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Why It’s Important to Teach the Civil Rights Movement Today

The lessons of the Civil Rights Movement in America reach beyond its time and place. With Black History Month ongoing in Britain’s schools, Cambridge historian, Nicolas Kinloch, assesses its achievement:

There have always been excellent reasons to teach British students about the civil rights era in the United States. It’s an inspiring story: often complex, but also with some pretty clear-cut heroes and villains. Perhaps the very best reason for teaching it at the moment is that it effectively refutes much of the nonsense that passes for Critical Race Theory.

Of course, teaching this topic is not without difficulties. Its very selection has probably helped ensure that there is a tendency, in Britain, to assume that the British experience of race is identical to the American one. This is far from the case, but the response in Britain to the murder of George Floyd suggests that the problem is a real one. Protestors kneeling in front of unarmed British police officers, asking, “Are you going to shoot me?” might suggest that not everyone has appreciated that the histories—to employ a much-used contemporary idiom—of the United States and Britain are very different ones. Similarly, it’s not uncommon to find references to a British civil rights movement, when in fact black people in Britain, whatever their other disadvantages, had always enjoyed civil rights in the modern era.

A Question of Religion

There’s also a major issue for our largely secular age, which is that a large number of civil rights leaders were significant religious figures. It’s probably true that there’s little that contemporary historians find more difficult to take seriously than religion, and particularly any form of Christianity. This has long been the case: nor is this deep embarrassment confined to the teaching of civil rights. I used to marvel, as a student, at the lengths to which some of my teachers would go in their attempts to explain away religion, even when the Reformation or the English Revolution were the topics under investigation. It didn’t matter how clearly the religious had stated their motivation: our task, as historians, was to explain what they really meant. I have seen biographies of Martin Luther King which managed to suggest that his being a Baptist minister was a sort of eccentric side-line, indulged when the real business of civil rights gave him a chance to do so. Such a view, of course, severely underestimates the significance of religion in black America, which is unfortunate for several reasons. It robs African Americans of independent agency, since the black churches were very much their own creation. And it diminishes the historical record, since the churches, from the Montgomery boycott to the Poor People’s March on Washington, played an essential role in both organising and funding the movement. They also supplied much of the early movement’s leadership: another mark against it, in some eyes, since it meant that to some extent it was and remained a middle-class movement. Class, of course, is one of the many things that Critical Race Theory tends to ignore, but it manages even so to convey a certain sense of disapproval when confronted with the suits and ties worn by such activists as King or Abernathy.

Martin Luther King V Malcolm X

The topic poses other difficulties for the teacher. Figures such as Malcolm X are almost always included, though for no very good reason apart from a coincidence in dates. He was an important and interesting figure in his own right, and worth studying, but he was never part of the civil rights movement. The same was true of the Black Panther Party, which is also routinely included. This was a group for which those activists currently calling for a black militia in Britain seem to have a high regard. But even a casual examination of its fate might induce caution in its admirers. It was uninterested in civil rights, preferring provocative gestures to capture public attention and reinforce notions of black pride. Its early leaders, such as Bobby Seale, Huey P Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, were astute self-publicists who for a time managed to embody the notion of radical chic. Cleaver’s best-selling 1968 memoir, Soul On Ice, suggested that the rape of white women was a revolutionary act, and did so without apparently shocking its readers. The Panthers, which at their peak had several thousand members across the United States, rapidly became little more than a criminal gang with an unusually dramatic logo. Members were killed in shoot-outs with the police or, often enough, in turf wars with other drug barons. Key individuals such “Information Minister” Cleaver were forced overseas. He returned eventually, to become a Mormon and conservative Republican. Newton’s career was still less glorious: apart from his involvement—to put it no more strongly—in the murder of a police officer, he was also guilty of large-scale embezzlement of party funds and fled to Cuba rather than stand trial for the 1974 murder of a teenage prostitute. His eventual murder by an Oakland crack dealer ended a squalid life which only the most gullible could possibly have seen as a revolutionary statement. And Bobby Seale’s eventual return to the mainstream—with a book on barbecuing and a series of ice-cream advertisements—probably represented all his worst enemies had ever wished him.

Despite these caveats, there are few recent history topics more worth teaching, and teaching well. Critical Race Theory suggests—no, insists—that nothing ever gets better. It’s one reason why its supporters find it difficult to say at what point their movement will regard its work as done: because, they assume, its work never will be done. But it’s very hard to maintain with any conviction that the civil rights struggle didn’t improve things. In 1954, when Brown v Board of Education was unanimously endorsed by the Supreme Court—a court, of course, then composed solely of middle-aged white men—black Americans were the victims of legal segregation in the South, and informally-enforced segregation elsewhere. Lynching and murder remained commonplace. Ten years later, almost all this had changed, or had at least begun to do so. It almost certainly never occurred to Lyndon Johnson when he told Congress, “We shall overcome”, that less than fifty years later he would be succeeded by a black president. Quite how Barack Obama could ever have been elected, if all white people were as racist as the Theory presupposes, is one of the many questions its adherents fail to answer convincingly, and usually prefer not to answer at all.

Solidarity Across Ethnicities

The movement, rightly, was started and led by black people, many of whom had been combatting segregation for years. But they had white support too, an inconvenient fact for supporters of the Theory. These included key members of the Federal Government. If John F Kennedy can accurately be described a largely a “bystander”, as far as civil rights were concerned, this was emphatically not true of his brother Robert, the Attorney General. Nor was it true of Lyndon Johnson, who pushed for an effective Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and the still more crucial Voting Rights Act of the following year. Johnson was well aware that support for civil rights might cost the Democratic Party the South, and he was right. He pushed for it nonetheless. White support for the movement was not restricted to government. The 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi saw the abduction and murder of three civil rights workers by the United Klans of America. James Chaney was black. His two companions, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, were Jewish activists from New York. Thirty years earlier, Jewish organisations had been at the forefront of the campaign to save the Scottsboro Boys, who had been falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama, and sentenced to death. Until the late 1960s, and the emergence of the Black Power movement, there had always been a close connection between the black and Jewish communities of the United States. It was an alliance that some supporters of today’s BLM would perhaps rather we forget about. White people marched at Selma—one of them, James Reeb, was killed there—and in many other places.

Nothing “Micro” About These Aggressions—Alabama Church Bombing and Nixon’s Southern Strategy

The civil rights movement produced men and women of outstanding courage from the very beginning. It’s easy, especially nowadays, to underestimate just what was involved in confronting the sort of prejudice that was normal in the 1950s. A large number of civil rights campaigners died: Martin Luther King; Medgar Evers; Viola Gregg Liuzzo; James Reeb and many more. In September 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, it transpired that little girls weren’t even safe in church. Everyone involved in the movement—and there must have been hundreds of thousands of them—deliberately risked their lives. Most of those who died did so at the hands of white supremacists—real ones, that is, not people alleged to have committed the sort of “micro-aggressions” that might get them cancelled on Twitter. And it’s worth pointing out that white people proved to be just as easy to kill as black ones.

Of course, Martin Luther King was central to the movement. He remains such a significant figure that even today’s activists are wary of attacking him too openly. It should be obvious that they despise most of what he represented. He was a Christian; he believed in the redemptive power of love; he insisted on non-violence. He also had “problematic” views on a number of other topics. He opposed segregation, which means that he would probably have found today’s demands for “safe spaces for people of colour” an extraordinary one. He thought character more important than colour, an unacceptable position for the Theory, which holds that such “colour-blindness” is racist. He was a patriotic American who simply believed that the promises contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should apply to all Americans. On the night before his assassination he stated that he had been up to the mountain, and had seen the Promised Land. Whatever that land looked like, it seems unlikely that it resembled anything that Critical Race Theory has to offer.

One of the most revealing elements of the civil rights movement is the way in which it ended. It’s often assumed to have ended with King’s assassination in 1968. In reality, it had run out of steam well before this. The movement itself began to fracture. There had always been tension between the middle-aged and male-dominated SCLC[1] and groups such as the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee. Not everyone accepted the idea of love and redemption that was the basis of King’s philosophy. The Black Power movement, led by such figures as Stokely Carmichael, became more assertive and, after 1968, more popular. And there was inevitably a reaction, by many white people, to the successes of the civil rights era. It was a reaction perhaps made more vicious by the riots that had erupted, first in Watts, then in Detroit and, in 1968, across the United States. In that year George Wallace ran for president on an avowedly segregationist third-party ticket, and was startled to find that he did as well in the North as he did in the South. Three years later Daniel Patrick Moynihan was advising Richard Nixon that a period of “benign neglect” on racial matters would be advantageous. His words were wasted on Nixon, whose “Southern Strategy” was intent on transforming the South from a Democratic into a Republican stronghold. This was soon achieved: Jimmy Carter, in 1976, was the last Democratic president to gain a majority of Southern electoral votes. In 1984, Republican Ronald Reagan won every Southern state but one. The South has been Republican ever since.

Progress Through Democratic Means Necessary

The civil rights movement did not, of course, end racism or racial inequalities in the United States. But it did vastly improve the lives of millions of African Americans. Even in states such as Mississippi, black people were now able to vote. Inevitably this brought change, in the form of black sheriffs, police chiefs and mayors. Very soon there were black members of Congress; black senators and, ultimately, a black president of the United States. It was an interesting reminder of how democratic the country was, at least at local level, and how quickly the exercise of the vote could effect political change. Those who dismiss these changes as unimportant, because they failed to challenge the “systemic racism” they now blame for every ill, merely demonstrate that they lack the imagination to grasp what life for black people had been like before the civil rights movement had triumphed.

Recently the black American actor Leonydus Johnson wrote:

We now find ourselves in a place that I feel is the antithesis of the civil rights movement. Instead of marching toward a world that de-emphasizes the importance of skin colour, we instead find ourselves pursuing a world where skin colour is placed firmly and proudly at the forefront of identity, where Martin Luther King’s idea of judging people by the content of their character takes a decided back seat to a person’s ancestry, a world where white people must apologize and atone for sins that they never committed and black people claim victimhood for horrors that they never experienced. It is the exact thing the civil rights movement aimed to defeat.”

He was quite right: and the ongoing effort to dismiss the movement and belittle its achievements should be resisted. There is no better way of doing so than teaching about it fully and accurately: “Educate yourself”, as people like to say nowadays. And then educate others.

[1] Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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Critical/Cynical Facts/Theories

A new book on ‘social justice scholarship’

Who wants social justice? Or, to ask a simpler question, who wishes to live in a society that is unjust? Nobody, I expect. Or nobody except those cranks relegated beyond the fringes of acceptable discourse. Why, then, are we not all marching hand-in-hand, step-by-step, in support of ‘Social Justice’ activism? The answer is complex and counterintuitive: there is social justice, and then there is Social Justice. The former seeks progress within the tried-and-tested frameworks of law, science and reasoned argument; the latter proceeds on several deeply-held assumptions about the world, assumptions that have spilled out of ‘critical theory’ scholarship into our schools, businesses, civic institutions and society at large.

While this all sounds technical and messy, the underlying issues are reassuringly simple. Yet debates about these topics have so often collapsed into chaos because both sides, however well-meaning, seem to speak a different language. When emotions run high, and the fundamental issues are sheltered from academic and public scrutiny within the cocoon of abstruse terminology and obscurantist jargon, concrete progress is difficult, if not impossible. A new co-authored book, Cynical Theories, sets out to remedy the impasse, by patiently and lucidly addressing the problems afoot. It does so not by talking up a ‘culture war’, an over-simplistic and artificially divisive cliché, or by decrying the sinister march of ‘cultural Marxism’, a term so flabby and inaccurate as to be practically meaningless. Instead, despite the book’s exposure of logical methodological, terminological and – as the authors contend – moral failings in the sub-disciplines of critical theory, it is a work written with intellectual charity: it takes these fields seriously on academic grounds in order to understand and expose their weaknesses.

Cynical Theories is ‘written for the layperson who has no background in this type of scholarship… for anyone from any part of the political spectrum who believes in the marketplace of ideas as a way to examine and challenge ideas and advance society.’ The authors, for their part, are candid about their own philosophical commitment to liberalism: to freedom of expression, diversity of opinion, respect for evidence and reason, and the equal dignity of people both as individuals and as part of universal humankind. Their book is pitched as a ‘philosophically liberal critique of Social Justice scholarship and activism’, on the ground that it ‘does not further social justice and equality aims’. Despite this negative agenda, the book is not a reactionary hit-job, nor does it seek to caricature and scoff. Instead, having declared their ‘commitment to gender, racial and LGBT equality,’ the authors confess that they are ‘far less interested in dismantling liberal societies and empirical concepts of knowledge and much more interested in continuing the remarkable advances for social justice that they have brought’. In that spirit, their aims are not revolutionary but restorative: to ‘defend rigorous, evidence-based scholarship and the essential function of the university as a centre of knowledge production.’

So who takes on such a frank project in such a fraught climate? The authors’ formal academic training has been in Mathematics, Physics and English Literature, but since their exits from the university sector their shared activity has been analysing and appraising the state of scholarly research-cum-activism. James Lindsay is the American co-founder of New Discourses, a website devoted to critiquing ‘critical social justice’ scholarship. Helen Pluckrose is the British editor-in-chief of Areo magazine, a current-affairs digest committed to Enlightenment liberalism. What is more, she was a founding signatory to the Don’t Divide Us mission statement. Neither, then, is a stranger to confronting the subjects of this book, nor will either be surprised to discover the hostility that such a project will assuredly meet.

The Perils of Postmodern Scepticism

The book starts by swimming upstream to the early years of Postmodernism. Many may raise their eyebrows that the dominant, urgent campaigns of 2020 should be approached via a movement that emerged six decades ago. But the chain of thought emerges clearly enough. In the 1960s, and especially in France, various philosophers and critics who were disenchanted with the failures of 20th-century Marxism directed their energies to critique the world around them – or rather the linguistic, epistemological, social and political manifestations of that world. The postmodern playbook was clear enough: to ‘problematise’ sociopolitical structures by scrutinising language, deconstructing knowledge, exposing bias, and revealing power dynamics. The usual suspects of the period – Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard and co. – are briefly sketched, revealing their sceptical, detached, ironic, playful, and at times avowedly pointless theorising. It would have been easy to get bogged down in particulars here, not least since many of these scholars felt no compulsion to be consistent, or to declare openly how and when their positions had changed. But the book’s aim is instead to show how two general principles of postmodernism have survived and evolved over the subsequent half-century: that objective knowledge is either logically impossible or practically unattainable, since all knowledge is determined by an individual’s culture; and that power structures pervade society, controlling what is known and how it is known.

The effect of these twin principles was, and remains, manifestly destabilising in a post-Enlightenment world: the scientific method loses its primacy as a route to knowledge, because it is demoted to just of one many modes of knowing. Worse than that, the method and its achievements in the western world are vitiated by its historical association with men, most of whom were white. With science and reason thus rendered suspect, the space emerges for alleged problems about society to be theorised and postulated, without the usual requirements of evidence and data for their verification or falsification.

In addition to these two principles, the book argues that four general themes dominated postmodern theory and still permeate critical theory: (i) the blurring of boundaries – which challenges and destabilises categories to deprive them of power, alleging their subjectivity, fluidity, hybridity and indefinability; (ii) the power of language – which constructs knowledge and shapes society by its imposition of artificially binary terms; (iii) cultural relativism – which asserts that, since each culture creates its own (biased) knowledge systems, its values and ethics cannot be judged against any universal norms; (iv) the loss of the individual and the universal – which privileges group identities over individual autonomy, since the individual is the passive product of society’s ‘dominant discourses’ and culturally-created knowledge, and demotes or rejects the shared values of humankind.

Contrary to the belief of many critical theorists that postmodernism died an overdue death long ago, the authors of Cynical Theories seek to demonstrate that the postmodern principles and themes outlined above continue to underpin the assumptions of contemporary scholarship. To flesh out their case, they chart three waves of evolution: first, the formative origins of postmodern Theory in the 1960s (which itself has roots extending back into the nineteenth century); second, ‘applied postmodernism’, arising in the late 1980s; and third, ‘reified postmodernism’, which began to gain traction around 2010. These two latter phases require some explanation.

Putting Theory into Practice

Postmodernism’s ‘high deconstructive phase’ had burned out by the 1980s, inevitably destabilised and depressed by its own self-critical scrutiny. While the great majority of academic enquiry continued undisturbed in universities, various critics schooled in postmodernism revitalised its core principles by making an outwards-facing evolution, ‘the applied turn’, from abstract theorising to societal engagement. Necessarily, critical scholarship moved from its descriptive phase (how the world is/appears) into a prescriptive mode (how it should be). Since ‘critical’ theory can only proceed by the discovery and diagnosis of ‘injustices’, its mode of progess was clear enough: the blunt tools of postmodernism could be repurposed and resharpened to deconstruct power hierarchies, to delegitimise the alleged sources of hypothesised problems, and to ‘make oppression visible’.

Scholars wedded to the cause therefore proceeded to pursue their scholarship on the basis of several claims, which paved the way to challenging the world outside academia:

  1. that personal identities, although constructed by society, are real, and the primary route to group knowledge and empowerment.
  2. that the world is regulated by identity-based systems of power.
  3. that knowledge, which is inevitably partisan, is constructed by the powerful to serve these systems for their own benefit.
  4. that more reliable knowledge can be obtained from the lived experience of those people marginalised and oppressed by such power systems.
  5. that individuals’ experiences of oppression can be generalised to demonstrate that oppressive structures really do exist.
  6. that discrepancies of outcome or distribution in the real world have a single, dominant explanation: they are the result of oppression from a system of discrimination.

As should be needless to say, these claims were asserted conclusions to arguments that had not been made or evidenced. However, critical theory now allowed itself to apply the mixed ‘toolbox’ approach of using some deconstructive techniques of postmodernism to disrupt and eliminate certain categories, while affirming the manifest reality and significance of others. Scholars of ‘social justice’ now wrote with the conviction that their theories, if taken up outside the walls of academia, could change the world for the better.

Making Theory Fact

The wheels kept turning, until eventually, as the unwitting victim of its own sophisticated techniques, the boundaries of critical theory became so blurred that the distinction between scholarship and activism was either missed as invisible or dismissed as risible. And so it is in the last decade, from around 2010, that the authors locate the final evolution of critical theory. The change is simple: that the claims outlined above have become reified by scholars and activists, no longer to be seen as the working assumption of a critical ‘approach’ to society, but accepted facts of the world in which we all operate. But, unlike most other ‘facts’ of everyday existence, these are truths that cannot be falsified by contrary evidence. This ‘reified postmodernism’, the authors argue, seeks to promote wide-ranging activism on the basis of these ‘known knowns’ – despite the great majority of society having been side-lined in the discovery of, and debate about, these newfound truths. Nevertheless, despite their billing as ‘critical’, these disciplines emerge to be curiously incurious and uncritical about the world as a whole, limited by a myopic obsession with capitalist, western democracies, whose diverse presents are controlled by their uniformly problematic pasts. This, we are told, is the state of play for what Cynical Theories unites under the term ‘Social Justice scholarship’.

The following chapters of the book work through postcolonial theory, queer theory, critical race theory and intersectionality, feminisms and gender studies, disability studies, and fat studies. The authors demonstrate that none of these fields, however apparently novel, marked an entirely fresh start: despite scholars’ repeated and concerted attempts to sever their disciplines from the unquestionably privileged white males who set the ball of ‘Theory’ rolling, the core intellectual line of descent survived uninterrupted. The book rightly make two important caveats to this claim: that by no means every scholar in these fields accepts all these particular postmodern principles; and that these fields (especially intersectionality and disability studies) have made valuable contributions to society which deserve careful consideration, even from those who reject their intellectual foundations.

With such a welter of information spanning so many increasingly diverse and divided subfields, it is difficult not to get lost on points of detail. The value of Cynical Theories for the non-expert comes instead through its isolating, paring down and challenging these core theoretical assumptions, doctrines which demand debate and discussion not uncritical acceptance. For supporters of Don’t Divide Us, two chapters are particularly salient, those treating Postcolonial Theory (Chapter 3) and Critical Race Theory (Chapter 5). The rest of this report will focus on both, outlining the theories (not facts) that motivate the decolonisation movement, unconscious bias training, and several prominent Social Justice campaigns.

Cynical Theories I: Postcolonial Theory

The dominant focus of ‘postcolonial studies’ in western universities has inevitably fallen on those peoples colonised by European nations in the last half-millennium. Rather than ranging far and wide over this vast, and often rich, discipline, the authors turn their focus to two particular problems posed by the field: the challenge to ‘western’ science, and the consequences of absolute cultural relativism.

First, because science and reason have been central to the development of ‘the West’, and because both have been marshalled to support and defend immoral aspects of colonialism in the past, the privileging of science and reason is deemed a specially Western practice. A similar argument points to the fact that science, as practised in western universities, has been dominated by white males: such a predominance informs the conviction that there is something fundamentally suspect in the so-called ‘scientific method’ that such institutions espouse and valourise. However this particular argument proceeds, the conclusion reached is alarming: ‘the East’, framed oppositionally as the ‘non-West’, should not partake equally in these hegemonic knowledge systems. The thought-process of the ‘applied postmodernism mind-set’ is formulated by the authors as follows:

“The west has constructed the idea that rationality and science are good in order to perpetuate its own power and marginalize nonrational, nonscientific forms of knowledge production from elsewhere. Therefore, we must now devalue white, Western ways of knowing for belonging to white Westerners and promote Eastern ones (in order to equalize the power imbalance).”

Postcolonial theory thus risks assigning practices and principles that could be applied universally instead to one particular subset of the world, thereby downplaying or denying their value for those living in different cultures. The authors cite the damning assessment of Vivek Chibber, Professor of Sociology (and Marxist) at NYU:

“the lasting contribution of postcolonial theory – what it will be known for, in my view, if it is remembered fifty years from now – will be its revival of cultural essentialism [i.e. that people of the same culture are homogenous possessors of the same essential qualities] and its acting as an endorsement of orientalism, rather than being an antidote to it.”

To turn to the second issue, ‘cultural relativism’ – one of the recurrent postmodern themes listed above – views knowledge, beliefs and values as the product of the culture in which they emerged. As a consequence, it firmly rejects comparing such ideas and practices with those of other cultures or with any universal standards. The authors give particular focus to a subset of this doctrine – ‘standpoint theory’ – which treats an individual’s knowledge as the creation of their ‘lived experience’, and their ‘positionality’ in society. Each knower’s perspective is therefore epistemologically authoritative. Why? What of expertise and learning? That only compounds the problem, for whose knowledge do you know? As many postcolonial theorists will remind you, no knowledge of any kind can be produced ‘value free’. Nothing can be known without some subjective, personal baggage.

This is bad news for those people – whether scientists, mathematicians, academics or general citizens – who subscribe to the standard ‘correspondence theory of truth’: something becomes ‘true’ when it is shown to correspond with the facts of the real world. For cultural relativists, the ‘coherence theory of truth’ instead holds sway: something is true if it corresponds to a given set of beliefs, beliefs which may be held uniquely by a specific group, or even an individual. In such a scenario, ‘objective knowledge’ is a naive illusion, since myriad knowledges coexist in parallel: I may have ‘my’ truth, and you ‘yours’, even if they are mutually exclusive on logical grounds, or demonstrably untrue when scrutinised against external evidence.

Despite this focus on personal beliefs, postcolonial theory privileges group identities over individual members of them. Since those who share one or more identities are assumed to have the same experiences of oppression (or dominance), they should have a collectively shared interpretation of their world. Essentialising the group as a uniform community leads to the conclusion that they share a unique voice. This presents both practical and intellectual problems: How to handle disagreement within an identity group? Must some voices be labelled more ‘authentic’ than others? As several members of the Don’t Divide Us group have found in Britain, those who disagree with the asserted ‘voice’ of their identity group risk being lambasted for having unwittingly internalised ‘dominant discourses’, or for having cynically supported such discourses for their own personal benefit. Cynical Theories argues that this response is not only illiberal, but racist.

These arguments reveal some of the difficulties for the ‘decolonisation’ movements that loom large: if they require not only the introduction of other ‘knowledges’ alongside those hitherto privileged in the West, but also the devaluing of such ‘western’ knowledge and scholarship, this artificial opposition denies the possibility of any collective scholarly evolution. Worse still, it directs scholars onto certain intellectual paths on the basis of their supposed ethnic or racial allegiances. The authors of Cynical Theories conclude instead that it is not racist, sexist or imperialistic to have particular confidence in the scientific method. Science is not infallible, but its self-correcting scepticism allows it to progress on ever surer and steadier feet: its ability to be wrong does not mean it is to be dismissed as just one of many fallible practices of humankind.

Cynical Theories II: Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory evolved from critical legal studies in 1960s America but has only achieved widespread influence outside academia in the last decade. The theory is commendably committed to ridding the world of racism. But, as the authors state, it seeks to achieve this goal ‘through the unlikely means of making everyone aware of race at all times and places.’ Its crucial tenet, that racism is the inevitable default in any multi-racial interaction, replaces the important question ‘Did racism take place?’ with the question-begging alternative: ‘How did racism manifest in that situation?’ All well-meaning people baffled by this apparent proliferation of racism in our society have failed to apprehend the new doctrinally-imposed definition of that term: racism is not just discrimination or prejudice against others on the grounds of race, but can describe any social system in which racially disparate outcomes exist. (James Lindsay has since written about this particular vein of lexicographical activism.)

The book moves to analyse another central assumption of critical race theory, ‘white privilege’: this controversial doctrine mandates that all people whose skin is adjudged not non-white have some real, guilt-inducing privilege because of the general absence of racially discriminatory experiences. The grim spectre of ‘white supremacy’ that infiltrates all corners of western society can be acknowledged but not exorcised. If a white person fails to accept these declarations, and is either perplexed or upset by the ineluctable charge of ‘complicity in racism’, they only reveal their ‘white fragility’. Those seeking evidence to understand the scale of the problem alleged will find themselves frustrated. Criminal charges, whose particulars can be examined on their own terms, are of course one thing. But the authors instead explore how critical race theory explains non-criminal interactions – how an individual’s experience of an event as ‘racist’ serves as sufficient evidential authenticity for the ‘(micro-)aggression’, irrespective of the intentions, actions and beliefs of the supposed aggressor: what the theory recognises to be a subjective (and necessarily one-sided) reading of the situation is nevertheless generalised as a reliable symptom of racially-motivated oppression. Western society, and the institutions and practices that pervade it, can be adjudged to be ‘systemically’ racist, since disporportionate outcomes or experiences by race are proof of the totalising flaw.

Throughout this chapter, and through the book as a whole, the authors take a committed stand against identity politics, dismissing it as both untrue and insulting that a given identitarian category can be reduced to a monolithic and uniform group, whose status is to be privileged above both the individual and the universal. They see the world differently: given the psychological evidence for ingroup favouritism, they argue that encouraging humans to extend their empathy to the human race as a whole, rather than to an (often arbitrarily defined) identity group, is likely to be a better course for societal progress. Cynical Theories thus makes an impassioned case for aiming towards a post-racial, colour-blind, universalist outlook, a central principle of liberalism. The authors refuse to rekindle the social taboo of evaluating others by their skin colour, rather than their individual words and deeds. They reject the new Theory-driven definition of racism and instead advise more proactive, constructive and morally defensible ways to confront racism and improve society (see the close of this report).

(Cynical Theories was completed before the intensification of the Black Lives Matter movement this summer. Although this campaign therefore goes unmentioned in the book, it is safe to assume the authors would contend that the same theoretical commitments underpin its ideology: just as the decolonisation movement in schools and universities is informed by postcolonial theory, so too is the Black Lives Matter movement informed by critical race theory.)

An Illiberal Present

The foregoing report is a necessarily brief survey of these chapters, which are themselves necessarily brief digests of complex and divided disciplines. But they are representative of the book’s broader concerns. The authors argue that the present state of Theory, especially in its activist form, is at root illiberal and unreasoned. However well-meaning its intentions have been, in its most cynical guise it is not just deconstructive but destructive. Although the book’s characterisation of ‘Social Justice’ scholars as quasi-religious does not fairly describe all of its devotees, it provides ample evidence for their authoritarian commandments of orthodoxy and dogma. Couched in such terms, ‘The Truth According to Social Justice’ does not brook dissent, however rational, empirical and benevolent. Its promulgators obsessively patrol the precise language used by others, picking apart words and phrases instead of engaging with the arguments and thoughts behind them. Censorship of this sort brings many perils, and invariably hinders societal progress. In fact, such intolerance of dissenting opinions we usually call bigotry, and such strong-arming of others to think or act differently despite their own principled beliefs we usually call bullying. To demonstrate the real difficulties of pursuing debate in 2020, the book details how three contemporary critical race theorists recommend reframing disagreements as ‘privilege-preserving epistemic pushback’, and advise the dismissal of counter-arguments that are unproductive to the cause (pp.199-207).

The research behind Cynical Theories is substantial – evidently exhausting, if not exhaustive. Despite ploughing through some 250 articles and books of very variable quality, the authors resist the temptation to descend into mockery. This will surprise some, since the writers are best known to the public for their involvement in the ‘Grievance Studies Affair’, in which twenty bogus academic papers – which used sloppy scholarship and junk science to breed social-justice chimeras – were submitted to academic social science journals. By the time the hoax was revealed, seven had been accepted for publication, and seven were actively under review. To some observers, this was a cynical, politically-motivated betrayal of hard-won academic trust; to others, it exposed real problems in the methodology and practice of activism-driven social sciences. It is to the credit of Cynical Theories that its contentions, however damning and depressing, cannot be dismissed without on-the-table engagement.

A Liberal Future?

Despite their deep convictions about the failures of postmodernism’s theoretical descendants, the authors maintain a profound respect for education, for scholarship and for the university sector. They reject direct pressure or guidance from the state. They rightly assert that it is only from within that universities can regulate and scrutinise these disciplines, ensuring that they serve as a trustworthy, non-partisan space for conflict resolution. Academics must show how reasoned discourse can be conducted and defended, thus inspiring wider society to talk across its rapidly-widening divides once more. Disagreement about the theoretical is always legitimate when it is honest and principled: it should not be met with dismissal, slander or calls for cancellation, but frank and robust discussion.

Yet here we are: since our society now faces a dearth of open debate, both within academia and without, this book deserves careful reading, even by those who suspect its motives. It will, of course, be said that the authors have approached this book with an agenda, and that is right: it is to reveal to the non-expert the fundamental assumptions of critical theory, and those activist movements that have sprung from it, and to encourage those who believe that these theories do more bad than good for the world to step forward and make their counter-arguments with confidence. Experts in individual fields will rightly be able to point to oversimplifications, to partial misrepresentations, and to the unfortunate exclusion of more nuanced and balanced theorists within these fields. But these criticisms, even when taken together, would not undermine the general arguments that run through the work, or dampen the authors’ enthusiasm for debating what are and remain theories about the world in which we live.

The book’s final chapter, ‘Liberalism without identity politics’, sets out the authors’ alternative vision for academia, where liberalism, science and scholarship proceed by self-correcting scepticism and reasoned argumentation. They demand an environment that distinguishes between scientific knowledge and belief, between the experiential and the evidential; an environment that regards both freedom of speech and freedom of belief as sacrosanct but blocks their imposition as ‘knowledge’ upon others without any verifiable evidential basis. Their closing recommendation is thus always to ‘listen and consider’ to those whose worldviews differ, but to remember that there is no compulsion to ‘listen and believe’.

Given its character, the book is a sobering and disheartening read. Many will be frustrated to realise that such complex theories, which have so much to say about identity, say so little about two of humanity’s most potent discriminators and inhibitors: socieconomic status and social class. That said, although so much of the book is critical (in every sense), it is refreshing that the closing pages leave some space for the positive. The authors end by setting out their own principles for countering racial and sexual discrimination and for solving social injustice (pp.265-9). Pluckrose and Lindsay make the following case that so-called ‘Anti-racism’ activism is not the sole, or indeed the most effective way, to stand against racism, especially not for those privileged to live in one of the world’s most socially progressive nations:

We affirm that racism remains a problem in society and needs to be addressed.

We deny that critical race Theory and intersectionality provide the most useful tools to do so, since we believe that racial issues are best solved through the most rigorous analyses possible.

We contend that racism is defined as prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behavior against individuals or groups on the grounds of race and can be successfully addressed as such.

We deny that racism is hard-baked into society via discourses, that it is unavoidable and present in every interaction to be discovered and called out, and that this is part of a ubiquitous systemic problem that is everywhere, always, and all-pervasive.

We deny that the best way to deal with racism is by restoring social significance to racial categories and radically heightening their salience.

We contend that each individual can choose not to hold racist views and should be expected to do so, that racism is declining over time and becoming rare, that we can and should see one another as humans first and members of certain races second, that issues of race are best dealt with by being honest about racialized experiences, while still working towards shared goals and a common vision, and that the principle of not discriminating by race should be universally upheld.

Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity — and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay, Swift, 352pp, £20

Report by David Butterfield, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Cambridge.

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FAQs: What is Implicit Bias and Why Do I Need to Know About It?

Introduction

The concept of implicit bias, which in current public discussion means white bias, is at the heart of almost all anti-racist initiatives that institutions including the British Museum, businesses, universities and schools, as well as some trade unions. The concept shifts the burden of proof of the existence of racism from social systems of standards and procedures to individual psychology. And this is one reason why people might find it hard to question: deep down we all know we have our own biases even if we don’t always admit it.

But: having a bias does not mean we act on that bias.

If you watched the (in)famous Channel 4 Documentary, The School that Tried to End Racism, you will have seen that there is a supposedly scientific test called the Harvard Implicit Bias Test that is supposed to prove the link between unconscious biases against black people and real-life racism, even if people are consciously anti-racist or believe in equality among different ethnicities.

But: if a racist society exists before any individual is born, how can individual biases be responsible for something that was there before birth? If bias is something mysteriously inherited across generations, then how is it that Britain no longer takes part in chattel slavery? And how come, today unlike the past, Britain’s citizens, across the classes, now includes black people? The premise is illogical.

The Harvard Implicit Bias test sounds like it must be truthful – after all, Harvard is one of the top universities in the world. But it is seriously flawed.

FAQ 1. What is the implicit bias test?

The race implicit bias test is part of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), first introduced by psychologists Anthony Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek in 1998, and gave rise to the implicit bias model. Unconscious Bias Training (UBT), Implicit Bias Training, Anti-Bias Training and Anti-Racism Training are all built on the implicit bias model. i

The model argues that high levels of implicit bias, as apparently measured by the IAT, explain the persistence of racial disparities in a society where explicitly racist attitudes and behaviors have declined.ii

This is how it works:

The IAT takes place on a computer across the following four rounds:

1. To begin with, participants are asked to hit ‘I’ on the keyboard when a positive word shows on screen and ‘E’ when a negative word shows.

2. Next, participants are prompted to hit ‘I’ when they see a black African face and ‘E’ when they see a white European face.

3. In the third-round participants must press ‘I’ for a good word or a black face and ‘E’ for a bad word or a white face.

4. In the last round, this is reversed so that participants press ‘I’ for a bad word or a black face and ‘E’ for a good word or a white face.iii

. The IAT calculates your reaction speed when associating concepts (positive or negative words) and attributes (black or white faces).iv In other words, the race IAT is measuring how fast or slow you are to associate positive or negative words with different racial groups.

. The IAT feeds reaction times into an algorithm that categorises participant’s as having either a ‘slight,’ ‘moderate’ or ‘strong’ preference for white faces over black or vice versa. So, a ‘strong preference’ for white faces would be regarded as evidence of high levels of implicit anti-black bias. The test can also show no preference.v

FAQ 2. What’s wrong with the IAT?

The table below shows that the later work on IATs showed important weaknesses

First Generation IAT Claim Second Generation IAT Research Finding
. The IAT is a valid, reliable, objective psychological test measuring unconscious, implicit beliefs. . The IAT It falls below the common standards expected of a psychological test because it measures the speed of reaction which is not the same as measuring a social concept like racism vi

. There is no consensus on whether the IAT measures something that can accurately be defined as unconscious.vii Also the speed of some people’s reactions may be because they are aware of negative stereotypes (the test does not measure attitudes to stereotypes). It could also measure implicit prejudice, but this is only one of several other plausible interpretations.

. The IAT can predict an individual’s likelihood to be explicitly racially prejudiced. . The IAT cannot be used to predict individual behaviour and IAT scores do not correlate with likelihood to engage in explicit racial discrimination.viii
. Reducing implicit bias as measured by the IAT reduces instances of explicit racial discrimination. . Reducing implicit bias has no impact on explicit behaviour.ix

So: the test is not scientifically reliable and is not a good reason for implementing unconscious bias training.

FAQ 3. What is Unconscious Bias (UBT) Training?

UBT relying on the implicit bias model has become common place in many organisations and spawned a profitable industry claiming to be able to reduce levels of implicit bias and improve workplace diversity. However, this claim, like the implicit bias model itself, is deeply questionable. It is therefore unlikely that UBT has much impact on the issues of workplace diversity or discrimination. A 2018 study concludes:

‘[a]n individual who supposedly shows high implicit bias…is no more likely to discriminate in any given situation than an individual who supposedly shows low implicit bias.’x

Rates of implicit bias, as measured by the IAT, are no more accurate in determining someone’s views on race than explicit self-report measures, where people are asked to rank their agreement with statements like ‘Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights.’xi In line with this finding, people who sit the race IAT are often able to predict their score in advance, meaning they show conscious awareness of a bias the test claims to be unconscious.xii

So: UBT is a waste of employers’ money and employees time and effort.

FAQ 4. But isn’t it better than doing nothing?

Focusing on implicit bias as UBT advocates may distract from practical steps employers can take to combat prejudice, such as enabling anonymous application and promotion proceduresxiii. Studies have shown that implicit bias can be marginally reduced over the short term, but this does not result in reductions in real world discriminatory behaviour and may simply reflect the fact that people can manipulate their IAT score with practice.xiv This undermines the core claim of UBT, that targeting implicit bias is an effective way to reduce racial discrimination.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that UBT may prime participants to see themselves in divisive racialized terms, have counterproductive impacts on teamwork and communication and increase the likelihood that participants will assign blame to colleagues on the basis of race. In studies, minority participants who complete a race IAT prior to performing a team task with white colleague’s report feeling less valued than minority participants who have not taken an IATxv. Researchers have observed that mandatory anti-prejudice training like UBT can actually increase endorsement of racial stereotypes and generate resentment in the workplacexvi. This correlates with the finding that Anti-Racism Training results in participants making negative assessments of their white colleagues on the basis that they ‘have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege,’ and makes them more likely to reject external factors, like poverty, as legitimate explanations of a lack of attainment by white individualsxvii. It is possible that the artificial awareness of implicit prejudice cultivated by UBT in some sense creates and entrenches the racial bias it claims to combat.

For example, a public narrative that promotes the idea of black people as victims of police brutality solely because of their skin colour, is likely to provoke a counter narrative of black people being perpetrators of crime for the same reason. Both are stereotypes – which ignore the fact that in Britain, most black people are neither – just like most white people.

We have more in common in social life, despite differentials that show structural inequalities!

FAQ 5. Can my employer force me to do Unconscious Bias Training?

The answer to this question will vary according to the sector you work in and the attitudes of your employer.

Here are some points to consider.

. Check your contract: UBT is sometimes voluntary, in which case you are not contractually obliged to participate and should not be penalised for choosing not to do so. If you are concerned about being labelled racist for failing to participate in voluntary UBT there are sources of support available (see endnote 18)

Most employment contracts list the mandatory training that your employer expects you to do. Sometimes, this is essential to the nature of your job. For example, if you are a health and safety inspector your contract is likely to specify that you must undergo training in any new health and safety procedures. If you refused to participate in this training you would not be able to do your job safely and your employer would have legitimate grounds to dismiss you.

Some employers now include UBT in employees’ contractual commitments. While providers of UBT naturally argue that it is essential in all workplaces, UBT is more likely to be contractually mandated if you are employed in a sector like social work or healthcare. Clients in disciplines like these are seen as particularly vulnerable to the effects of social discrimination. As we have seen, it is not straightforwardly true that implicit bias operates in the way that UBT implies. Nonetheless, employers often embrace the common misconceptions around IAT and UBT. If UBT is mandated in your contract and you have a principled objection to its imposition, here are some things you can do.

. Assess Your Workplace culture: How strictly enforced mandatory UBT is in your workplace depends very much on your employer. In some organisations there may be little serious monitoring of who does and does not attend training. You will be best placed to assess this in the context of your own workplace, so you can decide whether it is possible for you to quietly absent yourself from UBT without publicly questioning its imposition in your organisation.

However, where possible, we encourage you to take an open and proactive approach to objecting to UBT. Stating your case in a principled and comprehensive way will help to correct common misconceptions about UBT and may encourage employers to invest in more effective approaches to the important issues of racial inequality and discrimination.

. Check if the proposed UBT is compatible with the Equality Act 2010: Under the Equality Act it is illegal to discriminate against someone at work on the basis of a protected characteristic. You can read more about the Equality Act here. Official guidance advises employers to provide ‘equality training’ to ensure that employees understand the law regarding discrimination. UBT is frequently marketed to employers as a way to meet their duties under the Equality Act. However, UBT rarely meets the official criteria for equality training.

Equality training should explain the law under the Equality Act, including the twelve protected characteristics, specify what constitutes discriminatory behaviour and outline why it is detrimental to the workplace. In other words, equality training should focus on explicit discrimination and why it is unacceptable under the law.

UBT rarely outlines the law contained in the Equality Act and as explained in this document, focuses almost entirely on discrimination described as implicit or unconscious. Official guidance on equality training does not specify that employees must accept the implicit bias paradigm or affirm the belief that racial discrimination is caused principally by unconscious prejudice perpetuated regardless of personal intent. As stated earlier, these are ideological beliefs that people are entitled to subscribe to but they are not mandated in law.

Cultivating adherence to ideologically contested and methodologically suspect beliefs about the causes of racial inequality is not a responsibility of employers under the Equality Act. In fact, as outlined earlier, UBT may actually detract from practical measures that have proven effective in addressing the kind of discrimination the Equality Act aims to prevent.

FAQ 6. How do I approach my employer if I have a principled objection to IAT or UBT at my job?

There is presently a lot of pressure to subscribe to the ideological world view presented by IAT and UBT. This is at least in part due to the influence of critical social justice (CSJ) activism, which heavily advocates for the position that implicit bias and unconscious prejudice are major drivers of modern inequality. Its proponents condemn as bigoted any approaches that don’t align with their own, creating a culture where people are fearful of voicing dissent. Poorly evidenced approaches like UBT thrive under these circumstances, not because they are accurate or effective, but because they demonstrate ideological conformity to the CSJ worldview.

It is not bigoted to have a principled disagreement with the ideas of CSJ. Nonetheless, standing up for your beliefs can be worrying in this climate. This section will outline a process you can follow to address these issues with your employer as safely and effectively as possible.

Step One: Join the Free Speech Union

Hopefully, your employer will be open to hearing alternative views about the IAT and UBT. However, it is always best to insure against negative outcomes by taking precautions.

We highly recommend that you join the Free Speech Union (FSU) before raising these issues with your employer. The FSU supports people in their right to freedom of expression and belief. They offer advice and advocacy for people who are taking a stand and may take up your case if you face penalties for speaking out. Sign up before you do anything else!

Step Two: Equality Training, Unconscious Bias Training or Anti-racism Training? Doing your homework

As there is considerable variation in the ideological emphasis of different UBT providers, it’s important to determine precisely what kind of training your organisation is planning before raising it with your employer.

You may be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps your employer is providing non-ideological equality training to explain the legal terms of the Equality Act. The UBT program that your company has selected may avoid the worst assumptions of the implicit bias paradigm and simply encourage employees to communicate respectfully across difference. In the best-case scenario, a training might even emphasise viewpoint diversity, advising participants to transcend narrow identity categories based on immutable characteristics by working to achieve common goals. You might not feel the need to object to this kind of training.

On the other hand, if you find that your employer is introducing politicised Anti-Racism Training or a version of UBT based on questionable science, then taking a well-informed stance will demonstrate to your employer that you come from a place of knowledge and empower you to speak confidently. This FAQ and the readings are a good starting point.

Step Three: Be confident in your principled disagreement

People have different reasons for objecting to ideologically motivated UBT at work and many of them write to us about their experiences. These people are united in their opposition to bigotry of all kinds. They simply disagree with the way the implicit bias framework understands and addresses the problem of discrimination. Some of them believe UBT is actively harmful to the goal of racial equality and feel a strong moral responsibility to speak out against it on that basis.

Whatever your reason for speaking up, take the time to be confident in your beliefs and motivations before proceeding. Write out a statement of your principles. Discuss your values with friends and family. Build confidence in expressing your beliefs and develop a calm, clear, diplomatic approach. You can find an article here that might help you get your thoughts together.

Step Four: Assessing institutional support

The culture of ideological conformity and stifling of dissent already described leave many employees with a principled objection to UBT feeling isolated and disempowered. They fear being labelled racist and the damage this could cause to their professional reputation. Many describe their personal anxiety about the prospect of being condemned by colleagues they regard as friends.

However, people who speak out are sometimes pleasantly surprised. Despite the impression cultivated by CSJ activists, the beliefs embodied in the implicit bias model and UBT influenced by CRT are not commonly accepted. Most people favour an approach to racial discrimination that holds people accountable for their actions and doesn’t make excuses for racist behaviour on the basis of unconscious prejudices beyond the realm of the individual’s control. Many employees treat UBT as a tick box exercise, something they do to keep management happy without necessarily endorsing the ideology it is built on. Employees like this may be grateful if someone is brave enough to make a principled objection to UBT. One employee likened the experience to nervously ‘coming out’ as a Brexit supporter at a work lunch, only to find that several colleagues shared her views.

Before raising your concerns with your employer, assess the institutional support for your position. You could begin very informally by considering which of your colleagues might be sympathetic to your views and arranging to catch up with them over coffee. If they agree with your stance and are prepared to back your objection it will add weight to your case.

If this is not an option, you might try soliciting anonymous feedback. In a number of workplaces where employees have been anonymously asked for their views on the introduction of ideological measures like UBT, people have been much more willing to criticise the approach. Before approaching your employer, you could create a new email address and send an anonymous message to your colleagues canvassing their views. In this way you might identify supporters who would have been reluctant to come forward openly.

Step Five: Putting your concerns in writing

When you are ready to raise your principled objection to UBT with your employer, put your concerns in writing. The template letters on the DDU website might be helpful as a starting point.

Based on the experiences of people who have successfully pushed back against CSJ issues at work, Helen Pluckrose and James Lyndsay have written this guide. It is a gold standard for communicating about contentious issues like the IAT and UBT. While we highly recommend reading the guide in depth, some of the points are summarised here.

. Start with the principle of charity: The principle of charity suggests that, in the absence of evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, we interpret the actions of others in the most charitable way possible. Unless you know otherwise, approach your employer on the basis that they are not aware of the controversial ideological and dubious scientific roots of IAT and UBT. If you know that your employer endorses the belief system around UBT, then it will be even more important to demonstrate your knowledge of the ideology and concepts it is founded on.

. Affirm a shared commitment to equality: Open your letter by affirming your commitment to equality and acknowledging the importance of addressing racial discrimination in the context of your company. Emphasise that important issues like discrimination should be addressed in serious and respectful ways, employing the most rigorous tools at our disposal. Caution against introducing hasty, fashionable policies in reaction to current events and highlight that truly meaningful interventions are made on the basis of careful consideration.

You might use statements like this, which encourage your employer to think more deeply about whether UBT is the most effective way to foster diversity and equality:

‘How will [company name] measure the existing level of unconscious bias in the workforce so that the efficacy of the training can be established? I am confident we share the goal of addressing issues as serious as racial discrimination in the most rigorous ways possible. Employing rigorous measures demonstrates our intention to take these matters seriously and signifies to the workforce that [company name] is not taking purely symbolic action.’

. Demonstrate knowledge: Be clear about what action you want your employer to take, for example making UBT voluntary rather than mandatory. While your letter cannot include all the information referenced here, choose three key points to make about IAT and UBT and evidence them thoroughly.

Wherever possible, phrase your objections to UBT as questions that prompt your employer to look more deeply at the proposed training. For example:

. ‘The first wave of research on implicit bias suggested it was possible to measure and reduce an individual’s level of unconscious prejudice. Naturally, UBT was enthusiastically embraced as a means of achieving the worthy goal of racial equality. Is [company name] aware that subsequent research has largely disproved this central claim of the implicit bias paradigm? Even the creators of the implicit bias model now recognise that it cannot be used to assess individual levels of racial prejudice and have publicly disowned the utility of UBT.’

. Suggest alternatives: Remember, your employer may mistakenly think they are meeting their legal duties under the Equality Act by providing UBT. It will be useful to offer alternative approaches (see endnote 18).

. Commit to engaging in a process: Conclude your letter by reaffirming your commitment to addressing discrimination in the workplace and make an open invitation to further dialogue. If you are able to, you could volunteer to play a role in addressing equality issues in your company in future.

Step Six: Next Steps

. Worst case scenario: If your employer disciplines or fires you for raising a principled objection to UBT you should contact the FSU immediately, as described here. You may wish to speak to your union representative and seek legal advice. You can contact us with details of your experience and find information on other groups who may be able to provide advice and support. If you experience financial difficulties due to problems with your employment you can read more about benefits you may be entitled to here.

. Best case scenario: If your employer accepts your critiques of UBT and decides against it, then congratulations! We would be grateful to hear about your experience so that we can develop more effective tools of support.

. Being part of the ongoing process: It’s possible that your employer will want to engage in further dialogue about UBT and explore the evidence more thoroughly. If they decide they are committed to the proposed UBT then you will need to think carefully about how you wish to proceed.

You might consider asking your employer to solicit anonymous feedback from the workforce before implementing a controversial training. This sometimes demonstrates that a surprising number of employees are not in agreement with ideologically based UBT. Employers can solicit employee feedback simply by installing a suggestions box and asking people to anonymously comment on a proposed training. But there are also sophisticated digital feedback mechanisms marketed by companies who emphasise the potential profitability of running a business informed by the diverse views of employees. Suggesting a company such as this may highlight to your employer that enabling free speech in the workplace is a sound investment, in addition to being an ethical good.

Carrie Clark and Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert

Endnotes

i . Church (forthcoming), p.18: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

ii. Banaji and Greenwald 2013, p.209: ‘Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.’ Cited in Lilienfeld and Waldman 2017: ‘Psychological Science Under Scrutiny: Recent Challenges and Proposed Solutions.’ Available here.

iii

 . Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

iv . Church forthcoming, p.18: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

v . Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

vi. Jussim et al. 2019, p48-49: ‘IAT Scores, Racial Gaps and Scientific Gaps.’ Article available here. Chapter prepared for Krosnick et al. (forthcoming): ‘The Future of Research on Implicit Bias.’

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

vii. Mitchell 2018: ‘An Implicit Bias Primer.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming), p.22: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here

viii. Church (forthcoming), p.25-27: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

. van Ravenzwaajj 2011: ‘Does the name-race Implicit Association Test measure racial prejudice?’ Article available here.

ix. Blanton and Jaccard 2008: ‘Unconscious Racism: A Concept in Pursuit of a Measure.’ Article available here. Cited in Church (forthcoming), p.22: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Mitchell 2018: ‘An Implicit Bias Primer.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming), p.25, 27-28: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

x. Mitchell 2018: ‘An Implicit Bias Primer.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming), p.30: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

xi. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Jussim et al. 2019, p.15: ‘IAT Scores, Racial Gaps and Scientific Gaps.’ Article available here. Chapter prepared for Krosnick et al. (forthcoming): ‘The Future of Research on Implicit Bias.’

. Oswald et al. 2017: ‘Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: a meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies.’ Article available here. Cited in Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

. Sleek 2018: ‘The Bias Beneath: Two Decades of Measuring Implicit Associations.’ Article available here.

xii. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Mitchell 2018: ‘An Implicit Bias Primer.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming), p.22: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

xiii. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Mason 2020: ‘Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work.’ Article available here.

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

xiv. Church (forthcoming), p.28-29: ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Dobbin and Kalev 2016: ‘Why Diversity Programs Fail.’ Article available here.

. Forscher et al. 2019: ‘A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures.’ Article available here.

. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Jussim et al. 2019, p.5: ‘IAT Scores, Racial Gaps and Scientific Gaps.’ Article available here. Chapter prepared for Krosnick et al. (forthcoming): ‘The Future of Research on Implicit Bias.’

xv. Vorauer 2012: ‘Completing the implicit association test reduces positive intergroup interaction behaviour.’ Article available here. . Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

xvi. Dobbin and Kalev 2016: ‘Why Diversity Programs Fail.’ Article available here.

. Rock 2017: ‘Is Your Company’s Diversity Training Making You More Biased?’ Article available here.

. Gillespie 2020. ‘Diversity Training Isn’t Just Expensive, It’s Counterproductive.’ Article available here.

xvii. Cooley et al. 2019. ‘Complex intersections of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.’ Article available here.

18 Alternatives to Unconscious Bias Training:

. CPD Equality and Diversity Course: Basic training on the terms of the Equality Act.

. Open Mind Platform: ‘OpenMind is a free, interactive, psychology-based platform designed to foster intellectual humility, empathy, and mutual understanding across a variety of differences. OpenMind equips people with the essential cognitive skills and shared language to overcome their differences and work together to solve their collective problems. The OpenMind Platform provides a set of tools which universities, organizations, and corporations can use to depolarize their communities.’

. The Theory of Enchantment: Chloe Valdary offers diversity training that aims to foster ‘The Beloved Community’ as imagined by Martin Luther King. Some of her Theory of Enchantment modules are available for free.

. New Discourses Consulting Services: James Lyndsay has extensive experience in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion and provides consulting services to businesses.

Sources

. Banaji and Greenwald 2013: ‘Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.’ Cited in Lilienfeld and Waldman 2017: ‘Psychological Science Under Scrutiny: Recent Challenges and Proposed Solutions.’ Available here.

. Blanton and Jaccard 2008: ‘Unconscious Racism: A Concept in Pursuit of a Measure.’ Article available here.

. Bluemke and Fiedler 2009: ‘Base rate effects on the IAT.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming).

. Church (forthcoming): ‘Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.’

. Cooley et al. 2019. ‘Complex intersections of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.’ Article available here.

. Dobbin and Kalev 2016: ‘Why Diversity Programs Fail.’ Article available here.

. Forscher et al. 2019: ‘A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures.’ Article available here.

. Gillespie 2020. ‘Diversity Training Isn’t Just Expensive, It’s Counterproductive.’ Article available here.

. Goldhill 2017: ‘The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism.’ Article available here.

. Jussim et al. 2019: ‘IAT Scores, Racial Gaps and Scientific Gaps.’ Article available here.

. Mason 2020: ‘Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work.’ Article available here.

. Mitchell 2018: ‘An Implicit Bias Primer.’ Cited in Church (forthcoming).

. Oswald et al. 2017: ‘Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: a meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies.’ Article available here.

. Rock 2017: ‘Is Your Company’s Diversity Training Making You More Biased?’ Article available here.

. Singal 2017: ‘Psychology’s Favourite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job.’ Article available here.

. Singal 2018: ‘Psychology’s favourite tool for measuring implicit bias is still mired in controversy.’ Article available here.

. Sleek 2018: ‘The Bias Beneath: Two Decades of Measuring Implicit Associations.’ Article available here.

. Uhlmann et al. 2004: ‘Are members of low status groups perceived as bad, or badly off? Egalitarian negative associations and automatic prejudice.’ Article available here.

. van Ravenwaajj 2011: ‘Does the name-race Implicit Association Test measure racial prejudice?’ Article available here.

. Vara 2015: ‘Inside Pinterest’s Plans to Fix Its Diversity Problem.’ Article available here.

. Vorauer 2012: ‘Completing the implicit association test reduces positive intergroup interaction behaviour.’ Article available here.

. Yurieff 2017: ‘Google struggles to increase workforce diversity.’ Article available here.

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Critical Race Theory: helpful or harmful?

“What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves but the way in which we think about them”.

Epictetus

Imagine, while out walking, you see a friend across the road. You wave but she doesn’t wave back. She passes by, ignoring you completely. What would go through your mind? “What have I done to offend her?” “How dare she ignore me!” What would you feel? Angry, sad? What would you do? Dwell on what happened until you felt thoroughly miserable, or call your friend to find out what was wrong? Suppose you discovered she had just been diagnosed with a serious illness. How would you feel then? Would it change your view of what had happened?

This scenario introduces people to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. It demonstrates how the same event can be interpreted in different ways and encourages people to consider how best to respond, rather than jump to the wrong conclusions or react purely on the basis of their feelings.

But what happens if someone is encouraged to do the opposite? Suppose, for example, they are taught to look for evidence of racism everywhere and to interpret all encounters as potential ‘microaggressions’? Over time, through a process of confirmation bias, they will indeed learn to ‘see’ racism everywhere, becoming increasingly angry and resentful, viewing themselves as a victim, others as prejudiced and the world as hostile. Their belief that racism is everywhere becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Critical Race Theory encourages people to adopt this way of thinking. It underpins books such as White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. However, Gregg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt refer to these negative thinking styles as ‘reverse cognitive behaviour therapy’, pointing out that they are associated with depression and anxiety.

Aaron Beck, one of the founders of CBT, describes them as ‘cognitive distortions’ which lead people to perceive reality in a biased and inaccurate way.

Here are some examples of the cognitive distortions that can be found in Critical Race Theory:

Emotional Reasoning and Catastrophising

“You’ve made me feel bad, so you are a racist”

“I am traumatised by your words”

Critical Race Theory rejects the idea of objective reality and teaches that only subjective experience can be trusted to tell the ‘truth’. Yet, as we saw from the ‘walking down the street’ example, you cannot always trust your feelings to tell you what is actually happening.

Believing you will be ‘traumatised’ by words is an example of catastrophising’ – overestimating the likelihood that something awful will happen and underestimating your ability to cope. Rather than get caught in a spiral of threat-detection and catastrophising, CBT encourages you to pause and ask whether you’re over-reacting. Did your friend really mean to hurt you with their words? Can you give them the benefit of the doubt on this occasion? Learn how to cope with your feelings and develop resilience rather than allowing yourself to feel overwhelmed.

All or Nothing Thinking and Labelling/Blaming

“I am a victim and you oppress me”

“You are a white supremacist”

‘All or Nothing’ thinking cultivates a ‘them-and-us’ view of the world that fosters division. Being labelled a ‘white supremacist’ and blamed for something, simply on the basis of your skin colour, leads to anger and resentment or shame and guilt. People from ethnic minorities who disagree with anti-racist ideas promoted by Critical Race Theory, are cruelly labelled ‘coconuts’ or other derogatory names.

CBT suggests that you learn to take a wider overview of what is happening around you. Look for the ‘shades of grey’, and alternative perspectives. Flexibility of thought is an important skill to develop as it helps human beings adapt. Rather than lash out at others, consider how it would feel if you or someone you loved was unfairly labelled or blamed.

Overgeneralisation and Discounting Positives

“All white people are racists”

“The UK is a racist country”

These statements make the assumption that millions of people hold exactly the same opinions and prejudices, based on the colour of their skin. This is quite an assumption to make without any evidence to support it. Human beings are complex. Does it make sense to assume people hold certain views simply on the basis of their skin colour? Is it right that your ethnicity or skin colour determine what you think?

Don’t discount the positives. Look for objective evidence of progress made in society to overcome racism. What do British Attitude Surveys indicate about racial prejudice? Is it growing or declining?

Critical Race Theory does not provide the best tools to tackle racism. Blaming others, rather than taking responsibility for your actions, leads to a culture of victimhood and division. Always trusting your feelings to tell you what is ‘true’ produces mental health problems. But, if you can develop a resilient attitude towards the world, rather than constantly looking for evidence of hostility and prejudice, you will do well. If you can be charitable and forgiving rather than accusatory and angry, social cohesion will follow. If you are flexible in your thinking and open to alternative perspectives, you will flourish.

In the words of Paul Gilbert, “Be helpful not harmful”.

Dr Carole Sherwood, Psychologist

Further Reading:

‘The Coddling of the American Mind‘, Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
‘Cynical Theories‘, Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay
‘The Compassionate Mind‘, Paul Gilbert

Download article as PDF

Critical_Race_Theory_Helpful_Or_Harmful-Carole_SherwoodDownload

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.

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Model Letter for Academics

Dear fellow academics

In the wake of the horrifying and brutal killing of George Floyd, many in the UK expressed heartfelt solidarity; widespread protests showed a genuine commitment to opposing racism. Since then, however, activists, corporations and institutions seem to have seized the opportunity to exploit Floyd’s death to promote an ideological agenda that threatens to undermine British race relations.

Since the brutal killing of George Floyd, the issue of racism has come to the centre of public attention in the UK. Understandably, many universities have a well-intentioned desire to use this moment to challenge racism through course syllabuses as well as personal and administrative training programmes.

However, we wish to raise concerns about the tendency in some Higher Education institutions to adopt seemingly far-reaching changes to the content and delivery we provide in lectures and tutorials in order to promote or endorse a politicised ‘critical race theory’ agenda. Those teaching critical race theory are perfectly entitled so to do. Other faculty members and academicians who take a different or contrary perspective must be equally respected in academic and pedagogical terms, and should not be penalised for doing so.

Academic independence and freedom of conscience

Curricular and personal development materials  are being promoted by diversity officers who encourage the unthinking adoption of contested concepts such as ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘white supremacy’. University policy should not be driven by the concerns of organisations like Black Lives Matter (BLM), or by administrative staff and diversity consultants. While the National Union of Students (NUS) may have aligned with BLM, universities themselves need a distinct voice, and as a rule do not and should not acquiesce to every NUS demand to alter policy.

Universities should not re-structure without full, frank, and open debate. Teaching materials and book lists should be guided by the academic expertise of teaching staff aligned to each course. Reading lists should demonstrate scholarship in a particular field but also reveal to the student a range of opinions on contentious issues. They should not set out to reinforce the idea that there is a single, uncontested perspective on political matters. Sources such as White Fragility, Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race, How To Be An Antiracist, 13th or Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap are not universally endorsed by academics who oppose racism.  Presenting only these sources, with little or no consideration of opposing views, encourages a climate of conformism that is incompatible with the open debate that should be at the heart of academic life.

Academic staff should not be obligated to teach one-sided political content – whether they agree with it or not. ‘White privilege’, ‘white supremacy’ and ‘white fragility’ are contested categories, not proven facts. At a time when many universities will be starting the academic year in unprecedented circumstances, such claims are even less likely to be subjected to the critical scrutiny and informed consent necessary for introducing new institutional procedures and curriculum content.

For the same reason, universities must resist the growing pressure on ruling bodies to declare solidarity with BLM. Such declarations imply fidelity to very specific political aims and ought not be a position taken by an institution that treasures impartiality and academic freedom. An individual’s beliefs on addressing racism should be a matter of conscience within the university in keeping with the Universities UK Strategic Plan which states, “The success of UK higher education is built on a history of voluntary collaboration among diverse autonomous universities to…further the free exchange of ideas”. Open enquiry, not training, is the preferred path for debate within the university sector, and must be kept sacrosanct.

Decolonising the Curriculum

The same principle of open enquiry should also be applied with regard to programmes to decolonise the curriculum. While some academics use the term ‘decolonising curriculum’ to refer to expanding content and range of interpretations, other programmes contain not only a criticism of hierarchical relationships but also an insistence that science, reason and empirical research are inherently ‘white’ ways of knowing. They reflect a particular intellectual and philosophical outlook, not a universal view that all academics should or do adhere to. Academic freedom around these issues should not be constrained by universities’ or departments’ value statements, training or guidelines.

In some cases, training events and resources, based on critical race theory, are being introduced almost overnight as mandatory tenets without any internal discussion.  Even where such measures have not been taken, the unprecedented pressures facing the Higher Education sector make it less likely that concepts of ‘white privilege’ and ‘implicit bias’ will be subjected to the critical scrutiny necessary to legitimise the kind of changes which are being widely implemented. The scientific basis for ‘unconscious bias’ is insecure, and the use of Implicit Association Tests (IATs) is suspect, yet we are being asked to accept these as self- evident truths. Such assumptions are implicit in the claim that not being a racist is insufficient; only this particular form of anti-racism will do.

The dissemination of these tenets by department and administration teams makes it difficult for individuals to raise questions because they risk being seen as racist. Consequently, if there is little opposition when universities volunteer to ‘dismantle whiteness’ by, for example, removing statues, nameplates and sponsors, this may not be because there is a consensus to this effect; it is more likely that management has listened to a small cohort of activists, and others from outside this clique have not been encouraged to speak up. Yet a concerted effort should be made to involve wider layers of stakeholders, and views, before such directives are issued.

Compassion for genuine personal and familial misfortune is, of course, necessary. However, blanket proposals for BAME students to be offered extenuation/mitigation on the assumption that they will have been traumatised by George Floyd’s death, does a disservice to such students by suggesting that they have been rendered unable to take responsibility or make autonomous decisions about their studies.

Promoting any agenda that focuses on skin colour and ethnicity as the determinant of attitudes or aptitudes is dangerous: it risks creating confusion and guilt among white students, and anxiety among black students about the validity of their educational achievements. Fear of either transmitting, or receiving, microaggressions is likely to fuel mistrust and undermine students’ relationships, self-worth, engagement and intellectual achievement. This all works against the spirit of Universities UK’s desire to engender a sense of belonging within higher education.

We all hopefully have students’ educational interests at heart. We also want to maintain the prestige and credibility of the educational process; and the integrity and independence of the staff who deliver it. Students want a good education and a trusted source of learning. Pillorying the ‘wrong’ opinions and disciplining staff does not seem the best way to achieve any of these aims.

We hope that you, or your colleagues in your faculty and university administrators and managers, might help start a constructive discussion by sharing this statement by Don’t Divide Us https://dontdivideus.com/  among your friends, colleagues, disciplinary networks and students.

Our call is for prompt and open debate on the contemporary situation.

Yours

Concerned academics in support of #Don’tDivideUs

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Model Letter For Teachers

Introduction

Since launching the Don’t Divide Us statement, we have been flooded with responses welcoming the initiative.  This is very positive.  However, your comments have flagged up some specific issues which are potentially very damaging to social cohesion.

One particular issue of concern, that many of you have brought up time and again, is that schools seem to be reorganising the curriculum, pastoral teaching and professional teacher development, around the divisive themes associated with identity politics. This has caused some worries that these changes are happening with no public debate.  Those who are parents/ carers involved in home schooling due to lockdown, have been sent letters and resources with instructions on how to teach the issue of ‘race’ and are understandably  concerned at the over-reach by schools.

Teachers, governors and other stakeholders in the education of schoolchildren have also contacted DDU, expressing serious reservations. They note that even internal school discussions are being stifled by an assertion that any resistance is evidence of unconscious bias.

To counter this, a group of educators have written an open letter (below), which may be a useful antidote to these trends that seem to be driven more by external political pressure than educational considerations.  It can be adapted and used by anyone who has contacted Don’t Divide Us, to send to school leaders. It is a way of raising concerns and appealing to them to, at least, pause before rushing forward with such radical changes.

If you have any queries, and/or would like to share your concerns or if you have any issues/anecdotes/responses from schools you interact with, email us at education@dontdivideus.com  We can share these (anonymously if you prefer) with a wider network..

Best wishes,

Don’t Divide Us team

Dear Head teachers and SLTs,

Since the brutal killing of George Floyd, the issue of racism has been centre stage in the UK.  Understandably, many schools have a well-intentioned desire to use this moment to challenge racism through teaching.

However, we wish to raise concerns about the rush to adopt far-reaching changes in the school curriculum, and the use of staff CPD/Inset training, to promote a politicised ‘critical race theory’ agenda. 

Issues to consider:


Official Guidance: It’s necessary to check or ask for guidance from the DfE and/or Ofsted on the inclusion of politically contested ideas on the curriculum.


Political Neutrality:

  • The 1996 Education Act makes it clear that teachers need to maintain political neutrality when teaching (see Teachers’ Standards Part Two).
  • This means they cannot teach critical race theory as fact, and must present and allow critique of the theory and ideas.
  • Teachers can not present activists’ slogans such as ‘white privilege’ and ‘white fragility’ as unchallengeable facts, when in reality they are contested political categories, which are not only controversial but disputed academically.
  • The scientific evidence of unconscious bias, and how it should be challenged, is disputed. Yet schools are distributing materials which include the guilt-inducing claim that “as parents we should try to acknowledge and be aware of our own implicit bias”.


Resources: Some of the resources being distributed by schools seem to be in breach of the Education Act, for instance, the various versions of A PARENT’S GUIDE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER being distributed by so many schools.

  • Only one model of how young people (and their parents) should actively oppose racism is proposed in this guide; inequality and injustice are viewed solely through the prism of identity politics.
  • Under section headings such as ‘How do I explain white privilege?’ and ‘The danger of saying ‘my child isn’t racist’’ it is argued that “parents and caregivers must play an integral role in ensuring children have an acute awareness of white privilege.” Children are invited “to actively see colour, to see culture, to see history, and to acknowledge that race has an impact on people’s life experiences”.
  • We are aware of parents who are refusing to teach this to their children because they see it as at best biased, at worst a form of political indoctrination. They may well have a case while anti-racism is presented as above.


Race Relations: We would urge you to consider the dangers to race relations of promoting any agenda that focuses on skin colour and ethnicity as determinant attitudes or aptitudes. This is not to deny the personal experiences of young people, which could include negative experiences due to their ethnicity. Schools might choose to explore racial identity alongside other identities; but they should not teach a political racial identity to children.


Ultimately this new strategy is likely to fuel division rather than solidarity, and could well be counterproductive. Some white British pupils are likely to feel, at best, confused and unnecessarily guilty. Some black British pupils could feel that their achievements are due to their skin colour rather than their efforts and talents. This particular approach risks fostering unspoken resentment and undermining children’s and young people’s spontaneous relationships with each other.


Curriculum: We recognise that what is taught in schools is always open for debate and change. However, can we suggest that any change to the curriculum should be justified educationally, as an expansion of knowledge. Such interventions into the curriculum ought to be extensively debated among subject specialists, rather than being pre-emptively imposed with little discussion – and seemingly driven by political considerations. Is there a danger that an uncritical acceptance of the idea that the curriculum should be decolonised – as a means of delivering diversity messages – will compromise academic integrity? It might otherwise send generations of young people into the world with partial, even false, views of historical events and contemporary society.


Similarly, mandating the reading of a limited range of fashionable books should be strenuously avoided. Especially as the texts in questions argue only from one particular viewpoint, which is nonetheless presented as a canon of ‘truths’. This limits a rich educational exploration of the history of slavery and colonialism and the variety of different approaches to tackling racism, unequal treatment and prejudice. Schools need to ensure that opinions included in these books are not presented as factual and that the facts cited are accurate. Where contested ideas are presented, is the literature clear that the concept is one of a range of alternative cases, as they would be for any other set of ideas?


We all have young people’s interests at heart. We hope that the school might start a constructive discussion by sharing this statement by Don’t Divide Us https://dontdivideus.com/ among your staff, governors and other stakeholders and use it is as a prompt for an open debate on the contemporary situation.


Yours sincerely,

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Model Letter For Parents

As schools reopen, many parents will be delighted to see their children going off to meet, socialise and learn. Some semblance of normality is very welcome! However, it may also be that you find your child’s school is introducing new plans to show their commitment to a form of anti-racism that seems unhelpfully divisive and simplistic. These could be anything from changing the names of schools, giving pupils very selective reading lists or teaching content that assumes microaggressions and implicit bias are incontrovertible truths when, in reality, they are contested ideas. Do also have a look at the Education pages for more on this.

It can be difficult to raise any worries or questions about such issues with school staff – no one wants to be ‘the difficult parent’! If you do wish to raise questions about things that are happening, below is a template letter that raises some questions in a way that also shows support for schools. It can be adapted according to individual circumstances

If you would like to share your experiences and insights tweet @DontDivideUsNow on Twitter and Instagram.

It’s wonderful to have children back in school after such a long absence. My child has missed her friends and classmates… I’ve always been delighted with the way teachers have encouraged all children to work together and resolve problems in a constructive manner. No doubt you were as horrified as I was to witness the video of the killing of George Floyd… I am sure some teachers will be keen to discuss this and other issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement with their pupils. I am very happy for them to engage my child in such discussions however I am concerned that some of the approaches adopted may not be appropriate for school children. I have heard that some schools are sending children work based on some ideas that seem questionable at best. For example, children are being told that the UK is a systematically racist country, that white children are all privileged because of the colour of their skin, and that those with ‘white privilege’ have to make amends in order to be allies to children with black skins. I have since learned that these are key tenets of Critical Race Theory which might be ok for academic discussions, but surely it does not have the  consensus needed for schools to be implementing initiatives that are based on its contested assumptions?

Having looked at some websites of companies who say they can help schools diversify their classrooms I am worried! Some are recommending highly selective reading lists for pupils and parents – with books that echo Critical Race Theory. Some think it is acceptable to set homework that requires pupils to send in details of microaggressions they have suffered, or may have perpetrated unwittingly. We are appalled at the murder of George Floyd, and abhor racism, but we are very concerned that introducing these ideas as if they were facts is anti-educational and self-defeating.  I have always trusted that teachers broadly adhere to a position of politically impartiality in school (as enshrined in the 1996 Education Act and Teaching Standards). But some of these ideas encourage the opposite.

The fact that many children play together with little sense that skin colour matters, or that it should matter is surely a sign of progress that has been made over the years? But now some groups think it’s ok to tell children that skin colour is of paramount importance, and personal relationships will always be about power and oppression. This is a terrible and, at best, only partially true message to be giving children.

I don’t think teachers should be policing the political beliefs of their pupils (in as much as they have them, after all, they are not yet adults). I fully support teachers who strive to  to teach our children through publicly recognised subjects so they may develop their ability to imagine, think and question independently. Obviously, racist behaviour and/or comments need to be condemned and taken seriously in schools, but the aggressive anti-racist training techniques that I believe some schools are deploying, often with encouragement from external training bodies, seems to be going way beyond this.

I  hope you don’t mind me raising these concerns. I hope also that you would prevent your school from adopting such strategies because they do seem divisive and risk breaking the precious trust between parents and schools.

Your sincerely,

[your name]

[your name]

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Channel 4 – ‘The School That Tried To End Racism’

Last weekend, I watched both episodes of a Channel 4 documentary called The School That Tried To End Racism which was broadcast recently.

Within the first few minutes I became uneasy about this experiment which had been conducted with a class of 11-year-old pupils in their first year at a Glenthorne High School, a state secondary School in Sutton, Surrey.  The viewer was told that the class of 24 pupils had volunteered to participate.  What followed over the following 90+ minutes raised my concerns about this documentary in several respects:

The programme presents a deeply-contested theory as scientific fact; the ethics of using children below the age of consent as participants for an experiment; and errors through omission.

In view of these concerns, I also questioned Channel 4’s decision to broadcast it.

Theory as fact

Throughout the programme, the academics running the experiment, Rollick and Turner presented assertions supported by the narration as incontrovertible facts.  The Implicit Associations Test (IAT), developed at Harvard for use in the US, was used as the primary tool for measuring unconscious racial bias.  The narration stated that “it (the IAT test) is now widely accepted as an accurate measurement of unconscious racial bias”.  This is not so.  In 2015, an author of the IAT stated that:

“the psychometric issues associated with various IATs “render them problematic to use to classify persons as likely to engage in discrimination”. Indeed, these days IAT evangelist and critic alike mostly agree that the test is too noisy to usefully and accurately gauge people’s likelihood of engaging in discrimination — a finding supported by a series of meta-analyses showing unimpressive correlations between IAT scores and behavioral outcomes (mostly in labs).”

(See The British Psychological Society Digest link below)

[https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/12/05/psychologys-favourite-tool-for-measuring-implicit-bias-is-still-mired-in-controversy/]

Although a brief visual from US television indicated that the American programme then incorporated into the experiment was controversial, no reference was made to this in the narration or by the academics and it was not discussed.

On numerous occasions the academics running the experiment, Dr. Nicola Rollick and Professor Rhiannon Turner made assertions that were presented as facts: e.g. “We pretend that we don’t see race”; “intervening at this age is crucial if we are to target children’s views before they become crystallised in adulthood”.

This was compounded by a presentational style that was completely inappropriate to a psychological experiment, the academics congratulating themselves through smiles, knowing glances and patronising asides when the responses of the participants were as they had predicted.

At no time during the documentary was there any reference to any other perspective and the absence of any peer review or of any alternative hypotheses was notable.

Ethics

Is it ethical to present identifiable participants in a psychological experiment who cannot legally give their consent?  Channel 4’s Working and Filming with under 18’s Guidelines1 states:

“As a responsible programme-maker and broadcaster, it is crucial that careful consideration and measures are put in place to safeguard the physical and emotional welfare and dignity of contributors under the age of 18, as well as ensuring that their involvement does not cause them to suffer unnecessary distress or anxiety. A child’s resilience and vulnerability can vary significantly depending on factors such as their age, gender, maturity, cultural, ethnic and religious background as well as their previous life experiences.” [https://www.channel4.com/producers-handbook/c4-guidelines/working-and-filming-with-under-18s-guidelines#:~:text=It%20is%20clear%20that%20both%20adults%20and%20children,requires%20an%20appropriate%20degree%20of%20responsibility%20and%20care]

Were these guidelines followed, and if so what specific measures were put in place to protect the children?  To this viewer, it was very apparent that the children’s involvement did cause them to suffer unnecessary distress and anxiety.

It appears that the guidelines of The British Psychological Society as set-out in its Code of Human Research Ethics have not be followed [https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bps.org.uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/BPS%20Code%20of%20Human%20Research%20Ethics.pdf] in several regards:

The claim made in the documentary that the IAT is “now widely accepted as an accurate benchmark of unconscious bias” is simply not true. This claim could lead viewers to believe the results it produces are reliable and uncontested.  One of the children, of black ethnicity, commented at the end of the documentary “Everyone’s been living in a place where white people are more superior.  We never knew that until the first test, how that has been embedded in us for 10 years”.  This suggests that the test itself plays an active part in the process of changing minds thereby invalidating any results for an experiment claiming to be scientific.

The experiment was described in the documentary as “controversial”.  Were the children, their parents and teachers/Head Teacher made aware of this and offered an explanation as to why it was considered controversial and what impact it might have on the children?  Were the children and their parents given the option to withdraw their child from the project?  No information was offered regarding any measures taken to protect these children from the possible effects, both short- and long-term that they might be subject to.

It is interesting to note that when announcing the documentary in January 2020, Channel 4’s working title was The Segregation Experiment which I suggest better describes what was finally shown. 

Inviting children to reflect on the ways in which they may currently be or become racist towards their friends and others, is inevitably going to lead to self-doubt and, in this instance, there was clear evidence that it did.  One white pupil became tearful on more than one occasion and another of mixed heritage experienced stress, confusion and anger about the way she felt she was being forced to choose between black and white. 

This experiment caused the children obvious discomfort and stress.  Their personal values and beliefs were exposed and challenged on national television and one, in particular, expressed concern that his personal friendships were under threat by being separated into different groups.  I wonder if if any risk assessment was done prior to or during the experiment?

Neither was it clear how informed consent was sought and from whom.  Although it was stated that the class had volunteered to participate (although it was not clear whether the 24 participants constituted the whole class), no mention was made of who had given consent: was it their parent(s) or was it Steve Hume (Head Teacher)?  It is notable that of the 24 participants shown, 14 were BAME and 10 were White British which does not correspond to the ratio of “nearly half the school’s intake is BAME” as quoted in the narration.

Numerous media reviews have already been published identifying individual participants and commenting on their appearance, attitude and responses.  These children were 11 years old – was any consideration given to the possible effects of this exposure on their well-being and future prospects?

Aside from these specific child protection issues, the programme laid itself open to an accusation of manipulation: it initially depicted a situation where previously there wasn’t an apparent problem and through a series of ‘consciousness raising’ devices created a problem (using the contested IAT test) and then presented a neat solution.

Errors through omission

Here are just two examples:

The failure to disclose the contested value of the IAT test was crucial, since the test formed the whole basis of the experiment.  This is akin to trying to taking somebody’s temperature with a bicycle pump.

The sequence in Episode 2 in the National Portrait Gallery gave significant dramatic emphasis to the revelation that money was paid to the slave owners rather than the slaves but failed to explain why reparations were paid to slave-owners.  Abolitionists recognised that the only way to emancipate slaves was to pay their owners in order to expedite the release of slaves and prevent further suffering.  This crucial fact was not mentioned by either the NPG staff member or the narrator.  Slightly later the narrator says “…finding positive examples of those who represent them is proving easier for some than others.”  In fact, this only applied to one of the participants (Henry) and the narrator failed to point out that, just as there were very few images depicting black faces, there was a similar dearth of images of poor, working-class white faces.

The decision to broadcast

How was this programme commissioned?  Did the programme idea come from Channel 4 which then sought out a suitable case, or was it commissioned as an ‘off-the-shelf’ idea presented to it by the production company or the authors of the study?  Whatever the answer is to these questions, the decision to produce and subsequently broadcast the documentary should be questioned.  It also highlights Channel 4’s inability to follow its own guidelines (based on those drafted by Ofcom, their regulator) and seriously undermines the trust that viewers can reasonably expect of a national broadcaster.

Summary

Professor Turner and Dr Rollick made it very clear from the outset that they have a particular agenda.  These politicised views and value judgements combined with contemporary interpretations of racism, social justice, identity politics, critical race theory, theories of oppression and current tropes about slavery were, with the assistance of a diversity practitioner from the US, relayed to the children over a three-week period.  As noted above, assertions were presented as facts and no attempt was made to present an alternative perspective.  It is, therefore, no surprise that at the end of the experiment, the pupils came to the conclusion that they live in a racist society.  It felt as though this was what the academics had hoped for all along – this makes me uneasy as their methods could be construed as indoctrination. 

In the context of the many flaws and errors outlined above, perhaps the programme-makers should have more carefully considered the implications of the unattributed statement in the narration that “if successful, the school’s ambition is to build it into the curriculum”

“It’s (the anti-racism project) something that really needs to be integrated into the whole school system so that issues of race and racism and inequality are discussed the whole way through children’s school career” (Professor Rhiannon Turner)

What degree of editorial control did the academic consultants have?  It seemed at times as though they were directing the documentary.  This blurs the crucial distinction between a documentary programme-maker and their subject.  The resulting lack of perspective could lead to the programme being seen as little more than a campaigning polemic.

This programme was so badly flawed that it should never have been broadcast.  The experiment’s hypothesis was tested using a problematic methodology which appeared to be engineered to produce a desired result.  The failure to provide context and the errors through omission throughout were blatant.  It was not so much a psychological experiment as a manifesto for social engineering driven by flawed science.  Worse still was the exploitation of children to provide entertainment dressed-up as documentary.  The editorial process (particularly the narrator’s script and editing) failed in its primary responsibility to maintain sufficient distance from its subject to provide an objective view.  As such, it fell way below the standard expected and deserved by viewers of a programme presented as a documentary.

Howard Sherwood,

Graphic Designer and Photographer

The School That Tried To End Racism can be viewed at: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-school-that-tried-to-end-racism/on-demand/67448-001