Essays & Opinion
How to push back against DEI policies
Graeme Kemp reviews The Counterweight Handbook by Helen Pluckrose.
Response to Bar Standards Board proposal to amend Core Duty 8
Recently, the Barrister Standards Board (BSB) published proposals to change one of its core duties pertaining to equality. The proposed change to Core Duty 8 is to replace a duty to not discriminate unlawfully (a negative duty) to ‘You must act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion.’ We asked a barrister to comment on the proposal and its implications.
From democracy to identity: the role of public policy in fostering the preconditions for violent social disorder
IntroductionOne month after the elections – with the lowest share of the population voting since universal suffrage – Britain saw riots, a minority of which were racist in their immediate targets. Few seem to have given much thought as to whether there might be any connection. Here, DDU director Alka Sehgal Cuthbert argues that the riots […]
‘Diversity & Anti-Racism’ and the threat to education in schools
On 24 July 2024, DDU sent an open letter to The Key – signed by a combination of scholars, teachers and parents – detailing our concerns about their Anti-Racism Curriculum Review which, knowingly or not, embeds significant precepts from critical race theory. In our view, these precepts are detrimental to educational goals and lack popular consent.
The State We’re In!
On Friday 28 June, DDU director Alka Sehgal Cuthbert was joined by four DDU Advisory Council members to discuss what might happen with the UK General Election 2024 – in particular, what a Labour government would be like.
An incident at a state secondary school in Wakefield, Yorkshire: a cautionary tale
When a 14-year-old boy scuffed a copy of the Koran at Kettlethorpe School in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, all hell broke loose. In an extended essay, one writer examines what happened and the worrying reaction to it.
Educational achievement: individual aspiration and effort counts!
Frederick R. Prete argues that claims that American school exams are biased against minorities don’t stand up to close examination. What really matters is aspiration and rigorous course work.
Book review: ‘Nice Racism: How progressive white people perpetuate racial harm’ by Robin DiAngelo
Robin DiAngelo achieved widespread fame with her book White Fragility, delivering the ideas of Critical Race Theory to an audience of progressives. Here, Graeme Kemp reviews her follow-up, which carries on the same, Catch-22 outlook: if you’re white, you’re a racist – and if you disagree, you’re a racist in denial.
Book review: ‘Me and White Supremacy’ by Layla F Saad
Graeme Kemp argues that Layla F Saad’s book is wrong to promote ideas like ‘white privilege’ and ignore the value of ‘colour-blind’ approaches to dealing with racism.
Mainstreaming jihad
Prakash Shah argues that the left’s identification of revolutionary potential in Islamic fundamentalism is creating a paradigmatic shift in a public understanding in which Islamist fundamentalism, once associated with criminal violence, is now associated with ‘resistance’.
