Oxbridge colleges ramp up 'race workshops' for freshers

2022-10-10

Oxbridge colleges ramp up ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘race workshops’ for freshers – despite calls for them to be scrapped

Oxbridge colleges have imposed more unconscious bias and race workshops on freshers despite calls for them to be scrapped.

The courses had been optional but increasingly students are being ordered to take part.

Freshers at Keble College had to undertake hours of courses on consent, race, LGBTQ+ and disability.

According to a 2022 timetable seen by the Daily Mail they were told it was ‘very important’ they attend.

Freshers at Keble College had to undertake hours of courses on consent, race, LGBTQ+ and disability

Emmanuel College Cambridge also ran a two-and-a-half hour unconscious bias workshop that all freshers were required to take part in.

Christ Church, Oxford’s grandest college, said it ‘runs compulsory sessions for all students covering topics including diversity, respect and anti-racism, and staff involved in, for example, admissions and recruitment receive appropriate training’.

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Freshers do need to understand the laws that protect our society, but indoctrinating them with woke ideology is dangerous and irresponsible.

‘If there are to be workshops for new students, they should explain why much of the rest of the world does not share this creed. Young people need to be prepared for the world beyond their university campus.’

Students at Somerville, Margaret Thatcher’s former college, were last year ordered to pass a test in which they had to concede that a black lecturer would be more unpopular than white colleagues. Following an outcry, the college said students would no longer be compelled to take the course.

Balliol College, alma mater of Boris Johnson, Ted Heath and Harold Macmillan, has said it was ‘expanding the mandatory programme of unconscious bias/tackling race bias training to include all academic staff’. Unconscious bias training is aimed at making people aware of – and helping them overcome – potentially harmful assumptions they hold against those from different backgrounds.

It has been described as ‘ideological snake oil’ by the Free Speech Union, while the Race Commission last year called for institutions to ditch the practice.

The commission’s report said the ‘soul-searching’ of some organisations in the wake of Black Lives Matter had amounted to ‘tick-box exercises’ that did not get results and the money would be better spent elsewhere.

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