Oxford college ‘made serious error’ snubbing Christian camp

An Oxford college which cancelled a conference booking because of "ill-founded complaints" by students has been warned it could be unlawfully discriminating against Christians.

Run by David Isaac - the former head of the equalities watchdog - Worcester College apologised for hosting a Christian Concern training camp and cancelled another booking after complaints that students had been "distressed" by the event.

However, an independent review has found that the students' allegations - which included "aggressive leafleting" by attendees who, it was claimed, had tried to discuss conversion therapy – were not backed by evidence. An inquiry by lawyer Michael Stewart found that college staff could not locate a copy of the leaflet.

The Free Speech Union has written to Mr Isaac requesting that he apologise and reinstate the booking for the next Wilberforce Academy conference in September. Seen by The Daily Telegraph, the letter from Toby Young, the union's general secretary, said the "uncritical acceptance of claims that the conference harmed students were a serious error."

"The college should have investigated and faced down students' ill-founded complaints. No higher education institution should apologise for free speech," wrote Mr Young. "You do not need reminding that refusing to provide the college's services because of Christian Concern's religious beliefs would constitute unlawful discrimination" he added. "We continue to stand by Christian Concern and will provide whatever legal and financial assistance we deem appropriate should this… escalate."

Mr Isaac stepped down from his role as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and took over as Provost of the college weeks before the apology was issued in September. The incident was described as the latest example of "cancel culture" and raised in Parliament by MPs who said discussion should not be "shut down" but should be encouraged.

Mr Isaacs, who during his time at the ECHR championed the protection of free speech in universities, refused to back down and cancelled a preliminary booking for September 2022. When asked about the cancelled booking, Christian Concern was told that the college had received "a number of complaints" that Covid protocols had been broken, and alleged attendees had been "unduly demanding" and "difficult to deal with."

The college's interim finance and estates bursar, Wilf Stephenson, said that leaflets had been "aggressively distributed… without consent" and attendees had made "unsolicited" approaches to staff and students to discuss controversial opinions on LGBT conversion therapy.

The evangelical campaign group commissioned Mr Stewart - who works for a charity law firm - to conduct an independent inquiry, which found that there was "no evidence" to substantiate the allegations. Mr Stephenson was unable to find any leaflets and the college did not have any Covid protocols in place at the time that could have been broken.

Worcester College has recently offered to meet Christian Concern but does not accept the findings of the inquiry and did not engage with it.

E&K Solicitors
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