In April, Jonathan Pike, a professor of philosophy at Open University, submitted a formal complaint about the appointment of his colleague, professor of philosophy Sophie Grace Chappell, a trans woman, to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029 subpanel for philosophy. That complaint has now been dismissed, according to Professor Chappell, who, in an email and also on Facebook, wrote: “On June 15th… UKRI’s independent adjudicator dismissed the complaint against me as without merit in any respect.” (UKRI is United Kingdom Research and Innovation, which directed government research funds.) Referring to the worries of bias that seemed to be part of Pike’s complaint against her appointment, she also wrote: Here are two things that I have spent my entire academic career doing: (1) arguing that consequentialism and utilitarianism are not merely false but intellectually fraudulent, and that Bernard Williams was right to say that it will be a good day when we hear no more of them; (2) marking student essays (and otherwise assessing philosophical work) that argues in favour of consequentialism and/or utilitarianism, and quite often giving this work top marks. Given (1), it might seem odd that no consequentialist or utilitarian has ever complained about my membership of the 2021 or 2029 REF panel. But perhaps (2) explains why. For more on the initial complaint, see this post.

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