The strange case of a disappearing Oxford professor
Universities in the Western world have suffered a serious reputational decline in recent years, as many departments have been taken over by ideological activists committed to radical political action rather than open inquiry and free speech
Many students now feel justified in ‘cancelling’ professors they disagree with, and self-censorship in our universities is now reportedly four times as high as during the McCarthy era.
One rarely discussed aspect of this malaise is the secretive way many universities now deal with complaints and disciplinary matters in this highly charged ideological climate.
All too often senior professor just disappear as complaints and subsequent investigations are handled in complete secrecy, so academics and the public remain in the dark about whether justice has been done.
In the current environment where woke authoritarianism and gender activism still rule in many university departments, fear and distrust remain serious problems. Secretive and non-transparent disciplinary investigations often result in academics simply resigning or disappearing without clear cause or explanation.
On the other hand, when serious transgressions occur, the details remain secret, and observers have no knowledge of what happened and how it was handled.
This happens because both the accused and the institution share a common interest in reducing reputational damage, and their misguided attempts to maintain secrecy often backfire and produce uncertainty and suspicion.
Trust is seriously eroded in such as atmosphere when we simply do not know if justice has been done. Universities owe it to their staff and the public at large to be open and transparent about how they deal with disciplinary matters, the same way as the legal system is obliged to be transparent about its decisions.
A recent case involving a senior Oxford professor illustrates this principle. I have known Prof Mark Howard (name altered to save further embarrassment to all concerned) for over forty years as we completed our doctorates a few years apart at Oxford.
Prof. Howard had a stellar career as a highly productive academic with almost 90 000 citations, generous grant support, membership on his college’s governing body, and even advising the UK government.
Yet, in 2019, something truly unexpected happened – he simply vanished from the scene. He was no longer at Oxford, emails remained unanswered, and even his closest collaborators had no idea of what happened to him.
Rumours soon began to circulate suggesting that he might have resigned for health reasons, or possibly after some disciplinary procedure against him. Even his colleagues remained in the dark, and questions about his disappearance resulted in more guesswork and speculation but no hard facts.
Such unexplained events can seriously compromise public trust in the fairness and probity of our academic institutions.
Subsequently Prof. Howard re-appeared with some some affiliation with overseas universities in Australia and India, but for the next six years no further information was forthcoming. It seems that Oxford University, my own cherished alma mater, kept the entire matter completely secret.
Should senior professors really just ‘disappear’ like this with no record or evidence of procedural fairness and justice being seen to be done? And if genuine transgressions occurred should we not be properly informed about them, and know that justice has been done?
The secrecy of such proceeding remains deeply troubling and public institutions like Oxford University owe it to all of us that they deal with any and all accusations of possible misconduct fairly and openly, ensuring that due process is followed, and those accused are assumed innocent until proven otherwise.
We don’t know if these essential principles were followed. Oxford University preferred silence, secrecy and concealment, behaving In a similar conspiratorial manner as the Catholic Church has done for centuries, using clandestine processes in a misguided effort to safeguard the reputation of the institution.
Perhaps the evidence was persuasive, but in the current climate of #me too# radicalism where women must always be believed, even an unproven accusation could have been enough to destroy a person’s career, so a clandestine process leading to quiet resignation may appear the less toxic alternative.
There is now some striking research by Sharon Bertsch and Kasandra Matthews suggesting that a significant proportion of women admit to having made, and are willing to make in the future false allegations in some circumstances.
After this dormant and unresolved mystery, something even more unexpected happened. In November 2025, six years later after Prof. Howard’s disappearance, and the case suddenly flared up again.
A sensationalist article published by Bloomberg alleged that Prof. Howard touched, bullied and made unwanted sexual advances to multiple female students and junior academics working under him during his 18 years at Oxford.
The journalist based her claims on unsubstantiated verbal allegations by unnamed women, including claims that Prof. Mark turned up at women’s accommodation unannounced and dropped his trousers in their company, touched women inappropriately and gave gifts that may have left recipients feeling obliged to him.
Prof. Howard did not respond to the journalist’s requests for comment. Oxford’s investigation apparently partially upheld some complaints, but we do not know which parts, and on what basis?
The Bloomberg article follows the well-trodden and popular path of taking such claims at face value without proper investigation, and excoriating institutions for not acting more aggressively in prosecuting alleged misconduct.
After the huge flare-up of negative publicity. Prof. Howard was then forced to resign from his remaining positions, being punished a second time, but still without any clear public evidence or transparency.
Given the ideological nature of many such allegations, prompt and transparent investigation should have been especially important.
Instead of safeguarding reputations, Oxford’s secrecy backfired: both the university and the individual have suffered serious additional reputational damage, that could have been avoided if open and transparent procedures had been used in the first place.
In a righteous display of high moral certainty, Bloomberg’s article criticised Oxford University for not ‘acting more aggressively’ but failed to demand greater openness and transparency.
What we need is not more moral posturing but greater emphasis on facts and evidence, and greater procedural fairness and openness, so that allegations are promptly and properly examined.
Were the evidence to exist as described in the Bloomberg report, it would be clear both that Oxford was too slow to act and that Howard deserved to be removed. Yet as in so many similar cases, the findings remain confidential.
Into this vacuum some academics inserted an element of additional moral panic by questioning Oxford in writing whether it is still safe to send female students to British universities.
In this entire sorry saga, we still do not know what has been established, how it was investigated, and whether the punishment did indeed fit the nature and the severity of the allegations.
The secretive termination of the career of a high-profile academic by Oxford cannot be the right response to the serious but so far unproven allegations against him.
Once upon a time, when universities still enjoyed universal trust and respect, it might have been acceptable for them to employ confidential processes to investigate wrongdoing, because we trusted them to act fairly.
But those days are gone. In our age when less than half of US voters trust universities, and when vexatious and ideologically driven complaints have become commonplace, we should demand the same level of openness and transparency from our universities as we expect from our legal system.
Institutions like Oxford University bear the brunt of responsibility for dealing with this matter in such a shabby and secretive manner. Justice that is not seen to be done is justice denied.
Many of the world’s leading universities have been so compromised by self-serving institutional complacency that the traditional values of fairness, due process and justice have been betrayed.
If our institutions lose their commitment to be the guiding principles of transparency and reason then their reputation will be irretrievably damaged.
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