Students ordered to take anti-bias course ...at Maggie’s college
MARGARET THATCHER’S alma mater is set to become the first Oxford University college to introduce compulsory bias training for students, staff and tutors.
Somerville College will require them to complete a course on implicit biases as part of a diversity drive to tackle racism on campus.
In an email sent to students last month, Somerville’s principal, Baroness Royall, a former Labour leader of the House of Lords, wrote: ‘All staff are receiving unconscious bias training and there will be online training for all students before the start of term.’
It is part of a raft of inclusive measures planned by the college that include mentoring for all of its black freshers and the creation of an Equalities and Diversity Working Group.
Among other ‘anti-racist actions’ are the addition of new books ‘to make our collection more diverse and inclusive’ and backing an ‘Alternative Curricula’ to the official academic programme.
In a subsequent email to students, Somerville’s Junior Common Room President said that the training ‘will be a first step to ensuring we all understand what is bias, the impact of our bias and how to acknowledge and overcome biases’.
The course will be run by Oxford’s university- wide Equality and Diversity Unit and will take the form of a two- hour workshop, which will consider how implicit bias plays out at the university and will include a discussion about steps that individuals and teams can take to reduce its influence on their decisions and actions.
Last month Labour leader Keir Starmer said he will sign up for unconscious bias training following criticism of his response to Black Lives Matter protests.
The League of European Research Universities – which represents 23 institutions including Imperial College London, University College London, Oxford and Cambridge – recommended in a report published last year that all staff involved in hiring and promotion decisions receive training about bias.
But critics have raised fears over its impact on freedom of thought and, in March 2018, research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on the effectiveness of unconscious bias training found little evidence to suggest it can alter behaviour.
Founded in 1879, Somerville was one of Oxford’s first two women’s colleges. It boasts the late president of India, Indira Gandhi, and Testament Of Youth author Vera Brittain among its alumnae. The college, which has a reputation for its ‘open and inclusive ethos’, started admitting men in 1994.
A spokesman for the college said: ‘In offering this training we are simply updating our founders’ commitment to include the excluded, by acknowledging the potential damage inflicted on those around us through unconscious bias.’
Lady Thatcher read chemistry at Somerville in the 1940s. She later battled to preserve the college’s allwomen status from European Community equality laws in the 1980s.
The introduction of bias training courses at Somerville follows the vote by the governing body at another Oxford college, Oriel, in June to remove a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes, though it will stay in place until next year.