The snowflake students out to cause trouble

I was in despair last week after reading how York University lecturers had to apologise to students attending a class on race because the word ‘negro’ was used in readings of works by black academics. It is now suggested that, in future, such lectures are prefaced with a warning.

It is astonishing that these people cannot recognise the need for such language when it is being used in publications relevant to their chosen subject.

I am of an age when the race issue was far more serious than it is now, and such language was disgracefully all too common. However, reacting to language used legitimately in lectures is pathetic, and any student who becomes ‘considerably distressed’ is probably on the wrong course.

Mike Elford, Canvey Island, Essex

Are these students really so shocked or do they just see an opportunity to cause trouble and make themselves look virtuous? If not, then I know one thing for certain: they are not intelligent enough to be at university.

Paul Morley, Skipton

Instead of apologising and suggesting that academics preface their lectures with a pompously long-winded statement, the head of the department ought to have told these over-sensitive students to get over themselves. At this rate, the Thought Police will arrive at my doorstep to confiscate my Agatha Christie novels, my old records of The Mikado and my Fawlty Towers DVD.

Name and address supplied

It’s very easy to say people shouldn’t be offended by this or that, but as the Native American proverb says: ‘Never judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.’

D. Cleary, London

Students are complaining about being reminded of the word’s evil use. This is a not something a university is responsible for.

If things go much further, our students will grow up spoiled and unable to consider evil things, for fear of the world.

Simon van Someren, London

I found the quote from Dennis Haynes, director of Academics for Academic Freedom and a professor of education at Derby University, highly illuminating. He said that the students were the ‘products’ of a system that had protected them from being offended. So we really shouldn’t blame the students themselves, but the type of education they have received. If any people are the victims in all this, it’s them.

O. Kirk, Lancashire

There is obviously a disconnect between education up to the age of 18 and beyond. If students are mollycoddled for too long, then instances like this when they go to university will happen more and more. Education needs to be treated as a whole, not three separate stages.

N. Higham, London