Sunderland Uni accused of pressuring academic over assisted suicide comments

An academic has criticised his university for ordering him to reconsider his public comments against assisted suicide.

Dr Kevin Yuill, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Sunderland, was told to “reflect carefully” on his duty not to “adversely affect” the university, following an anonymous complaint.

The letter, which the academic called a “veiled threat”, did not reveal the subject of the accusations. He was only later informed that the complainant had reported that campaigning publicly against assisted suicide did not match the “objectivity expected of a university academic”.

‘Kafkaesque’

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Dr Yuill — Chief Executive of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia — described the university’s intervention as “outrageous”.

“It’s fair enough if they want to say something like, ‘Oh, we’ve received this complaint, what is your response?’ That would have been a reasonable thing. It’s a bit Kafkaesque when you get a complaint that you have no idea what it’s about, and or even which medium it was about.”

He emphasised: “I’m hoping it will make them think twice before reacting to complaints of a similar nature, so my hope is it will be a bit of a lesson for them, which is why I’ve gone full on with this whole thing.

“Not because it’s a threat to me, but for younger colleagues who are in paid positions, I don’t think it’s in anybody’s interest to have Sunderland censoring their ideas or even pushing them to self-censor their ideas.”

Pressure

Freddie Attenborough, Research Director at the Committee for Academic Freedom – which is supporting the academic – commented: “Academic freedom means little if academics have to worry that expressing controversial views within the law might put their institutional status or privileges at risk.”

“Universities should be protecting the space for those disagreements, not adding institutional pressure to one side of them.”

A spokesman for the University of Sunderland stated that it supports the “rights of its academics to freedom of speech, academic freedom and freedom of expression” and that it only asked Dr Yuill to “ensure there is a clear distinction between his personal views and those of the university”.