540 academic references in the lecture places like Oxford Cambridge Harvard Yale so I wanted to give

00:06:25.300 the boys a fairly heavyweight reading list to go and pursue in their own time the expectation was

00:06:30.800 that they would disagree with the lecture on perspectives every single lecture is scrutinized

00:06:38.660 and boys are encouraged to do that so the idea isn't that you just listen and sit there and say

00:06:43.300 what lovely points I agree completely the teachers ask the students to pick it apart

00:06:48.880 so this would be a good opportunity for them I felt to be able to try out some of the ideas

00:06:55.200 they've been hearing about patriarchy is in its entirety a social construct involving the

00:07:01.860 oppression of women by men but after I produced the video the request came through to upload it

00:07:11.800 onto the college's internal intranet system, which is what is normally done when you distribute

00:07:17.540 resources. So I agreed to do that. It was sent around to the teachers on the perspectives course

00:07:25.320 and before it was ever shown to students, a complaint came in saying that according to the

00:07:31.880 complaint, merely to allow students to critically discuss this amongst themselves would place that

00:07:39.280 member of staff in a hostile environment. Now to me that was something very different from saying

00:07:45.660 for example that particular teacher didn't want to have a discussion with me or a debate with me

00:07:52.100 on stage about it. I had asked for that would anybody like to present alongside with me or give

00:07:57.560 a live counterbalance as I'm making points. Nobody wanted to do that. That was disappointing but what

00:08:04.080 was more disappointing was that the boys themselves weren't allowed to think for themselves

00:08:08.620 about the material. And what was it that you were presenting as this challenging course? I

00:08:15.880 understand you weren't saying this is the truth, they're supposed to push back against it and work

00:08:20.420 out what they think for themselves. But what was the, were you saying, you know what, patriarchy

00:08:24.380 is great and we need to bring back more of it. Is that what it was? Well, actually, it was a

00:08:28.980 presentation of the standard view from evolutionary anthropology, which is that patriarchy is at least

00:08:34.920 partly rooted in biology that's why we see it in other mammalian species not just human beings

00:08:41.240 so it's difficult to see how it's purely a social construct unless we've also somehow

00:08:45.880 socially constructed it in other species as well which seems doubtful to me but this wasn't a

00:08:50.920 particularly radical position it's what is the canonical position in a whole body of mainstream

00:08:56.200 science it's just one that boys don't often hear because you get the view of the social

00:09:01.000 scientist instead, which is purely social constructivism. So you uploaded it, the complaint

00:09:07.820 came through, what happened next? So it actually gets cancelled and I let the school know that it

00:09:15.220 was already before the complaint had come in on my personal YouTube channel as well with the agreed

00:09:21.120 disclaimer. Now why did I even have a YouTube channel? Why did I put that particular lecture

00:09:26.080 online? Well Eton is a charity and it aims at providing educational public benefit and one of

00:09:33.560 the things I was doing with the YouTube channel was just uploading some videos on the set poems

00:09:39.880 and texts for GCSE boards to help students in other countries who might not have access to

00:09:46.680 in some cases high quality teaching or had missed lessons through illness things like that. It's

00:09:52.140 good to have extra resources to help people out. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback from kids

00:09:56.420 in Malaysia, Africa, all over the world saying thanks you helped boost my grade for my literature

00:10:01.540 exam. So that meant a lot to me. I'd also noticed through running a school for state school students

00:10:09.600 during my summer holiday at Eton to help give them a push normally for Oxbridge application.

00:10:15.220 A lot of students were coming in with this, in my opinion, quite myopic view about the application

00:10:20.960 of patriarchy theory to some classic texts to the extent that even if they hadn't read

00:10:27.400 some particular works they almost already knew what it was about because everything is just

00:10:32.400 about patriarchy it's all just men oppressing women now there's some truth to that but it's

00:10:39.460 also the case that you should think about things on purpose in a way to challenge your ideas so I

00:10:46.440 thought it would be good to get people trying to undermine their own viewpoints if that's what

00:10:51.340 they're so entrenched in so a video to shake them out of it okay some people watching this might be

00:10:56.440 thinking well what will was actually doing is he was trying to sneak his particular opinion about

00:11:02.040 this under the guise of creating debate is there some truth to that are you quite strongly against

00:11:08.940 the idea of the patriarchy being you know about oppressing women and women have been historically

00:11:14.640 oppressed and all of that or what do you have a personal view on it well the video overlaps with

00:11:19.900 my own views and if you look at the conclusion to the video the main points which is that men

00:11:25.400 have traditionally been valued for procreating and then providing for women and children protecting

00:11:31.760 them i think those are all fairly solid basic family values um there's also the message that

00:11:38.260 masculinity because of those three traditional values is essentially the antithesis of paedophilia

00:11:43.740 I don't think that's particularly controversial either and there is overlap I would say the video

00:11:49.520 is slightly more hard-line Darwinian than my own view of culture and society but Darwinism is

00:11:55.680 something the boys cover in science lessons why not see it brought to life with a couple of

00:12:00.080 examples from history and video clips and quotations from poems and books. Were you not

00:12:04.860 worried Will because you'd already had one complaint against you against it you weren't

00:12:09.960 allowed to teach this course, were you not slightly worried about uploading it to a YouTube

00:12:15.740 channel to the public, which could be construed, let's be fair, as a two fingers up to your

00:12:21.160 employers? Well, it was already on YouTube before I even received the complaint. And once I heard

00:12:26.760 that the lecture was cancelled at Eton, I thought, I'd better leave this thing up unless I'm given a

00:12:34.000 really good reason to take it down, because there's going to be an investigation into this.

00:12:38.300 and I'd like people to see what I'm being investigated for and I'm thankful I did leave

00:12:43.320 it up because if you heard that someone had been sacked for a video and then you're wondering what

00:12:49.220 might have been in that could lead to some questions but most people can go away and watch

00:12:53.520 it and think all right there are some punchy points but nothing that extremely intelligent

00:12:57.600 six formers wouldn't be expected to engage with sensibly. So you did it and then what happened?

00:13:04.420 well in the end after saying if you tell me what's wrong with the video I'm happy to edit

00:13:10.180 out particular bits I think it should go ahead I think it honors our tradition of debate

00:13:14.460 getting no response about any particular bits that were problematic it was just the entire

00:13:19.360 thing had to come down I was given the ultimatum of take it down and then you'll be investigated

00:13:27.080 without being suspended or if you leave it up you'll be suspended and investigated

00:13:32.300 so I felt that given that the investigation was happening I was going to leave it up because I

00:13:38.480 didn't feel there's anything wrong with the video and then suspended from the college while the

00:13:44.460 investigation was ongoing and then after a long process of appeal during which there was a large

00:13:50.640 open letter set up by the students signed by nearly 3,000 people saying that we feel this

00:13:56.580 debate should have gone ahead, I was dismissed. What I find strange is that if the ideas you

00:14:03.980 were presenting were controversial, but they're part of this debating thing that you do at the

00:14:10.500 school, I find it very odd that they just wouldn't find someone who would present a

00:14:15.020 counter-narrative. Do you have any sense of why the school fell? Did you have like other complaints

00:14:20.440 about you in the past where people, you know, upset with you over something else?

00:14:24.600 no so this is one of the things that I find chilling about it is that my disciplinary record

00:14:31.360 up until now has been perfect and it's held in quite high regard as a teacher by parents and

00:14:37.740 students and by colleagues as well so something about this particular video really hit a nerve

00:14:43.840 and my thought is that perhaps it is a traditional defense of masculinity at an all-boys school

00:14:52.700 and I think all boys environment increasingly nowadays is quite sensitive and nervous about

00:14:58.880 that almost embarrassed to be an all boys institution but there's a funny irony about

00:15:03.920 that because why are you one then if everybody working there wants to push this viewpoint that

00:15:11.100 there's something terrible about masculinity why are you running an institution which

00:15:16.600 discriminates against girls at the point of entry I mean it's you know it's a very very interesting

00:15:23.000 point that you made so the thing that I find really really worrying about this is that what

00:15:30.900 it is saying is that some viewpoints are just not acceptable it's not even that we can't even

00:15:37.200 you know support them we can't even say them what do you think that has for education what are the

00:15:44.020 impacts of this? Well for one thing it is not in the spirit of the actual government legislation

00:15:50.820 the Equality Act which was initially what the college claimed that I'd breached

00:15:57.000 specifically excludes curriculum content so this means that teachers are free in theory

00:16:06.080 to discuss with classes any ideas no matter how controversial but the argument was that although

00:16:13.900 this might apply to students so students are exempt if they make a complaint that they think

00:16:19.740 that being asked to explore particular material constitutes harassment or discrimination

00:16:25.180 members of staff aren't exempt now if you think what kind of precedent that sets

00:16:32.000 you can reduce it to absurdity so let's say that a particular teacher feels like being asked to

00:16:38.560 allow students to discuss Othello or to kill a mockingbird creates a hostile environment well

00:16:44.640 that's harassment then and that text has to go and once you start down that route of one person

00:16:50.940 being offended by being asked to allow students to study curriculum material it's difficult to

00:16:56.440 see where you end and you were talking before that you felt the job was disappearing before

00:17:02.700 your very eyes I don't mean to misquiet you I think that's what you said yeah that's part that

00:17:07.680 what you've just said is part of it what else do you mean by that well I went into education into

00:17:14.040 Eton in particular because I like the excitement of rigorous discussion of debate I like challenging

00:17:21.300 not just other people's viewpoints but my own as well and this is why free speech is so so valuable

00:17:26.740 because it enables that kind of discussion that means that the rough edges can be taken off ideas

00:17:32.020 and one question people often have is well do you think everything in the video is uh completely

00:17:38.740 true the whole point is that i'm not actually really sure and the discussion should be had so

00:17:44.020 we can all learn more from it like the proverb says the pearl is formed by abrasion we need the

00:17:50.380 marketplace of ideas to be able to actually find out which ones stand the test of that kind of

00:17:56.180 conflict that makes sense and uh i don't remember exactly but i remember reading something from a

00:18:03.380 parent at the school who'd made a few comments about the general atmosphere and particularly

00:18:08.760 the leadership what was it like working at eton and what was the overall sense around some of

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00:18:44.640 it's been described by other members of staff as a stifling monoculture and the idea is that

00:18:55.500 although we're not told explicitly what kind of viewpoints might not be allowed people know

00:19:01.780 and they will tend to self-censor when a hot topic comes up you know what the particular

00:19:07.700 viewpoint you're supposed to take on it is otherwise you might find yourself in similar

00:19:11.860 situation to I am now. And what is the monoculture, if you were to summarise it?

00:19:17.520 Particular strands you could pick out would probably be what you see elsewhere in institutions

00:19:22.840 that are giving, in my opinion, a fairly craven response to this encroaching cancel culture. So

00:19:30.240 students would be unlikely to hear, for example, any kind of counter-arguments to the viewpoints

00:19:36.600 that characterise the Black Lives Matter movement. Unlikely to hear any kind of counter-arguments

00:19:41.760 to the view that trans women are women, for example.

00:19:45.740 Unlikely to hear any counter-arguments.

00:19:47.820 In fact, the one I tried to give was just cancelled

00:19:49.940 to the idea that the fundamental relationship

00:19:54.160 between men and women is one of men oppressing women

00:19:56.900 as something called the patriarchy is a social construct.

00:20:00.420 It's quite ironic, really, that a lot of these views

00:20:03.520 are espoused by the left,

00:20:05.400 and yet Eton is the most elitist institution

00:20:09.960 arguably in the country isn't it isn't it isn't there something incongruous about this

00:20:14.740 interesting question and I do think that one of the reasons Eton is so sensitive about this and

00:20:21.600 didn't even want boys to be seen to have the opportunity to to hear these views and maybe

00:20:27.840 even say why they were wrong is that there's this sense that because it's Eton it's always worried

00:20:37.120 that someone's going to come at it with those kind of claims about being too elitist.

00:20:41.480 So it's deliberately gone for the exact kind of views as the branding

00:20:46.380 that it thinks will stop people being able to say that.

00:20:50.000 So go further left in case people think that you are too far on the right.

00:20:56.660 Hey, Konstantin, how are you feeling?

00:20:59.880 Good.

00:21:00.380 And your mental health?

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00:22:28.240 i find that really odd because as i you know i'm from russia if i said to someone in russia

00:22:37.120 in the far east of russia never doesn't speak english never seen foreign news whatever

00:22:41.980 eaten people would instantly know what it's about they would associate it as the place which

00:22:47.220 produces the great prime ministers the generals the the the seers not boris johnson mate

00:22:52.600 the people who really shape the destiny of Britain

00:22:57.780 and have shaped for centuries.

00:23:01.260 To think, I think it was a shock to a lot of people

00:23:04.380 that an institution of that calibre

00:23:08.300 had been as captured as it clearly has been,

00:23:11.600 according to your view, by this mentality.

00:23:15.360 It's quite a shock to a lot of people.

00:23:17.260 Did you find that, having worked elsewhere,

00:23:19.860 did you find that culture strange?

00:23:22.600 well I think there's a bit of a divide there between the way the boys still want to operate

00:23:29.260 and the way some members of staff want the place to go I think the boys by and large are very much

00:23:37.920 still in favor of the tradition of debate and most of them wanted this talk to go ahead they

00:23:43.960 tried to invite interesting sometimes controversial speakers what we're seeing more and more is that

00:23:49.380 that's getting shut down and the Overton window is moving because of the demands of some members

00:23:55.920 of staff I find that very odd not least because the boys presumably have internet access right

00:24:01.880 they do so they could watch our interview with Posey Parker or another conversation so it's not

00:24:08.000 like they're going to be insulated from these ideas so to me not allowing a lecture or talker

00:24:13.800 to be in a debate is not really about protecting the boys from quote-unquote bad ideas it's about

00:24:19.360 protecting the reputation of the institution. Would you agree with that? I think one of the

00:24:24.360 main fears about my particular lecture being on YouTube, even with the disclaimer, was that it

00:24:30.760 would somehow bring Eton into disrepute. Now, given that its reputation is for debate, discussion,

00:24:37.800 and as part of its aims, it actually says that we aim at promoting independent, broad-based,

00:24:44.640 critical thought. It's difficult to see how just having a debate can bring you into disrepute.

00:24:49.360 but of course it's really about the branding it's not about the reputation for debate at all

00:24:55.820 but isn't it also as well I mean let's be honest this to me screams of weak leadership

00:25:00.880 from the head teacher because surely as a head your job is to say look this is what we're going

00:25:07.760 to do this is our tradition and if you don't like it and if you get upset well number one you're

00:25:13.740 entitled to do that but you're not going to dictate what can and can't be taught or said

00:25:18.260 in the college surely? I think there is an institutional loss of nerve involved and I think

00:25:25.320 the leadership should have given a more robust response to the threat posed by one person saying

00:25:31.660 this whole debate has to stop because it makes me feel sad. The boys should have been allowed to go

00:25:35.680 ahead with it. And we see this right the way through education don't we really? It's not just

00:25:41.140 in Eton we see it at universities I think it's established fairly well now that universities

00:25:49.040 are supporting this kind of council culture because there's about 10% of people who are

00:25:56.360 strongly in favor of it if the academic gives a viewpoint that is offensive or controversial then

00:26:02.380 it should be sacked and then the majority of people even if they weren't strongly opposed

00:26:07.620 that view. Quite happy just to watch it go along. And you get the same people, especially these elite

00:26:14.360 schools like Eton, coming out of that university environment and perpetuating the same kind of

00:26:19.940 culture in schools. So it's that trickle down effect, just as the ideas tend to start in

00:26:25.580 universities, and then they slowly percolate in secondary schools. I think we're seeing the same

00:26:30.640 kind of institutional shift as well. And I'm curious why you felt strongly enough, because I

00:26:37.240 imagine that, I don't know, but I imagine for a teacher working at Eton is the pinnacle of your

00:26:43.160 career, I would have thought, right? So you've given up quite a bit to make this stand. Why did

00:26:49.780 you do that? Well, it comes back to the comment that I made earlier about feeling that I didn't

00:26:56.320 really have a lot to lose because the job had already changed so fundamentally from what it

00:27:02.140 was when I applied for it and what was important to me about it was really wrapped up in this whole

00:27:09.100 dispute. So if we're not going to do the exciting critical discussion on the full range of topics

00:27:15.960 even if some of it is offensive to some people then that sucks a lot of the fun out of what I

00:27:22.540 feel is valuable about the job and to be honest I think it also goes to the heart of what has

00:27:27.400 traditionally been the essence of a western liberal education all the way back to Socrates

00:27:32.280 with the starting point that well not really sure I know that much actually and we should be very

00:27:37.260 careful and critical in how we engage with each other so to say that one particular argument

00:27:43.180 expressed in a lecture is just not worth hearing whatsoever as if you know for sure that there's

00:27:48.200 no truth in it is a real challenge to that and it was best expressed by John Stuart Mill in On

00:27:55.460 liberty saying that it's very rare in the course of human affairs that one side is completely right

00:28:00.860 and the other's completely wrong and that's why it's so essential that we have that give and take

00:28:05.680 it's it's vital that we have this giving up a given take i'll be honest with you will when i

00:28:10.380 was reading about your case i was i was completely horrified because i think if you've been in

00:28:15.080 education you can see the way it's going you can see the way it's moving it's not just your case

00:28:19.880 we've seen batley grammar school with what happened their refusal to stand up for a teacher

00:28:24.660 when they were again when they were talking about controversial issues do you think we've now

00:28:29.520 reached the point where that battle is actually lost and do you think as eric kaufman who we had

00:28:35.020 sitting in your seat said that what we need is government intervention at this point in

00:28:38.840 universities but probably also in schools as well yeah i i know there are people who who argue that

00:28:44.820 it's lost um jordan peterson is saying now send your kids to trade school i don't think it's maybe

00:28:53.940 that extreme I think the US has gone further than we have I think there's still a chance to turn

00:28:59.240 things around in the UK and the reason this particular point of principle meant a lot to me

00:29:05.380 is that it's never been litigated so the Equality Act has never been used in this way before

00:29:10.500 so when I found out that this was both a novel and activist interpretation of the Equality Act

00:29:17.880 no teacher's ever fallen foul of this idea of curriculum content being fine for students but

00:29:23.640 not for staff i thought it was one that would be worth pushing because so much is at stake

00:29:28.560 in the spirit of of this uh abrasion in order to create better understanding let me try try and

00:29:35.820 imagine some counterpoints i'll be honest it's not easy for me because i agree with with almost

00:29:40.660 everything you've said but if i try surely there are certain things that should not be taught in

00:29:47.340 school would we agree with that well you want to think about the fact that curriculum content

00:29:53.360 is excluded by law so that would seem to give a kind of carte blanche but nobody actually really

00:29:59.180 thinks that it's got to be age appropriate you've got to have it in the correct kind of context

00:30:03.580 but the thing for me is if the flagship debating course of one of the country's leading educational

00:30:12.060 institutions which has a debating hall and every boarding house has a debate room in it in it

00:30:16.780 isn't the appropriate context then what is agreed um and i mean i'll give you another one i'm really

00:30:26.160 struggling here help me out i would say that counter so you sometimes get people who say

00:30:30.320 look i'm all for free speech but it's different in schools teachers are in a position of authority

00:30:35.960 and you have to be very careful about what ideas you are being seen to give the noddle of approval

00:30:40.800 to yeah what would your response be to that i can think of one well i mean in this case it's a debate

00:30:45.860 right and you're encouraging the kids to push back and to work out what the truth is for themselves

00:30:50.580 so you're not presenting them with this as fact you're saying when you go out into the big bad

00:30:55.720 world and by the way it's going to be a year from now or two years from now right you're going to

00:30:59.600 be confronted by these ideas and it's helpful to you to have actually thought about them before

00:31:04.120 and considered them and rejected elements of them so that you know what you bloody think

00:31:08.160 yeah knowing what you think through engaging with the other side is certainly a very strong

00:31:13.020 justification for being challenged I think it also if you really dig down to what that objection

00:31:18.320 is driving at is okay so there are some dangerous ideas out there which are the viewpoints that we

00:31:24.620 must be very careful that teachers aren't being seen to personally uphold and once you ask that

00:31:29.980 kind of question and get those ideas explicitly laid out then I think what you'll find is it starts

00:31:36.380 to move towards very much the the woke direction those are the official viewpoints that institutions

00:31:42.660 are willing to give the seal of approval to. And teachers who question them or want boys to

00:31:48.880 at least consider arguments for and against are seen as undermining the institutional project.

00:31:54.880 Well, I wonder, I'm a big fan of history, how do you teach the history of World War II

00:32:00.000 without educating boys about the motivating factors behind Nazism, for example, right?

00:32:06.040 And in order to teach them that, they have to understand, right? Now, by teaching them about

00:32:12.020 Adolf Hitler, you're not approving of him, right?

00:32:14.300 But if you were to present a lecture

00:32:17.480 on how the Nazis came to the viewpoints that they did,

00:32:21.460 I suppose in this case,

00:32:22.640 it could be seen by somebody as a hostile environment

00:32:26.260 because, you know, as my great-grandparents

00:32:28.980 died in the Holocaust,

00:32:29.740 well, I could claim it's a hostile environment for me.

00:32:32.060 So this is a slippery slope

00:32:33.760 that I think goes to hell very, very quickly.

00:32:37.240 Exactly.

00:32:37.900 Taking that example,

00:32:38.920 you could have a history teacher

00:32:40.760 who by being asked to allow students to study Mein Kampf and critically evaluate its arguments

00:32:47.100 says hostile environment for me I refuse to teach this book and the students won't be studying either

00:32:52.940 so that's why the fact that it's a teacher saying it's offensive to that particular teacher to let

00:32:59.020 students weigh up the pros and cons of the arguments is really what the heart of this is

00:33:03.260 it's not students saying well we think it's offensive the government advice is clear that

00:33:07.820 it doesn't matter if you think it's offensive but it's this claim that that only applies to

00:33:11.960 students not staff so then whose personal sense of offense gets to determine what curriculum content

00:33:17.700 is because I'd be willing to bet a lot of money on the fact that if I took offense to a forceful

00:33:26.140 presentation of patriarchy as merely a social construct as offensive to to me as a man I don't

00:33:34.180 think that would achieve very much i'd love to see that straight white male teacher for me

00:33:40.720 but this is the asymmetry right yeah of course i'm i'm not trying to shut down anybody's views

00:33:46.360 yeah i think they should all be heard and the more the better yeah because it gives people

00:33:49.780 more arguments to get their teeth into yeah and why is there that asymmetry it seems to be a kind

00:33:55.040 of uh i think it's ultimately a kind of lack of belief in in reason and debate itself it's also

00:34:03.620 a lack of belief in your own argument I feel they feel that the arguments are weak and the only way

00:34:09.480 to get them to be embedded in all these institutions is that no one ever gets to

00:34:13.980 challenge them I think that's a lot of it I honestly do I think that is certainly an important

00:34:18.960 factor but remember that one of the main tenets of post-modernism is actually that

00:34:25.340 truth itself is a kind of social construct now you can explode that fairly quickly by saying well

00:34:33.960 so is it true there's no truth and then it starts to fall apart yeah so it's necessarily false

00:34:41.200 but if you honestly don't believe there is such a thing as truth then why have the debate if it's

00:34:47.500 all just about power then just stop the narrative you don't like being heard and reduce its power

00:34:53.580 So I think there's that element to it as well.

00:34:55.680 Isn't it also part of it as well is that even,

00:34:58.680 I don't know how old you are, Will.

00:35:00.580 35.

00:35:01.220 You're 35, right.

00:35:02.360 But if you remember when we grew up, our generation,

00:35:05.760 I'm playing age 35, I'm 28.

00:35:08.140 You're a bit older, mate.

00:35:09.860 I'm nearly 40.

00:35:11.180 I'm fine with it.

00:35:12.140 He's very fine with it.

00:35:13.480 I'm very fine with it.

00:35:14.300 But there was a rough and tumble aspect to our childhood

00:35:17.980 that I think being a teacher is going to make me sound old

00:35:21.460 has been lost from our society we want to wrap kids up in cotton wool we want to protect them

00:35:27.060 and that may be they want to protect them from physical harm but we also want to protect them

00:35:31.380 from psychological harm do you think that's part of it as well well i don't think anybody at least

00:35:37.460 at the outset was trying to protect kids from any kind of psychological harm it was an adult saying

00:35:42.780 i can't possibly cope with allowing kids to discuss this for me one of the markers of adulthood is

00:35:48.560 actually being willing to seek out intellectual and emotional challenge and I think people retard

00:35:54.560 their own development if they don't deliberately seek that out because you just stay in your comfort

00:35:58.820 zone continually that's seen as a bad thing in many walks of life I think in intellectual life

00:36:04.740 it should be the same you should be taking sides against yourself in order to find out fully what

00:36:09.020 you really think if you do say that kids always need to be kept safe then the counter argument

00:36:14.980 would be just as with avoidance with anxiety actually entrenching anxiety I think it just

00:36:23.380 means that the range of ideas you're willing to explore and able to explore narrows and narrows

00:36:28.120 and narrows and what do you think is look I'll be honest with you my wife and I talking about

00:36:33.100 having kids and this is something that terrifies me because you you bring a child into the world

00:36:38.500 you you raise them for six or seven years and then you send them off to an institution that's

00:36:44.720 going to indoctrinate them with a bunch of crap. If you're a parent of young kids or you're thinking

00:36:51.440 about, what's the answer to this? What do you do? Well, there are certainly some parents and people

00:36:59.560 in the Old Etonian community who felt the same way. And some of the emails of support that came

00:37:06.700 in for me were quite heartbreaking to read. There were people saying, this man needs to be reinstated

00:37:11.800 or I'll never be proud to be an Old Etonian again.

00:37:14.700 There are parents saying that they hadn't expected

00:37:17.760 to send their kids there for this.

00:37:20.120 And they thought that that tradition of debate

00:37:22.760 and the aims of independent critical thought

00:37:24.660 and broad-based discussion really meant what they said on the tin.

00:37:27.780 So the reason I think I've gathered so much support from the community

00:37:31.240 is that people do think there is something really precious here

00:37:34.100 that's at risk.

00:37:36.060 And if you've got kids coming to the world,

00:37:38.340 I've got five, a sixth one coming soon,

00:37:41.000 I think it involves more people having to actually make a stand

00:37:46.200 and not tolerate what's being done to the education system

00:37:49.300 because a lot of people disagree with it but just won't say anything.

00:37:52.500 And do you think a lot of it is this monoculture,

00:37:56.840 but also as well, do you think the unions are giving enough support

00:38:00.400 to teachers who have the different views?

00:38:04.360 Or do you think, like in the case that we saw with Patley Grammar School,

00:38:07.820 where the NEU did nothing?

00:38:10.480 I think that was a weak response. More needs to be done at all levels so I think the government

00:38:17.180 needs to keep an eye on what is happening in secondary schools. There's been studies on how

00:38:22.600 free speech is imperiled at university level and in theory at least sixth form education colleges

00:38:29.300 are supposed to be having particular regard for the importance of freedom of speech and

00:38:34.340 it's easy for institutions to make excuses and say well yes we do believe in freedom of speech

00:38:40.460 but here it was about the reputational risk for example or we also have obligations to the

00:38:47.020 particular member of staff who complained but I think ultimately that is just having a confused

00:38:52.060 hierarchy because freedom of speech needs to come first. Yeah and it seems that it's rapidly

00:38:59.560 evaporating from our schools do you think it's worse in the private sector because they want to

00:39:05.280 be seen to be woke because they want to be seen to be more moral because the fact is you know

00:39:10.420 It's a fee-paying environment.

00:39:13.860 Do you think the state sector is as bad?

00:39:16.300 From what I've heard, I don't think the state sector is quite as bad.

00:39:20.960 I think there's this peculiar tension between how private schools are traditionally seen

00:39:28.120 and what it's actually like to work in them nowadays.

00:39:30.620 You can see this happening in the States as well.

00:39:32.820 So the more elite the institution, the more likely it is to have gone the whole hog with the woke viewpoint.

00:39:38.180 don't. Partly that's about concern that people will criticize them if they don't. Partly, as the

00:39:45.720 medieval theologians used to say, the corruption of the best becomes the worst. So the more complex,

00:39:53.820 I think, the more elite the institution, the worse it is when it goes wrong.

00:39:59.280 And what do you think the impact of this will be over time, where essentially the people who go to

00:40:05.200 the best schools particularly but everybody really is being indoctrinated with this particular

00:40:10.560 mindset over time what does that lead to in your opinion well the the boys letter in supported me

00:40:20.060 said that it erases much of what has traditionally constituted a liberal education I think the line

00:40:28.460 they used was young men and their ideas are formed through conflict. So we want people to be robust

00:40:37.660 intellectually and emotionally when they leave these institutions and go on to be, in the case

00:40:42.920 of Eton certainly, leading figures in all kinds of areas of public life and business. If anyone

00:40:49.340 thinks that they're somehow going to have an easy ride where people tiptoe around their feelings

00:40:53.240 when they leave Eton, I think they're going to be very severely disappointed.

00:40:58.460 it does feel and look maybe it's just me maybe it's you know I've got my conspiracy hat on do

00:41:05.020 you sometimes feel like it's starting to feel like an attack on masculinity almost

00:41:11.500 well if you if you watch the video and ask yourself what kind of viewpoints here are

00:41:17.100 really problematic is it the idea that some of the traits that are now called toxically masculine

00:41:24.300 I think according to the American Psychological Association, it's stoicism, dominance, aggression, competitiveness.

00:41:35.380 And what I did, just to encourage looking at those from a new angle in the video,

00:41:40.720 was say that, well, actually, men have been valued for these things traditionally in many societies and cultures across history.

00:41:49.700 You don't get many cultures which value men who are cowards, for example.

00:41:54.300 now why is that a lot of this stems from war and the necessity of self-defense and the protector

00:42:01.260 role and that is rooted in biological essentialism so the differences between men and women which i

00:42:08.040 think people are uncomfortable talking about now because they're seen as social constructs maybe

00:42:13.500 they do have real consequences for how societies are organized we talk a lot about patriarchy as

00:42:19.620 a social construct, but anthropologists haven't discovered a single genuine matriarchy. Now why

00:42:26.080 is that? That's a topic for people to discuss. But to say that the view of masculinity as being

00:42:33.520 partly rooted in the protector role and providing for women and children as being beyond the pale

00:42:38.960 for discussion, I think that's quite bizarre. Do you think we're struggling as a culture and

00:42:44.780 a society to adjust to the fact that our roles have changed technology the pill the creation of

00:42:51.460 all sorts of domestic appliances other technological changes now mean that basically men in that

00:42:59.420 conception are less necessary let's say there's less of a need for men to protect there's women

00:43:05.160 can earn their own living in the world you know they're not forced to be stuck at home looking

00:43:09.680 after children because we have the ability now to sort of outsource that mostly to technology and

00:43:14.700 stuff like that and we are as a society feeling our way through these changes and that is where

00:43:21.560 a lot of the the tension comes from do you do you see what i'm saying yeah so i think that would

00:43:26.820 have been one of the topics that would have been great to discuss after the video so thanks for

00:43:31.980 bringing it up um very interesting the thing that really addresses i feel is that our biology hasn't

00:43:41.000 really changed much um certainly not in a fundamental way since that of our stone age

00:43:45.860 ancestors so yeah it seems easy to say well men don't need to be protective anymore but the physical

00:43:52.700 differences between men and women are still there and good luck to any guy who hides behind his

00:43:58.800 girlfriend if the two of them get mugged walking down the street i think the expectation of what

00:44:03.820 the traditional roles are still persists mate if we were getting mugged i'd hide behind you i'd

00:44:08.900 promise you that. He just looked at me and went, yes, that is exactly how we should be. But I guess

00:44:15.540 what I'm getting at is this whole conversation I feel is become so toxic because as you said,

00:44:22.740 there's so many like, don't go there. Don't look there. Don't touch that. Don't open that box.

00:44:26.480 And why can't we have this conversation in a robust way, but also in a sensitive way? We

00:44:33.320 can also have it that way too. Like let's look at how society has changed. Yes, men are less

00:44:38.540 we need to be less physically defensive now and women can earn their own way like what's the way

00:44:44.900 we manage that as a society what are do do we you know if you if you are of the other point of view

00:44:50.460 and you think well maybe men should have more maternity leave so that they can look after kids

00:44:54.220 if that's what you believe right like let's have that conversation why why do we have to shut down

00:45:00.160 why do we have to cut things off why can't we just have the talk well what if it's about ultimately

00:45:08.140 prioritizing emotional safety over any form of intellectual challenge what if that's the thing

00:45:15.640 that we really need to think about is it worth anyone ever getting upset at the risk of

00:45:23.980 getting a complaint and possible legal action being launched or should we go ahead because

00:45:30.940 we prioritize intellectual discussion and rational argument do you not find it ironic

00:45:37.620 though Will that this society is the safest society there's ever been and yet all we seem

00:45:44.600 to talk about is keeping people safe. There's a certain irony there isn't there? Yeah this is a

00:45:50.920 case that's full of ironies so one of the views in the video is that men have traditionally been

00:45:55.700 valued for protecting women and children and that view that women needed protecting was apparently

00:46:01.120 extremely offensive and yet the headmaster stepped in to protect the complainant from

00:46:08.180 having to face the dangerous video so there's protection running right the way through this

00:46:13.660 so arguably it proves the video's point and there's also another element to this and you

00:46:19.320 get this a lot with comedy where this person who complained presumably wasn't required to attend

00:46:25.320 the lecture were they well it would have been due to covid uh supervising boys in a room while they

00:46:32.980 watched the lecture right and then supervising boys critically discuss it amongst themselves

00:46:38.300 so chairing a discussion i see but no one's being kind of called out and targeted so could this

00:46:43.460 person have asked not to be the person who led this chaired this discussion could they've been

00:46:48.520 replaced by someone else i don't see why not right so if they felt that it would be a hostile

00:46:53.720 environment for them surely the solution would have been for them to remove themselves from that

00:46:57.280 situation rather than to deprive the the students of the opportunity to hear the argument yeah

00:47:03.740 exactly and also leaving it on youtube right no one has to watch a video on youtube it's the same

00:47:09.020 with comedy you like you get you get a comedian that does a routine in a comedy club where people

00:47:14.120 enjoy it or some people enjoy it and then that gets played on breakfast television or that gets

00:47:19.600 referenced on breakfast television as if the comedian had walked onto the set of Good Morning

00:47:24.380 Britain at seven in the morning and done a you know a pedo gag or whatever it might be and and

00:47:30.140 this is someone who is deliberately taking something out of a context into a different

00:47:36.200 situation well I think it can be uh easy to interpret it as being merely about taking

00:47:44.220 offense sometimes taking offense can be a form of aggression and I think what it's really about

00:47:48.740 is not wanting anybody to hear the viewpoints at all

00:47:51.060 in case they might believe them

00:47:52.400 because they're not ones that that particular person wants aired.

00:47:56.760 This goes back to what Karl Popper was explaining

00:48:00.320 in The Open Society and Its Enemies

00:48:02.180 about one of the marks of intolerance

00:48:04.220 being the refusal to entertain rational discussion.

00:48:07.760 So just say, we're not going to do this at all

00:48:09.920 and we're not going to allow people to hear it either.

00:48:12.740 And at that point, you start to wonder

00:48:15.100 how different woke tears are from brown shirts boot stomping i mean it's a good point it's a

00:48:22.880 good point man i want to like i've increasingly tried to engage in counter arguments on our show

00:48:27.360 i'm really struggling here i really am it just it just seems like such an obvious thing that

00:48:33.280 young men or boys should be taught to think and to engage with different arguments as young girls

00:48:40.240 should be young people of all of all fucking hell anyway uh young people should be engaging with

00:48:46.660 different arguments it's really as simple as that and i just find this whole story mind-boggling i

00:48:50.940 think the vast majority of the public do you know i don't think this point of view is widely shared

00:48:56.720 in society and yet it's the dominant one it's the dominant one in our culture how did that happen

00:49:01.960 well so we know that it's well established that universities in particular are very much

00:49:10.040 dominated by this particular view of culture and very few academics are willing to oppose it I don't

00:49:16.400 think academics and teachers as a as a group generally are famous for their for their courage

00:49:21.900 and their willingness to make stands on things but even if it is the case that it's dominated

00:49:28.260 by this viewpoint well how did that happen I think part of it goes back to Plato's idea of

00:49:35.120 philosopher kings and the intellectuals know best. And it's the case that anybody wanting to

00:49:42.140 hear certain viewpoints really doesn't know what's good for them. And they should trust the people

00:49:47.200 who do know what's best. And that includes saying what you're allowed to hear, what you're allowed

00:49:51.780 to think about. And that's quite chilling, I think. It is very, very chilling. And it's not

00:49:58.960 only what happens to people, but what happens, what do you think is going to be the long-term

00:50:02.920 effects of this if we don't make a stand if more people don't stand up and say this is unacceptable

00:50:08.340 i think what you'll see is more and more texts getting removed from the curriculum

00:50:13.140 i was in a meeting where it was suggested that we need to have fewer dead white males

00:50:19.000 on the english reading list so shakespeare better be careful and we've seen that in many u.s schools

00:50:25.320 so that's one very worrying consequence i think another is that you'll get people who are

00:50:30.580 passionate about ideas and that teaching means a lot to not wanting to pursue careers in teaching

00:50:37.440 we see that in academia already people not wanting to undertake PhD research because they know they

00:50:43.100 don't like to get funding for their particular topics so I think there's a lot at stake and some

00:50:49.180 of the emails of support to me were saying they felt that Eton's response had brought not only

00:50:54.220 Eton to disrepute but British education abroad I think that's definitely happened yeah absolutely

00:50:59.840 That is definitely, and if I were a parent who could afford to send their kids to Eton now,

00:51:04.840 I mean, I don't know where else I'd send them, but I certainly wouldn't send them to Eton.

00:51:07.640 Do you know what I mean?

00:51:08.420 It's like, I think it has damaged the reputation of the school quite considerably, actually.

00:51:14.760 So what's next for you?

00:51:16.600 Well, at the moment, I've got a lot going on with the legal action against the college.

00:51:22.580 Are you hoping to be reinstated?

00:51:25.220 I think there's a lot of people in the Old Etonian community

00:51:28.620 and some of the donors supporting me, students and parents who would like to see reinstatement

00:51:33.660 which they consider would be a just outcome. We'll see what the response is. I definitely do

00:51:39.980 miss the job, I miss the classroom and it was a pleasure working there and I think there's a lot

00:51:45.280 of good people still there who do want to fight back against this but aren't quite sure how

00:51:49.360 and they don't want to end up in the position I'm in now and to anybody else working at similar

00:51:54.560 schools whether in Britain or in the US I would just say was it the career that you envisioned

00:52:01.240 for yourself having to self-censor for 20 years or so and if it is that you're worried about

00:52:08.060 the consequences for your for your family or your kids if you're a family man like me

00:52:12.440 then think what kind of culture you were contributing to by being silent and not

00:52:18.480 pushing back when your own kids are at school when they grow up I think people do need to

00:52:23.200 actually put things on the line for us to be able to turn anything around I think about that a lot

00:52:28.440 man I think about you know your kids watching you I think will be very proud and I think that

00:52:33.780 probably to you is much more precious than whatever job you had or whatever else so yeah

00:52:40.000 people had some comments like why did he do this with a family well I did it because I got a family

00:52:45.080 and my kids are experiencing the same thing at school my daughter's 15 and she knows what's

00:52:50.720 happening and when the request came through to delete it off YouTube as well I asked my wife

00:52:56.660 what should we do here if I don't take this down this could turn ugly quite fast and she said

00:53:03.480 I know how important this is to you and I don't want to see you miserable working there not being

00:53:11.040 able to speak your mind and have the kind of debates you want with the students so let's do it

00:53:16.200 and it meant a lot to me that she was behind me.

00:53:19.740 Was there any point where you regretted it,

00:53:21.600 where you think, I can't, I didn't, I wish I could row back now?

00:53:26.660 No, I don't think so.

00:53:27.760 It's so much support from people,

00:53:29.760 and also it's about something so important.

00:53:32.080 I can't imagine myself still working there,

00:53:34.980 creating resources that get blocked in case someone gets upset.

00:53:38.380 And the thing that really did it for me was that

00:53:40.180 some of the material coming out about Black Lives Matter

00:53:43.160 in the wake of George Floyd's death

00:53:45.480 was so one-sided and i wanted to share a video by thomas salt talking about the history of

00:53:53.480 black american economist for people who are not familiar yeah talking about the history of slavery

00:53:57.740 and the fact that it's a universal human institution and what's unique about the british

00:54:01.160 empire is it ended it and uh that was blocked that's a surprise i guess uh thomas salt wasn't

00:54:09.960 the right kind of black voice yeah well we've had plenty of them on the show there's a whole

00:54:14.460 wall of pictures behind you yeah that's it resources from candace owens blocked as well

00:54:18.760 so to have uh these usually male upper class white academics blocking voices like candace owens is

00:54:27.340 that's not right and thomas soul particularly listen man thanks so much for coming on and

00:54:32.100 talking to us we appreciate it uh good on you i i've tried my best to come up with counter

00:54:36.540 arguments i feel like i failed uh that's because i really struggled to see the other side in this

00:54:40.740 conversation i think i've really enjoyed this interview watching and fail by the way yeah yeah

00:54:44.500 the big counter argument that they give is that teachers just aren't allowed to give videos like

00:54:50.940 that one lectures like that one so i've been referred to the teaching regulation agency

00:54:55.300 potentially banning me from the classroom for life and we'll see what their response is i think

00:55:01.980 that will send a very strong signal either way to other teachers about the direction of travel for

00:55:08.740 secondary schools but to all the teachers who have emailed me messages to support all the parents

00:55:14.520 all the students uh you're welcome uh well on that note actually if people are watching this and

00:55:21.580 do you need support with anything where should people go to check out the progress of your case

00:55:27.300 and whatever else uh yeah that's uh kind of you to mention that so on the description of the

00:55:33.680 youtube video there's a link to donor box which is my crowdfunding to support the legal cases

00:55:38.580 but other than that I would tell people just to keep pushing for exciting interesting debates

00:55:44.000 because I think that this stranglehold will just keep tightening unless people set the line

00:55:50.620 somewhere. Agreed. Agreed. Will thank you so much for coming on the show. We always end our

00:55:56.720 interviews with one question which is always what's the one thing we're not talking about

00:56:00.060 but we really should be? I think the crisis of masculinity especially in all boys schools

00:56:08.360 needs to be addressed urgently.

00:56:10.660 I think these institutions, many of them, are embarrassed to exist

00:56:13.940 and they need to think hard about why that is.

00:56:17.280 If you don't really believe in all boys' education,

00:56:19.880 then I think it's hypocritical to be providing it.

00:56:23.140 And people need to put boys in touch with the past

00:56:27.040 and the traditions about what it means to be a man

00:56:29.320 rather than rubbishing them

00:56:30.880 and leaving them with some of the main pillars of their identity,

00:56:34.080 as one of the Eton boys put it, just crushed to dust.

00:56:36.900 well thank you so much for coming on guys we hope you've enjoyed this wonderful episode if

00:56:42.740 you want to check out our episodes or our live streams they always go out at 7 p.m uk time

00:56:48.480 take care and see you soon

00:56:49.860 We'll be right back.

00:57:19.860 and sweet caroline like jersey boys and beautiful the next musical mega hit is here the neil diamond

00:57:26.380 musical a beautiful noise april 28th through june 7th 2026 the princess of wales theater

00:57:32.920 get tickets at mirvish.com

TRIGGERnometry - April 18, 2021

Teacher Cancelled by Eton for Controversial Lecture Speaks Out

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