Oxford University has forced the Students’ Union to reverse its decision to ban the Oxford Union from exhibiting at freshers’ fair this autumn. The Telegraph’s Louisa Clarence-Smith has more.
Oxford University has intervened to protect free speech in a row that has engulfed the institution.
In a letter to The Telegraph, one of the university’s pro-vice-chancellors tells students they must be prepared to “encounter and confront difficult views, including ones they find unsettling, extreme or even offensive”.
Prof Martin Williams’s comments come after students tried to cancel an appearance by Prof Kathleen Stock, a leading feminist, at the Oxford Union later this month over her views that trans women are not women.
Oxford University’s Student Union (SU) said it would ban the Oxford Union from its freshers’ fair, accusing the historic debating society of having a “toxic culture of bullying and harassment”.
However, it has now reversed its position after the university reminded the SU’s trustees of its free speech policy. The SU had said its actions were not related to Prof Stock’s appearance.
Earlier this week, more than 40 Oxford academics wrote to The Telegraph supporting Prof Stock, saying she should be free to discuss her views at the university and warning that freedom of speech was at risk.
Prof Williams said: “We do not allow the no-platforming of any lawful speech but also support the right of students, staff and societies to protest and challenge speakers at events, as long as they do so within the law and our policies.”
He added: “The Oxford Union, a debating society independent of the university but whose leaders and members are mostly drawn from our student body, has not been banned from attending the freshers’ fair.
“Students should be free to decide whether to join a society or club. While we understand there are concerns held by the Student Union about the Oxford Union, the university is actively encouraging the two organisations to discuss the issues.”
The university said the decision to allow the Union to have a stall at the freshers’ fair, which is an important source of income from membership sign-ups, was taken independently by the SU’s trustees.
Prof Williams said: “The university and its colleges host hundreds of events each term and we will continue to invite a wide range of speakers.
“Despite what some may have been led to believe, freedom of speech and expression is alive and well at Oxford.”
Worth reading in full.
Not coincidentally, the Free Speech Union wrote to the Oxford University Proctors’ Office – the body tasked with upholding student discipline – urging it to open an investigation into the officers of the Students’ Union last week. We argued that the SU’s decision was a breach of the University’s Free Speech Policy, as well as its Code of Practice on Meetings and Events and threatened to take the university to court if the officers weren’t disciplined.
Another victory for the Free Speech Union. You can join here for as little as £2.49 a month.
Stop Press: Irene Tracy, Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor, has given an interview to Saturday’s Times in which she unequivocally defends the right of Kathleen Stock to speak at the Oxford Union. A group of Oxford academics have also spoken to the Times, explaining why they too support Kathleen Stock.
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“Those with merit rule.”
Anyone who thought that, wasn’t paying attention to those who actually ruled… or the mediocrats ruling today.
Socialism is the quintessential ideology of mediocracy – all reduced to the lowest common denominator to ensure equality. This cancer has invaded all our institutions, which is why we are where we are.
Spot on !
Thought provoking but I think the author hasn’t fully explained how or by which attributes hierarchy is established in a mediocrity.
This is important in understanding how seemingly mediocre people come to get power and rule over us.
The article was very good I did enjoy it. But to offer a possible route for the mediocre to gain a leg up for power, I would suggest the mediocre types propensity to go to University and get a degree in a subject of equally mediocre value gives them the grounding in the essence of inflated self worth. Which because of their inflated opinion of self, deem themselves the custodians of the right opinions, to be imparted upon those less fortunate.
We are being ruled by a class (if you prefer) of people with a purported academic knowledge of subjects that bear no relationship to the material and operational functions of a living society. Everything is possible to them as they have never learnt from or experienced a failure. When the lights go out and their laptop battery runs out through lack of power, the failure their Net Zero policies will merit their greatest achievement.
University as in Blairs dumbbing down and renaming he entire FE sector universities. That guaranteed mediocrity.
Nicely put. It also seems that in increase in the Blair type Uni grad population, is equal to the regression of and non productive society we see today.
So you’re saying hierarchy in a mediocracy is established by a system of bogus credentials.
That’s probably part of it.
A significant part to me is one’s ability to create social networks. People with social networking skills have higher status and power.
And I would venture to suggest that there is a negative correlation, perhaps not a very strong but significant one, between social networking ability and actually productive skills.
It is the productive skills that promote civilisations advancement, the rest is just a noise that some of us, I am happy to say, do not listen to, but equally are aware of its power to influence those who are susceptible to it.
May I make a shout-out for the more well-known Peter Principle where people in any organisation, including government, will rise to their level of incompetence, or ineptness to use the terminology of the article.
This is particularly true of our current crop of political leaders. The jury is still out on Farage, but he has shown his mastery at PR in that the whole country is talking about him today. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
In a similar vein is C.Northcote Parkinsons definition of a ‘Spastic Organisation’ where incompetents fill departments up with people ‘just like them’. The function of the organisation moves away from its raison-d’etre, and its objectives become unclear until the structure reaches critical mass, at which point the people of genuine merit are out of there, but the organisation continues to fill up with useless people. This seems to sum up every school I come into contact with btw. It does feel as though Parliament itself has now become a spastic organisation. Parkinson suggested two solutions. First that such an organisation could be saved by people of genuine merit getting into positions by stealth, and slowly replacing mediocrity with merit. Second and more likely, it should be closed and swept away.
Interesting, but I have an alternative theory: wealth creates the opportunities that generate a lifestyle which allows the purchase of an affordable belief system. Wealth purchases not just material items, but also the moral correctness of the top tier of society that maintain the wealth. That tier continues to expand their wealth and so continue to expand their virtue. The political class sit at the elite level, either through direct wealth or the propagation of wealth, and so have all purchased or had purchased for them, an affordable belief system. That belief system is neither driven by meritocracy or mediocracy, but the comforting certainty of faith.
I am a great believer in the idea that the whole of human existence is a paradox and that the physical laws that operate at an atomic level have effects in the meta physical. However I had a lot of trouble with the phrase “successful representatives of the inept”. In theory these people can’t exist? Or maybe it’s all relative. The most adept of the inept, rule the inept?
They are less than mediocre admittedly few of them seem to show any brilliance but their attitude isn’t just a matter of a lack of understanding. Some of them understand very well but feel that they might as well do as well as they can for as long as they can in order to be in a better position when it all collapses. The British do like a game of last man standing. If by merit you mean the ability to go beyond, intellectual transcendence or the man of action – that was crippled a very long time ago and the two wars finished it off entirely. The plebian nature of society, the chavs, the weak etc are entirely a creaion of the ruling class. The plebicization of the intellectual class and the ruling class is a result of the actions of the ruling class. You found it expedient to breed pygmies and then you complain about the stature of the pygmies. Not to mention a hundred years of a scientifically crafted western propaganda model. It is a wonder that there is any nous or dissent left at all.
👍
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” Act II Scene 5 of Twelfth Night.
In the case of politicians in positions of government & power, the conditions that must be met to get elected and the working conditions that one must endure, selectively on their own, ensure only the mediocre will ever expose themselves to such a system.
Time to dust off the copy of Atlas Shrugged ?