Don’s warning over students’ ‘right not to be offended’

THE outgoing vice-chancellor of Oxford University has said it is “unfortunate” that some students “claim a right not to be offended”.

In an interview with Cherwell, the university’s student newspaper, Dame Louise Richardson, Oxford’s vice-chancellor since 2016, said: “There is a view amongst some students – and it’s not all students – [that] there is a right not to be offended.

“I think that’s unfortunate. I’d like to persuade them that that’s not a healthy approach to take.”

Dame Louise added that Oxford was “pretty robust” on freedom of speech.

“We both know that the press – or some parts of the press – likes to use the issue of freedom of speech as a stick with which to beat certain universities,” she said.

“But I think we’re pretty robust on the issue, even if not every student or every staff member would agree with me precisely on where to draw the lines. My own view is that all legal speech should be welcomed at universities.”

Dame Louise has previously told matriculating students that they must be prepared to “hear the other side” of arguments and that “they should, through reasoned debate, seek to change the other’s mind and above all, be open to having their own mind changed too”.

In the interview, she also reflected on the usefulness of removing statues because of their history, giving the example of her own views on Oliver Cromwell during her upbringing in Ireland. She said: “When I was growing up Oliver Cromwell was the devil incarnate. He was to me what Voldemort was to my kids.

“Then growing up, going to London, and seeing this big statue outside the House of Commons and going to see who it was. And I thought: ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Cromwell. Well, isn’t that fascinating? Here we are, a few hundred miles away, and this man who I was brought up to see as an evil butcher has been lionised.’”

She said it “never occurred to me that his statue should be ripped down

‘My own view is that all legal speech should be welcomed at universities’

because he did terrible things in Ireland” – and that historical figures could not be judged by contemporary moral values.

Elsewhere in the interview, Dame Louise also reflected on criticisms that privately educated pupils are finding it harder to win places at Oxbridge, describing the idea as a “distraction”.

She said that, seven years ago, Oxford was criticised in the press “constantly, for being inaccessible to poor kids”.

“Now we’re getting criticism for the fact that it’s harder – it is alleged – for privately educated kids to get in. I think those criticisms are a distraction,” she said, adding that describing candidates in such terms made it “harder to recruit the best kids from all over the country, irrespective of their background”.