“This Is Not Normal” – A Statement on Professional Standards in Higher Education

There comes a point where you have to stop pretending that something is “progressive” or “inclusive” and call it what it is: deeply unprofessional and completely inappropriate for an educational setting.

A university classroom is not a stage, a costume party, or a personal performance space. It is supposed to be a place of serious learning, respect, and trust. Students are there to study, to build their futures, and to rely on the basic assumption that the adults in charge will behave with a level of professionalism that reflects the responsibility of the role.

When a lecturer turns up to teach in a way that is clearly designed to be provocative, attention‑seeking, or theatrical, it fundamentally undermines that trust. It shifts the focus away from the subject and onto the individual. The classroom stops being about education and becomes about one person’s desire to be seen, reacted to, and talked about.

Let’s be honest: if this kind of behaviour happened in almost any other profession, the reaction would be instant and uncompromising. If a doctor greeted patients like this, if a solicitor met clients like this, if a teacher in a secondary school walked into a classroom like this, there would be immediate safeguarding concerns, formal complaints, and likely disciplinary action. Nobody would be tying themselves in knots to justify it.

Yet in the university world, we are expected to pretend that this is somehow acceptable, even admirable. We are told that to question it is to be “intolerant” or “bigoted”. That is a cowardly dodge. This is not about identity, and it is not about denying anyone’s humanity. It is about basic standards of conduct in front of students.

Students—especially young women—have every right to expect a learning environment that does not feel like a joke at their expense. They have every right to feel that the person teaching them is focused on the subject, not on turning themselves into a spectacle. When that line is crossed, it is not “quirky” or “brave”. It is embarrassing, inappropriate, and deeply disrespectful.

Universities talk endlessly about “safe spaces” and “duty of care”. But where is that duty of care when students are placed in a situation that many clearly find uncomfortable, distracting, or degrading? Where is the safeguarding conversation when the behaviour would be completely unacceptable in a school, a workplace, or any other professional environment?

You cannot have one standard for glossy policy documents and another for what is actually tolerated in front of students. If this behaviour would trigger alarm bells in any other setting, then it should trigger alarm bells in a university too. The title “lecturer” or “academic” is not a free pass to ignore the basic norms that everyone else is expected to follow.

This is not normal. It is not professional. It is not what students sign up for when they commit years of their lives and tens of thousands of pounds to higher education. They are entitled to a serious, respectful learning environment—not a circus.

Hiding behind buzzwords and slogans to excuse this kind of conduct is an insult to the students who have to sit through it and to the staff who still take their professional responsibilities seriously. If universities want to be trusted, they need to show that there are lines that cannot be crossed, no matter how fashionable the justification might sound.

In any honest conversation, the verdict is simple: this is wrong, it is inappropriate, and it has no place in a classroom.