James Tooley’s ordeal is over – but why was he ever suspended?

It’s wonderful to hear that Professor James Tooley, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, has been reinstated after a gruelling, four-month investigation. James is a member of the Free Speech Union, the organisation I run, and we’ve been helping him navigate this Kafkaesque ordeal. The KC hired by Buckingham to carry out the investigation has concluded that all the allegations against him are without substance, which raises questions about why James was suspended from his post in the first place.

Professor Tooley’s ordeal began when his ex-wife, whom he’s in the process of divorcing, made a series of allegations about him to the university authorities, including that he kept an unlicensed firearm in his official residence and had had what she believed was an inappropriate relationship with a younger woman when he lived in India, long before he arrived at Buckingham.