Cancelled by woke, a UK composer appeals for our help
NewsWe reported in March that jazz composer Martin Speake was suspended from his teaching posts after students boycotted his classes at TrinityLaban (TL), Guildhall and the Royal Academy of Music. The triogger was a private email in which Speake questioned obligatory inclusivity agendas.
Martin Speake remains unemployed, banned by mob-rule from teaching and performing.
Here is his latest update:
As soon as TL shared my email with the entire jazz department, my personal nightmare began. Instead of defending my right to hold this belief, TL publicly distanced itself from me, threatened disciplinary action and allowed harmful rumours to spread about me. As a result, students boycotted my classes, not only at TL but also at other institutions. The London Jazz Orchestra, for which I had been lead alto saxophonist for 15 years, asked me to take leave from my post. Other bands refused to play my compositions. All my scheduled performances around the UK were unceremoniously cancelled and most venues refused to book me for future concerts. The release of my latest album was halted. Staff and students alike ostracised me. This led to me needing to take sick leave for an extended period.
I had hoped that, on my return to work in September 2024, the situation at TL (and more widely) would have calmed down. Unfortunately, TL continued to allow me to be the target of discriminatory and harassing behaviour with no regard to my wellbeing, or the law.
More broadly, I continued to be effectively ‘cancelled’ within the jazz scene.
With a very heavy heart I had no choice but to resign from my post with TL in November 2024 as my working environment had become unbearable.
My legal case
I have already filed a claim against TL for the discrimination and harassment I have endured on the basis of my protected philosophical belief (under the Equality Act 2010) as expressed in my email. I allege that TL has failed to secure my right to academic freedom and free speech more generally. I have done this with the generous assistance of the Free Speech Union and the excellent solicitor their support has allowed me to engage, James Murray (Doyle Clayton). The hearing to determine my claim will be between 3-12 August 2026. My preliminary hearing will be on the 9th of September 2025.
I am now also going to file a claim for constructive dismissal against TL. Essentially, TL forced me to resign by virtue of its conduct towards me, which, I believe, constitutes a serious breach of contract. I hope I will be able to join these two claims together and that TL will be held accountable.
Any support you pledge will help me make progress on both claims….
To read more and to support Martin’s cause, please click here.
This could be your kindest Christmas gift.
I hope Martin Speake wins big in his case against such monumentally unfair treatment.
Absolutely. As (Sir) Toby Young himself has pointed out, it’s enough to use the wording of the law to defeat the woke cancel culture. All power to Martin Speake.
Woke is not the insult you believe it to be. Do you know when the word was first used or its original meaning? Throwing it around the way you do puts you in the company of folks who are what we call “low information.”
Is “its original meaning” still current? Words sometimes lose their “original meaning” and take on new meanings.
Does anybody here know the exact words of his private email?
If it contained blatantly racist language, he’s probably brought this upon himself. If not, perhaps he has been hard done by.
As it is, it’s rather premature to label him as a victim of ‘wokeness’. If racist words were involved, he’s more a victim of tolerance.
We don’t know.
We have seen the email. It is not racist in any way. Read the previous posts on slippedisc.
If that’s the case, he’s been hard by.
Unfortunately, many accusations of wokery or wokeness come from racists and other bigots who have been challenged. They go on about their freedom of speech, but object to other people exercising theirs.
The email was linked in one of the prior SD items about about the events, but it is also posted at the Committee for Academic Freedom site. Just Google the words “Martin Speake email,” and you should readily get a hit.
There’s nothing hateful in it. But he’s an idiot for expressing the views he holds in the badly expressed and easily misunderstood terms he used, in a disseminable electronic written medium, in a campus, professional, and current cultural climate of which he was far from unaware.
I hope he takes them to the cleaners. It’s only when institutions start having to write big cheques for their own infringement of liberties that the mass cowardice this ideology has yielded will be phased out.
Personally I think one, two or a few of those Fender Squier starter electric guitar paks with a case, a stand, a little baby amp and a tuner, delivered to the nonprofit inner-city cultural center of one’s choice, might be a kinder Christmas gift.