At a recent Don’t Divide Us Academic Group event, Professor Elizabeth Rata argued that: In the end a nation has to decide whether knowledge is universal and separable from the social group, or whether it is irredeemably knowledge of the powerful. If you abdicate from the idea of universal knowledge, then you de facto retreat into […]
What History Is Being Taught in Primary Schools?
A primary school teacher has undertaken a study of the history curriculum as available on school websites in five local education authorities. The results are fascinating and insightful. A must read for anyone who thinks education should be valued for its own purpose and not its effectiveness to engender political activism: Overall the idea that […]
Decarbonise and Decolonise – An Elitist Campaign from UCU & SOS
Dr Alex Standish considers the ways in which a seemingly well-intentioned campaign by Students Organising for Sustainability and the University and College Union is actually elitist, anti-democratic and, if successful, likely to make lives worse for many who are already disadvantaged. The first question to ask is why are a group of students and the […]
New Runnymede Trust report promotes the myth of a systemically racist Britain – DDU responds
The Runnymede trust has just submitted a new report to the UN’s International Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The Trust’s submission concludes that Britain has failed to meet its ICERD obligations, is ‘deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities’ and that ‘racism is systemic in England and impacts the enjoyment of rights of BME […]
Microaggressions: In the Eye of the Beholder
by Carole Sherwood, psychologist Cambridge University was recently embroiled in controversy over a Report & Support’ website launched for the anonymous reporting of microaggressions by students and staff. The university claimed this was to encourage a ‘safe, welcoming and inclusive community’ but academics expressed concern that they could be reported for ‘offences’ such as raising […]
Who needs ‘intersectionality’?
by Philip Hammond on behalf of DDU academics The concept of ‘intersectionality’ seems omnipresent today. Human Resources departments in public institutions and businesses miss no opportunity to trumpet its significance. HR Magazine emphasises ‘the importance of intersectionality in HR’, while Personnel Today warns that failure to take proper account of intersectionality could mean that ‘organisations […]
A Matter of Historical Specificity (or its absence)
Below, J. Unsworth, a DDU supporter and former student of History and English Literature, explains why she found an event at Cambridge University on Winston Churchill left much to be desired. The level of debate among learned academics shows, once again, that ‘the divisiveness and tribalism that emerges now again in different periods and different […]
St Jarel of Woke and why and eye for an eye won’t do
Considering two recent cases of offensive tweets regarding Captain Sir Tom Moore, Nick Buckley , who has personal experience of twitter amplified intolerance, argues that offensive comments should not be criminalised and offenders shouldn’t lose their jobs. Freedom of speech must be a universal value, otherwise it becomes an elite privilege: Jarel […]
What’s Wrong With World Hijab Day?
Khadija Khan argues that coincidence of World Hijab Day, on the 1st of February, with the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979 in order to, among other things, impose purdah, is a bitter irony. It is a poke in the eye for Muslim women who are fighting for the freedom their Western counterparts […]
Critical Race Theory in the Workplace
With much of the media attention focused on academia and public institutions, we can forget that the divisive and pernicious ideas of critical race theory affect many more people who work in private businesses as well. Here George Crichton, pen name of a DDU supporter, recounts his experience of the mandatory Diversity and Inclusion training […]