Standards upheld

You published last week the story of a doctoral student, Edwin Del Wollert, who says that he was recruited by Swansea University on the basis of an assurance that the philosophy department here has several experts on the Arthurian legends ("Ethical squeeze leaves US postgrad set to sue", Whistleblowers, THES, November 12).

In the course of your report you refer to the fact that the department contains a number of people who founded the Council for Academic Freedom and Standards. Some readers have taken this to mean that, despite our record of fighting the decline in British education, we have now been accused of the sort of practice that is condemned by the council we founded.

We would like to point out that we had not the slightest involvement in Del Wollert's recruitment; that no one ever asked us what we know about the Arthurian legends; that, if we had been asked, we would have said that we do not know much; and that most of our information about Del Wollert's case is derived from your report.

Mike Cohen Anne Maclean Colwyn Williamson Department of philosophy University of Swansea