Boycotting of Amber at Oxford just makes me see red
Former Home Secretary Amber rudd turned up for a speech at oxford University to encourage other women to get into politics. She expected a packed house of young women with dreams in their hearts, as she had — dreams of making a difference in the corridors of power. She arrived to an empty hall.
Students had cancelled the event because of ms rudd’s links to the Windrush scandal, in which Britons of Caribbean heritage were wrongly deported.
It’s difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps with the sheer ignorance at Britain’s premier seat of learning.
First, although she resigned over Windrush, a Whitehall inquiry later exonerated her. She was failed by her civil servants who had given her the wrong information.
Second, the UNWomen oxford Society, which organised the event, could not have found a more strident ambassador for their cause than ms rudd, a former minister for Women and equalities who has often made herself unpopular within the Tory Party for her socially liberal views.
Indeed, so passionately did she feel about helping female students that she had offered to speak free of charge for the event to celebrate International Women’s Day, and proceeds were destined for a Female Genital mutilation charity. Third, freedom of speech is essential to learning and debate. oxford University’s Code of Practice states that, along with ‘academic freedom’, it is a central tenet of university life.
Did these arrogant students not know of the code? or did they just decide it isn’t worth the paper it is written on? Whatever, to no-platform Amber rudd was the behaviour of the kindergarten, not academia.
oxford University has produced female leaders including Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, margaret Thatcher and Theresa may.
Yet these students who ban anyone from speaking about anything not expressing their juvenile, predetermined view of the world, are introducing Stalinist censorship to its hallowed cloisters.
The dons, the fellows and tutors who stand by as this happens should be ashamed of themselves. Because they are indulging in the greatest evil — doing nothing while bigotry and bullying triumphs.