UK Edition
Questioning your curriculum is exactly what university is about, but the "decolonisation" movement is imposing a fringe ideology that limits academic thought
In a recent philosophy seminar, I responded to one of my tutor’s remarks by making reference to another academic’s argument. Standard practice for a university seminar, you might think. But what came next signalled a change in how academic discussions are to be had on campus. A student in the class took up my response by stating “but that’s a white man’s opinion”. This was said earnestly and with full, genuine conviction. It was, as far as I can tell, intended to be a serious argument.
It was another symptom of the sad, anti-intellectual virus that is afflicting Britain’s campuses: identity politics. Identity politics has spread far and wide across our intellectual homes, and its one of its more recent creations, known as the "decolonise the curriculum" movement, that is now hitting the headlines.
Though it masquerades as a serious academic force, the "decolonise" movement is just another form of political student protest. Its objectives span from the cleansing of racist and imperialist figures from campus architecture to promoting a revolutionised syllabus – where there are fewer "dead white men" to be studied by young students – because the old one "risks perpetuating institutional racism"
At Oxford we saw the demands for Oriel College to remove a statue of its benefactor Cecil Rhodes in the "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign. It aimed
“to challenge the structures of knowledge production that continue to mould a colonial mindset that dominates our present”.
The NUS’s "Why is My Curriculum White?’ movement, which was started at UCL, presents the case that "Universities in the UK have operated under a colonial legacy, perpetuating “whiteness” both structurally and in the confines of knowledge reproduced’.
In America, the identity-obsessed madness has reached more troubling heights. At Seattle University, a group of students organised a sit-in to protest that the "liberal-arts curriculum focussed too much on classical Western history and philosophy’. A student at Seattle insisted that “the only thing they’re teaching us is dead white dudes”.
The language of these activists – tied up in tired Marxist (but don’t tell them that Karl Marx is a dead white dude) clap-trap on production – promotes the idea that British and American universities are great institutions of colonialism, both in how they were formed and in the kind of knowledge they disseminate. These students want you to believe that they are great radicals, rebelling against stiff, reactionary institutions.
They must go to different universities from the rest of us. After three years of study, I have yet to come across a conservative lecturer – let alone an academic who aims to continue a colonialist legacy.
In reality, universities have long abandoned what one Cambridge student recently described as the “traditional and canonical approach that elevates white male authors at the expense of others”.
Last year, members of the University and College Union (UCU) embraced the the student movements to decolonise education. At Edinburgh University, the ‘Global Development Academy’ hosted a two-day seminar titled "Decolonizing the Academy: Decoloniality, Transmodernity and the World System". This hyper-intellectual language (read: guff) shows how academics have welcomed the "decolonise" movement. You’ll struggle to find a lecturer who disagrees with them.
And that is a terrible shame. By appeasing a loud, tiny minority of student radicals on campus, university administrators and lecturers are placing themselves in opposition to the ideals of university education. The word "university" is derived from Latin and Medieval French origins meaning "entire", referring to the universal value and relevance of knowledge to all humanity.
Academic Joanna Williams describes this as an “embarrassing reminder of universality” to the identity-obsessed students and lecturers who want us to believe that knowledge is tightly bound to race or gender.
Needless to say, the "decolonisation" movement is fiercely political and is almost exclusively made up of Left-wing students. I have yet to hear a Trotsky-curious student call for more Ayn Rand or Thomas Sowell in their curriculum – no, it is Adam Smith, David Hume, and John Locke that must go.
Students should question their curricula. I wish more of them would. But they should ask questions relevant to the universal ideals of acquiring knowledge and seeking the truth – questions including "is this curriculum balanced or does it favour one view?" And "Is this curriculum missing important ideas relevant to the discussion?"
They should avoid asking "how diverse is the range of racial and gender identities in this curriculum?" or "how many dead white dudes will I be reading this semester?", the responses will be valueless.
Charlie Peters is a student at the University of Edinburgh
Left-wing academics are helping a minority of students to force their identity politics on the rest of us