Cambridge college brings back drive to report dons for racism
A CAMBRIDGE college is encouraging students to report dons for “microaggressions” despite the university’s vice-chancellor describing earlier attempts at a similar university-wide policy as a “mistake”.
Downing College has been accused of promoting “highly contestable” and “pernicious” ideas in its new guidance on how to report racism. Dons fear the guidance will lead to a “culture of fear” that is “antithetical to free speech”.
The guidance defines racism as “an ideology and a set of practices based on ideas of inherited white ‘racial’ superiority that normalises control, domination and exclusion over people of colour, while legitimating privilege and oppression”.
It goes on to say that: “One of the ways in which racism is perpetuated as a system of oppression is through everyday manifestations and microaggressions [which are] acts that serve to subjugate people of colour in more or less covert ways.”
But dons have pointed out that this definition of racism is itself racist because it implies that it is impossible for anyone who is white – including Jewish, Polish and Irish people, for example – to be a victim of racism.
“The main concern is the definition of racism and the inclusion of microaggressions,” one Cambridge academic told The Daily Telegraph. “These are highly contestable, pernicious ideas about racism and they will generate a horrendous culture of fear.”
In May this year, Cambridge’s vicechancellor issued an apology and said the university’s publication of a “microaggressions” list was a mistake. Prof Stephen Toope wrote to the entire staff to explain that aspects of the university’s new website – on which academics and students could anonymously report “inappropriate” behaviour – had been included “in error”.
His intervention came after 25 Cambridge dons signed a joint letter to this newspaper saying academics must have “unfettered freedom of speech”.
The site – taken offline days after its launch following a story in The Telegraph – had stated that academics could be committing a “micro-aggression” if they raise an eyebrow, give backhanded compliments, turn their backs on certain people, or refer to a woman as a girl.
Toby Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, has written to the Downing College master, Alan Bookbinder, to raise concerns about its policy. He said that, considering its similarities to the university-wide policy that was published, then removed in May: “I can only assume there was some governance failure within Downing College that allowed this guidance to slip through.”
Mr Bookbinder said the college’s policy on racism covers all forms of discrimination. He said that no victims of racism at the college “have ever been white”, but should that change “we would consider changing the guidance”.