To be honest, I can't see many readers/subscribers of THES getting worked up about this.

A Reckoning with Failure: Five Years of Catastrophic Mismanagement at DMU In August 2020, in the wake of the scandal that led to the resignation of Dominic Shellard, the previous Vice Chancellor of De Montfort University (DMU), Katie Normington, a Deputy Principal (Academic) at Royal Holloway, University of London was appointed. After the reputational damage caused by Shellard’s removal, it was hoped that the appointment of Normington would herald the beginning of a more positive era for DMU Five years on, the evidence shows clearly that this has not happened. On the contrary, matters have worsened considerably under her leadership. After five years of mismanagement, decline, and lost opportunities, the time has come to confront the bitter realities of her tenure at the head of DMU. The evidence is overwhelming and damning: Normington’s tenure has been defined by strategic incoherence, risky investments, indifference to staff and student welfare, and a dereliction of the university’s civic and academic responsibilities. That she has presided over a precipitous fall in academic standing, abandoning the institution to the lowest reaches of national league tables and now languishing at 120th is undeniable. Worse still, there has been no discernible recovery strategy—no aspiration, no plan and no hope. https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/universities/de-montfort-university/clearing The so-called “student experience” has been hollowed out by chronic underinvestment, while physical assets of the university have been sold off, not to reinvest in our mission, but to be squandered on franchise operations in wealthy cities such as Dubai and London. Executive appointments have been made in defiance of internal opposition and the recommendations of boards comprising senior academics, with these staff representatives overruled in the recruitment processes, further eroding trust and confidence. The University has failed to maintain the previously hard-won Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Gold award and decimated the university’s research capacity—undermining whole academic units to the point of collapse, and rendering them non-viable. While imposing “essential spend” restrictions on academic departments, the University Leadership Board (ULB), with the consent of the (remunerated) Board of Governors (BoG) has embraced indulgent spending, racking up business-class expenses on a scale comparable to the entire budget of DMU’s much-lauded research institutes. Student-staff ratios have surged to unsustainable levels—we are now ranked 116th nationally — largely due to a weaponised redundancy programme that has demoralised staff, degraded the student experience, and driven the university into an avoidable doom-loop. The imposition of “block teaching”—a pedagogically regressive model was pushed through with no proper consultation or due diligence—has been a demonstrable failure. The continued denial to recognise that the introduction of that system has not produced positive outcomes, not least for student recruitment, shows a reckless disregard for educational standards. In a time of uncertainty and the need for prudence and careful, considered planning, the ULB has gambled university finances on high-risk ventures, particularly in London and Dubai, and now face potential multi-million-pound legal action from a former partner, Study World—yet another example of strategic failure by former academics cosplaying at venture capitalists and ‘global leaders’, with money generated primarily from student fee income. Concerns raised by students about investing in Dubai, where LGBTQ+ staff and students would not be safe working or studying in, have been met with anodyne responses. The creation of Innovative Educational Partnership (IEP) Ltd, a shadow employer for international franchises and the DMU London ‘campus’, stands as a shameful attempt to circumvent fair employment terms and pension rights. It betrays not only the staff but the values that once underpinned this institution and the values of Leicester, a democratic, decent, multicultural city - a city of sanctuary. Most grievously, DMU’s leadership has failed in its core duty: to serve the City of Leicester and its people. The university’s civic mission has been all but abandoned as governance has been centralised and purged of meaningful staff or student participation. After four formal votes of no confidence, the verdict from the DMU community could not be clearer. Katie Normington and the ULB no longer possess the trust, legitimacy, or moral authority to lead the university, but by prioritising their own careers and not insignificant salaries, they have become an existential threat to it. The BoG, which is supposed to act as the guardian of the institution, has failed to hold the leadership to account, instead their chair sends threatening emails to staff. This is demonstrative of a system of governance that no longer functions in the best interests of the institution and its many stakeholders. The university deserves better. Leicester deserves better. DMU’s staff and students demand better. The performance of Katie Normington and her executive team can only objectively be defined as a failure, for which the university, its staff, its students and the city of Leicester have borne the brunt. It is a level of incompetency that has been exposed elsewhere, as was the case at the University of Dundee, where their leadership were obliged to resign. Without question, therefore, the time has come for the DMU leadership to do likewise and for an independent inquiry to take place before further damage is done to an institution that staff and students are invested in. It is, after all, our obligation - whether we are staff, students, Alumni or the public who benefit from the university or rely on it for the economic wellbeing of the city - to protect our valued institutions if those tasked with doing so have abrogated that responsibility. DMU Townhall Meeting 16th July 2025

Professoriate response to Katie Normington not acknowleding 4 no confidence votes and student letter signed by 100s of students asking her to resign: On 2 September 2025, Katie Normington sent a message to all staff welcoming them back from their summer vacations. While the VC’s missives are commonplace and characteristically out of kilter with reality, this latest email took matters into the bounds not just of fiction, but of a disturbing parallel world that has no bearing on reality. The email begins by citing, once again, Katherine May’s ‘Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times’, which seems to have provided inspiration and something of an ideological vehicle for the VC in her relentless undermining of all that was once good about the institution she purportedly leads. With no apparent sense of irony or self awareness, she tells staff that ‘many had spoken (to her) about the helplessness of this piece in setting out what was to come’. It is presented as some kind of validation. This book was a gift for the VC, because it not only provided a vehicle for the brutal cuts that she was to impose, but it also, in her mind, served as a kind of metaphor for restructuring and for the need for organisations like DMU to ‘winter’. And, of course, it was both far from original and, perhaps, taken out of context and almost certainly used in a way the author did not intend. One would suspect that the author, once an academic herself (a creative writer), would be horrified that her work was being utilised in this way, and perhaps it’s a question worth asking her. Nevertheless, the VC has stuck with it, though it is likely that the author, coming from a Humanities background, would shudder at the thought that their art has been used to justify the sacking of committed and hard working colleagues, some of whom were on maternity leave when they were made redundant. We then discover that the VC is pleased that the university community has shown ‘resilience, ‘professionalism and commitment’ in the face of adversity. Four votes of no confidence should not, of course, be permitted to derail the fantasy that staff are anything other than on board with it all. But while she may be blissfully unaware, or unable to grasp reality, the fact is that she leads an institution that is characterised by a culture of fear in which staff are cowed and unwilling to speak out. Their silence is not, as the VC assumes, approval - but the manifestation of a deeply embedded culture of fear in which they do not dare raise their head above the parapet for fear of being punished. Perhaps the most deluded, and heartless, part of the missive is the suggestion that only a small number of redundancies have been made. This, naturally, means the small number that have stuck it out to the end and have faced, or will face, compulsory redundancy. There is no mention of those who were forced out in a process that was, put simply, inhumane. That sentence alone tells the reader everything they need to know about how our institution is led. The missive then goes on to provide a list of ‘successes’, few of which stand up to scrutiny. Block teaching, for example, inevitably features as the innovation that has been a success, despite the compelling evidence to the contrary. Just because it has been imposed does not mean it is a success, but this is also revealing - anything that has been implemented is, from her perspective, regarded as a success. It matters not whether it has worked. The seven new research institutes, also cited as a success, have already been hollowed out and several renowned research centres closed. DMU is close to the bottom of every league table in the country, with no apparent strategy to address this. And, of course, despite even more compelling evidence, she insists upon using the term ‘empowering’ when the vast majority of staff could hardly feel less empowered. They know that the executive have caused this crisis, and most, even if they only dare whisper it in the corridor because they fear saying it more openly, are desperate for change. But one thing is clear - there is no trust, only fear. Staff themselves have ‘wintered’, hunkering down until the nightmare is over and quietly quitting, finding solace not in the work and in the institution they once loved, but in their own thoughts and survival strategies. That she mentions a new ‘five year plan’ is not the only similarity with collapsing regimes - ‘We will reinvent ourselves with the new five year plan!’ - but a clear signal that she and the university’s executive are out of ideas. They have no plan, and are unlikely to deliver anything other than more of the same in the future. Only the same tired rhetoric, claiming success where there is none, and a tendency to become ever more authoritarian in the face of any opposition.These are the hallmarks of failing states, governments, regimes or institutions. There is, naturally, no mention of the millions wasted on vanity projects in Dubai or London, or that an apparently unaccountable executive are squandering money, sometimes on unnecessary overseas trips, that is not theirs to squander. No mention either of the grievances of students or the deliberate disinvestment in, and sabotage of, courses that are recruiting students while investing in those that are not. To conclude, the VC’s latest missive is so far detached from reality that it has to be dismissed as a fictional (and desperate) attempt to create a reality that simply does not exist. It is the world as she wishes it to be, not as it really is. But such a strategy only works if those being deceived believe it. They do not. And that detachment has now become so stark that it’s almost impossible to do anything other than laugh, though it’s far from amusing. It is time to put an end to this dangerous fantasy, one that threatens not only the livelihoods of every employee of the university, but the institution itself. The staff at DMU need to realise that they are being conned, and that this con trick, which has already deprived the institution of any credibility, will deprive them of their jobs and their families of stability. Even those who publicly support her know this to be true. Our VC does not just patronise, gaslight and insult the intelligence of the university’s staff, she demeans the position she, inexplicably, still holds.

Formal Complaint to the Office for Students (OfS) To: The Office for Students Attention: Free Speech and Academic Freedom Team Joseph Wright Building University of Derby DE22 3AW Email: complaints@officeforstudents.org.uk Subject: Urgent Complaint: De Montfort University's Egregious Misuse of Prevent Duty to Suppress Free Speech and Academic Debate – A Direct Violation of Condition E2 Dear OfS Free Speech and Academic Freedom Team, I am writing as a concerned member of academic staff at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester to lodge a formal complaint against the university's leadership for a blatant and chilling assault on free speech and academic freedom. This incident, which unfolded in September 2025, represents not merely a procedural lapse but a deliberate weaponization of statutory obligations—specifically the Prevent duty— to intimidate staff, silence legitimate criticism of institutional mismanagement, and erode the foundational principles of higher education. As the regulator tasked with upholding Condition E2 of the ����Vlog and Research Act 2017, which mandates that registered providers take "reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law," I urge the OfS to investigate this matter with the utmost urgency. Failure to act will embolden similar abuses across the sector, undermining trust in our universities as bastions of open inquiry. Summary of the Incident Over the summer of 2025, a series of six informal online town hall meetings were convened via private Zoom platforms—explicitly not under DMU's auspices or policies—to foster solidarity and open discussion among staff, students, and academics from Leicester's higher education community. These gatherings addressed pressing existential threats to our institutions: widespread redundancies driven by financial mismanagement, the outsourcing of £5 million to consultants over five years, and the squandering of £12 million on vanity projects like a Dubai campus while local jobs in Leicester evaporate. Far from being fringe activism, these meetings embodied the democratic discourse essential to academia, drawing participants from DMU, the University of Leicester, and beyond, including student unions and professional services staff. The final meeting, scheduled for 9 September 2025, invited two democratically elected public representatives—Leicester South MP Shockat Adam and Green Party councillor Patrick Kitterick—to offer non-partisan insights on these crises. These were not firebrand ideologues but serving officials committed to community welfare, invited to a private virtual forum held during work hours yet wholly independent of university affiliation. Organizers emphasized: "Our town hall meetings are not official DMU events and are co-organised and attended by individuals from across Leicester and the wider UK academic community. They take place on Zoom, which is 'not an official DMU platform'." What followed was nothing short of institutional thuggery. On 8 September 2025—one day before the event—DMU's Executive Director of People Services, Bridget Donoghue, fired off a menacing email to staff representatives, including the Professoriate and University and College Union (UCU) branch, on behalf of Vice-Chancellor Katie Normington and her leadership team. Donoghue demanded the immediate cancellation of the invitations, falsely claiming the meeting was "university-affiliated" and thus subject to DMU's external speaker policy requiring 28 days' notice. Worse, she invoked the Prevent duty—a critical safeguard against terrorism and radicalization—as a cudgel, threatening: "You will know that the university is subject to the Prevent Duty, and under this duty is required to assess the risk of all external speakers who are speaking at events advertised under the university’s name... whether online or in person." She explicitly warned of reporting the matter to the OfS, framing the mere presence of an MP and a councillor as a potential "risk" warranting regulatory scrutiny. This was no benign reminder; it was a calculated act of intimidation. Donoghue's email concluded by asserting that the event "breached guidelines," obliging the university to "report the event – not individual staff – to the Office for Students, as part of its annual Prevent Accountability and Data Return." In response, a DMU Professoriate member decried it as "nothing more than a crude attempt to close down debate," adding the grotesque observation: "It is a disgrace that two democratically elected representatives should have to be vetted as potential terrorists." Councillor Kitterick himself condemned the tactic as a "fail[ure] to grasp the basic concepts of Prevent and safeguarding," warning that such "over-bearing" aggression from a powerful institution against "a less powerful party" raises profound safeguarding concerns for vulnerable staff and students. Despite the threats, the meeting proceeded, but the damage was done. Staff and students now whisper in fear of reprisal, with one anonymous attendee stating: "As far as I'm concerned, Normington and her supporters are a total disgrace. When we started our campaign for justice and against layoffs, the first thing management did was to try to scare us off with legal and other threats. We won't stop until they have been exposed." The Damaging Hypocrisy and Broader Violations DMU's actions reek of hypocrisy. In a mealy-mouthed statement to the press, a university spokesperson claimed: "DMU values freedom of speech as one of the fundamental principles of higher education, and is active in its duties to secure and promote freedom of speech." Yet here, under Normington's regime—which inherits the "significant and systemic" governance failings of her predecessor Dominic Shellard, including a £270,000 payoff amid plummeting rankings (from 126th to a dismal seventh-from-bottom in The Guardian's 2026 guide)—the university perverts Prevent from a tool against extremism into a shield for executive incompetence. This is a textbook breach of Condition E2, which demands proactive protection of lawful speech, not its preemptive censorship. The meetings posed zero "risk" under Prevent: no ideology, no radicalization, just beleaguered educators and learners dissecting block-teaching burnout (cramming months of work into six-week sprints) and misplaced priorities that gut local communities. By demanding vetting of elected officials in a non-university space, DMU has created a chilling effect, deterring future discourse on vital issues like job losses and ethical spending. As one UCU member, Norman, put it: "The meetings have been empowering... [but] there is concern that leadership is hostile to this kind of solidarity." An anonymous academic went further: "This kind of behaviour is typical of the current university management, which is currently destroying the institution through endless cuts... Now we have [evidence] in the most disgusting form." The implications are catastrophic. In an era of austerity, where universities like DMU wield power imbalances to crush dissent, such tactics not only violate OfS conditions but erode public confidence in higher education. They disproportionately harm precarious staff and students—many from marginalized backgrounds—who rely on these forums for voice and support. Kitterick's safeguarding alert underscores the peril: if DMU can bully a seasoned councillor, what of a junior lecturer or first-year facing redundancy? This is not protection; it is predation. Requested Actions I implore the OfS to: Launch an immediate, independent investigation into DMU's misuse of Prevent and its compliance with Condition E2, including interviews with affected staff, organizers, and external speakers. Impose appropriate sanctions, such as mandatory free speech training for leadership and public reporting on remedial steps. Issue a sector-wide advisory clarifying the non-application of Prevent to private, non-affiliated discussions of public policy. Protect complainants like myself through robust anonymity and whistleblower safeguards. The OfS was established to prevent such abuses, not rubber-stamp them via coerced annual returns. DMU's threat to "report the event" to you was an empty bluff only if you hold them accountable now. I stand ready to provide further evidence, including copies of Donoghue's emails and attendee testimonies, and request acknowledgment of this complaint within 14 days. The soul of our universities hangs in the balance—do not let fear-mongering triumph over frank exchange. Yours sincerely,