GOWN AND OUT!
Oxford’s PC students want to ban robes – but only those for the really clever people
FOR centuries, the sight of Oxford students in their distinctive academic gowns has been as familiar in the city as its dreaming spires.
But now the university’s undergraduates have demanded the scrapping of the coveted scholars’ gown worn by academic high-flyers – because the garments make some students feel ‘inferior’.
To the dismay of critics, who said it ‘reeked of envy’, a motion passed by the university’s student union even suggests that female and ethnic minority students could feel so stressed by seeing others in the ‘elitist’ garb that it could damage their own exam results.
Under current rules, Oxford undergraduates must wear a sleeveless commoners’ gown over formal clothes for official occasions such as taking exams or graduation ceremonies. But a small proportion who have a music or other scholarship, or who have gained a distinction in first- year exams, can choose to wear a longer scholars’ gown, which has sleeves.
The motion put forward by stu- dents from Wadham College and passed by the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) said the wearing of ‘differential gowns’ in exams should be dropped.
One supporter, Isobel Cockburn, said the ‘hierarchical gown structure’ made many feel ‘nervous’ because it was a ‘visual reminder of what they might perceive as their academic inferiority’. She added that there was a clear ‘gender bias’ as more males, sometimes from privileged backgrounds, were awarded the gowns than females.
Writing in a student newspaper, she said undergraduates from ethnic minority groups were even more likely to feel intimidated because they already felt ‘ overwhelmed’ by being at the elite uni- versity. Defenders of the gowns said, however, that they were part of a long tradition and no one who had won a place at Oxford should feel a failure. Second-year Hertford College law student Anna Lukina, who has a scholars’ gown after gaining a distinction in her first-year exams, said the motion devalued her achievements by ‘attributing them to luck and privilege rather than hard work’.
She said she was hardly ‘ your typical “privileged man” ’ as she was an international student from Russia who had battled mental illness – and criticised the ‘student Left’ for arguing that everyone was equal even though they achieved different grades in their degrees.
Another student, Thomas Munro, said the motion ‘ reeks of envy’, and that axeing scholars’ gowns would deny students the rewards of success. Former Government Minister Ann Widdecombe, who was at the university in the 1960s, said: ‘This is politically correct nonsense. In case they have forgotten, Oxford is an academic institution, which recognises academic excellence.’
The OUSU, which has been consulting across the university and will not decide its official policy until October, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Oxford University said it would take students’ views into account when deciding its dress code.
‘A visual reminder of academic inferiority’ ‘This is nonsense. Oxford recognises excellence’