KCL’s sinister diversity and inclusion policies

Last week the King’s College London LGBTQ staff network, called Proudly King’s, demonstrated its intellectual level and its view of women by tweeting a picture of a woman holding a banner saying ‘TERF FART (Feminist Appropriating Radical Transphobes)’.  If you thought that endorsing this kind of behaviour would make you less likely to be promoted to professor, you might be surprised to see the King’s academic promotion criteria. 

To apply for promotion to Reader or Professor, academics at King’s must write five pages on research, teaching and administration and one further page devoted to ‘Inclusion and Support’. Academics are told to use this section to describe how we ‘create an inclusive environment’ and ask us to discuss ‘activity undertaken to support the university’s equality, diversity and inclusion ambitions’. The guidance gives examples, including participating in Proudly King’s and with other groups such as ‘Athena Swan, Race Equality and Stonewall LGBTQ groups’. 

Exactly why King’s wants its academics to participate in Stonewall activities is unclear.