Sky Views: Suspended Oxford dean's legal costs could pay for lots of tuition fees

Adam Boulton, editor-at-large

When the Establishment goes bad things get messy and expensive.

Currently a spat is underway at Christ Church, one of Oxford University's grandest colleges, which has drawn the Church of England and Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher's biographer, into the snake pit of academic rivalry and political correctness.

Sayre's law, postulated by the American academic Wallace Sayre in the Wall Street Journal, states: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics because the stakes are so low."

In this case the stakes are relatively high: the career of the Dean of Christ Church, the Very Reverend Martyn Percy, who is currently suspended, or the cost of his pay-off once the case against him has been heard by a retired High Court judge.

Christ Church is no stranger to political conflict and boasts 13 British prime ministers among its graduates.

It was originally founded by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor - that's why Thomas Hardy depicts it as snooty "Cardinal College" spurning Jude the Obscure.

Wolsey fell from grace and died shortly before he was likely to be executed for high treason. The king took over all Wolsey's property and re-founded Christ Church in 1532.

Sebastian Flyte, the aristocratic waster in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, is a fictional alumnus.

A unique feature of the college is that it is both part of the university and host to the cathedral of the Oxford Diocese.

The dean, who is typically a scholarly Church of England priest, is ultimately accountable to both the professors and the priests of the Cathedral Chapter who together make up the governing body, which he chairs. Martyn Percy has fallen foul of both sides.

In my experience as an undergraduate at the House (as it is known in literal translation of its name in Latin Aedes Christi) most deans keep a low profile and allow the two parts of their notional responsibility to manage themselves. That has not been Rev Percy's style.

It all started so well. In 2014 he was the first dean to be elected directly by the governing body rather than emerging from an opaque appointments process.

Since the Dean has such strong views on issues such as gender discrimination, liberal theology, LBGTQ rights and women bishops, some wondered why he was so often absent and unable to follow them through at his main job at Christ Church.

He presented himself as a radical reformer and set about the task with zeal. An early casualty of his changes was a much liked "Canon Precentor" at the cathedral.

Those I have spoken to about the case have likened Rev Percy to a university version of the high-profile and hyperactive headmaster Sir Anthony Seldon.

Rev Percy too has a media and public appointments profile. He juggles academic appointments at other universities including at King's College London and the Universities of Winchester and Georgia in the USA. His strongest admirers tend to be Anglicans from North America.

Martyn Percy is not an Oxford, or even an Oxbridge, man, even though this wife Emma is currently Chaplain of Trinity College Oxford. He trained at Bristol, Durham and Sheffield universities and Kings College London. He is a supporter of the Labour Party.

Since the dean has such strong views on issues such as gender discrimination, liberal theology, LBGTQ rights and women bishops, some wondered why he was so often absent and unable to follow them through at his main job at Christ Church.

The canons and students (House jargon for fellows) on the governing body obviously felt they had made a mistake appointing Rev Percy but does that justify the drastic measures taken against him?

As a letter sent to "valued members of the Christ Church community" (including me!) this week by Richard Rutherford, the "Censor Theologicae (acting chair of the governing body)" explained: "The dean has been suspended from his college and cathedral duties since early November."

He has been denied a right of reply until his case is heard by a tribunal in "late spring or early summer".

The statute originally invoked against Dr Percy mentions "immoral, scandalous and disgraceful" behaviour. As a result damaging rumours circulated suggesting safeguarding or #MeToo type charges.

The letter from the governing body categorically rules these out, stating that the issues relate to "the dean's own pay and how it is set".

My sources tell me that the governing body rejected a proposal from the dean which linked a pay rise for himself to other senior salary reforms designed to implement gender equality.

In the meantime the Percy family are under what the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, jokingly calls "House arrest" - occupying their historic deanery but unable to take part in the life of the college or cathedral.

Mr Moore got to know "left-wing, argumentative" Rev Percy because they are both defenders of the late Bishop George Bell who has been traduced by unproven accusations of child abuse.

Amidst complaints of bullying to the Bishop of Oxford, Rev Percy took sick leave for a while. He has set up a gofundme.com page for his legal expenses which has so far raised more than £65,000.

For outsiders this may all sound like a nasty or deliciously vicious kerfuffle among over-privileged folk. It matters because the total cost to the college is likely to run to over a million pounds. That's quite a lot of tuition fees.

Coincidentally that is also the amount the college is asking English graduates like me to raise ourselves before they re-instate the number of English tutors that were there when I was at Christ Church.

Not of course that anybody wants to study English at Oxford!

Before coming to the House, Martyn Percy would have done well to consider the well-known nursery rhyme about an earlier unpopular dean:

I do not like thee Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like thee Doctor Fell.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Rowland Manthorpe - We need better powers to stop data bamboozling voters