The University of Leicester has threatened to strip an 81-year-old professor emeritus of his title after his criticism of the institution on social media, it has emerged.
Peter Armstrong, who accepted the offer of emeritus status when he retired from the university in 2010, tweeted about how the management had threatened to rescind his honorary title because his comments breached the university’s “dignity at work” policy. Armstrong, a leading scholar in the field of critical accounting, is one of multiple academics to publicly criticise Leicester University, where staff are holding a ballot for strike action over plans for up to 145 redundancies across five academic departments and three professional services units.
He tweeted, “Universities are supposed to be places where academic standing is respected. At @uniofleicester we have a dysfunctional reversal in which mediocrities are showing the door to some very eminent scholars. And pointing this out is disrespectful?”
He has also criticised the governance of the university’s finances and broader concerns about restructuring and the direction in which the university is being steered. The university has also been accused of attempting to silence the staff who speak out.
According to the University and the College Union, the financial statements of 2019-20 of Leicester University show the university’s finances are fragile.
Almost four-fifths of the staff (79 per cent) are prepared to take industrial action short of a strike, which could involve things like not doing unpaid overtime.
