November 19, 2008

Concerning the corruption of universities and how 'they' get away with it

Chapter 1: Dodgy PhDs (and other nefarious practices...) at the University of St Andrews.

Skorupski's Law: "The more vain one's ambition, the more redundant one's grasp of morality"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the Skorupski's law blog:

Have AUT/UCU cleaned up their act Sally?

My experience with UCU's solicitors was also shocking... constant delaying tactics... I would say deliberately unhelpful advice...

Read on UCU members...

The behaviour of the AUT and their solicitors (Thompsons of Edinburgh) in relation to my case was abominable. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I felt considerably less stressed once I had decided to represent myself than when I had been represented by the AUT's solicitors. The solicitor who initially handled my case failed to advise me that I could have filed my initial claim under the Public Interest Disclosures Act, 1998. This failure had significant ramifications for the way the case was subsequently brought. The same solicitor failed to pass information from ACAS (the Arbitration and Conciliation Advisory Service) to me or from me to ACAS, thus prejudicing the possibility of a settlement without going to an employment tribunal. He also repeatedly failed to reply to my queries. At one point (when the University submitted a large dossier of papers) the case seemed to become too much for him and he passed it on to a junior colleague. She then sent a report to the AUT which managed to get the reason for my resignation wrong and made so many other misrepresentations that I had to send a nine page list of corrections to the AUT's legal aid committee. It was to no avail. The AUT decided to go with the solicitors misrepresentations, conveniently allowing them to avoid funding a potentially lengthy hearing.

The main thing that I learned from my correspondence with AUT officials and their solicitors was that the union subscriptions I had paid since 1986 were a complete waste of money. I urge all AUT members to think very carefully about why they are subscribing to this union and to consider cancelling their membership. I will make the correspondence available to any AUT member who is interested to consult it in London.

Should either the AUT or Thompsons Solicitors wish to contest what is on this page, I am more than prepared to answer them. If necessary, correspondence can be put up here.

Aphra Behn

Anonymous said...

thank you so much for all of your posts.
You are so right!

thank you Declan Quigley for the website and all the information uploaded.
I can see me in a few months being in the same situation with one of the midlands universities - which is included in the Hall of Shame.
I am so amazed when it comes to the same silly steps and completely stupid excuses and justification universities of this type give.

I wish strength and health to all of us!!

Anonymous said...

Skorupski's Law in action at the student level:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081119.wlanguage19/BNStory/National/home
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081120.EQUEENS20//TPStory/Editorials
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=974741

Long live the Thought Police!

Anonymous said...

Yes - the reaction of universities when one challenges their working practices is breathtakingly banal...

... when one considers that many of these people are Professors with world wide reputations...

... I wish I could tell you what my university did when I challenged them...

... and continue to challenge them...

... bullies in the playground have more impressive strategies than university Professors...

... yet this is serious...

...this is about people's lives...

... about my life...

...their health and well being...

...about my health and well being...

... my university are quite prepared to watch me collapse...

... a mental wreck...

...the pack salivate...

... licking their lips in anticipation of another victim...

... tortured to death...

... as they write yet another paper on social justice...

Aphra Behn