U.K. science minister pays damages to researcher she accused of airing ‘extremist’ views

The United Kingdom’s science minister, Michelle Donelan, has agreed to pay damages in a libel complaint brought by an academic she had publicly accused of expressing support for terrorism. In a letter to the national funding agency UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) that she posted on X (formerly Twitter) in October 2023, Donelan said Heriot-Watt University gender studies professor Kate Sang and University College London social scientist Kamna Patel had posted tweets about the Israel-Hamas conflict that promoted “extremist ideologies.” The Conservative Party Cabinet minister said the two researchers, who were set to begin serving on UKRI’s newly created panel on diversity and equity in science, had breached the code of conduct for public servants and asked UKRI head Ottoline Leyser to immediately shut down the panel. Although more than 3400 researchers signed an open letter asking Leyser to reject the demand, she promised to investigate. UKRI announced yesterday it found Sang and Patel had not violated the code of conduct nor posted any problematic views. The investigation concluded that the work of the panel was necessary and should continue, defying Donelan’s request to discontinue the group. Shortly after UKRI’s announcement, Donelan posted a statement on X saying she had misunderstood a tweet of Sang’s as expressing support for Hamas. Sang had posted a link to an article in The Guardian...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news