Cambridge University issues statement after woman subjected to ‘misogyny and harassment’ after finishing PhD

Cambridge University have issued a statement after an academic’s social media post went viral, leading to vicious misogynistic trolling online.

Dr Ally Louks posted a photo of herself celebrating with her completed PhD, “Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose”, on X/Twitter on 27 November. “Thrilled to say I passed my viva with no corrections and am officially PhDone,” she captioned the photo.

The post quickly went viral, garnering nearly 120 million views to date, with some corners of the internet attacking the content as “woke” and making personal attacks about Dr Louks’ appearance and lifestyle.

The academic has said she is “unphased by the vitriol” although the attention was new for her as a “bookish introvert”, in an interview with the BBC earlier in the week.

On Friday (6 December) Cambridge University released an official statement of support for Dr Louks.

“Dr Louks, we support you,” the statement began. “Last week, Cambridge PhD student @allylouks published this photo on X to celebrate passing her viva with no corrections. Her tweet went viral, attracting over 100 million views.

“But the attention that Ally’s achievement received turned to harassment and misogyny when trolls attacked Ally’s PhD topic, her education, her achievement, and her gender.”

It continued, “In the days afterwards, thousands of commenters - including from Cambridge’s own student, staff and alumni communities - have added their supportive messages for Ally.

“Ally has told us that the majority of the 11,000 comments and 20,000 retweets are from people showing ‘generosity, intellectual curiosity, and kindness’.”It went on to explain that Dr Louks’ topic “studies how literature registers the importance of olfactory discourse - the language of smell and the olfactory imagination it creates - in structuring our social world”.

Dr Louks said of the experience, “It’s definitely been overwhelming and an unusual week for someone who is typically a bookish introvert who doesn’t really like attention but I feel quite unfazed by the vitriol.”

She continued, “I was receiving a lot of rape threats, even death threats, but also there were just a lot of people forcing their views about what a woman ought to be or do on me which were entirely beside the point.”