Baroness Royall’s desire to have Somerville College students score 100% in a test they all had to take following an unconscious bias training course threatens to undermine her bid for Chancellor. The Times has more.
One of the frontrunners to become the next chancellor of Oxford University has been accused of failing to stand up for free speech, after trying to make students undergo an online course in unconscious biases.
The former leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, had told students at Somerville College that there was “irrefutable evidence” of a link between racism and transphobia and unconscious bias.
She also said that all undergraduates should take an “unconscious bias training course” to make the college a “more inclusive community”.
But her directive, made three years ago, is now threatening to undermine her campaign to succeed Lord Patten of Barnes as the chancellor in an election of all staff, students and graduates being held this autumn.
Free speech campaigners claim that her move is evidence that she is less committed to the principle of free speech than other candidates. They said this after writing to all the candidates and asking for their views on freedom of speech.
William Mackesy, of the group Alumni for Free Speech, said too many of the answers had contained “breezy generalities”, adding: “If you dig down into what a number of the candidates say, you will find breezy generalities about the importance of free speech, but a lot of skirting round the realities and causes of the problem, such as the unlawful enforcement of contested activist agendas,” he said.
“A striking example of this is Royall, who avoids questions about her having required students to take ‘unconscious bias’ training and get 100 per cent in a test, an obvious free speech no-no and probably unlawful to boot.
“Oxford voters need to think carefully when casting their ballot what kind of chancellor they want as the figurehead of the institution. We believe it needs to be someone who cares passionately about free speech, and understands what it takes to defend it.”
Worth reading in full.
In the article, Baroness Royall defends herself by pointing out the unconscious bias training course was proposed by the Junior Common Room “at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests”, as if doing something in the heat of a moral panic to placate a bunch of woke activists is an example of wise leadership. She also doesn’t address the key point, which is not that she introduced this course – she’s not alone among Oxford heads of houses in doing that – but that she went further, insisting not only that every student take it, but that they score 100% in the post-course assessment. Incidentally, one of the questions in that assessment was:
Acknowledging your person feelings about particular groups or individuals is a useful starting point in overcoming unconscious bias.
Is this productive or unproductive in addressing your personal biases?
Presumably, the ‘correct’ answer – the answer students were required to give to score 100% – was ‘Yes’. That is, you were required to answer ‘yes’ even if you were familiar with the overwhelming social science evidence that such courses not only do nothing to reduce discriminatory behaviour, but may even have the opposite of their intended effect.
After the Free Speech Union wrote to her, pointing out that this was an example of compelled speech and, therefore, a breach of the Human Rights Act, she withdrew her insistence that all members of the college score 100% in the post-course exam. However, as far as I know she did not drop her insistence that every student had to take this pointless course, as spelt out in her original letter to students that was passed to the FSU. “[W]e are requiring all our students to undertake a short online unconscious bias training course,” she wrote. That makes her claim in today’s Times – “Those students who did not wish to do the course were not required to complete the training” – somewhat misleading.
You can read the FSU’s exchange of letters with Baroness Royall in 2021 here.
Stop Press: The Times has published a leader, highlighting the free speech crisis in our universities and criticising Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, for torpedoing the Freedom of Speech Act:
Widespread dysfunction calls for a general, rather than piecemeal, remedy. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, passed into law by the last government, was supposed to provide that. The act created a duty on universities and student unions to secure the speech rights of invited speakers, along with a mechanism by which the Office for Students, the university regulator, could fine them for failing to do so.
Despite the need for the act, one of Bridget Phillipson’s first decisions as education secretary was to indefinitely suspend its implementation. That decision was a complacent misstep, and now faces a judicial review.
In recent weeks, hundreds of academics, including seven Nobel prizewinners, have signed an open letter calling on Ms Phillipson to think again. Similar concerns have prompted academics and campaigners to question the suitability of Baroness Royall to be among those in the race to succeed Lord Patten as chancellor of Oxford University: they cite her criticism of the Higher Education Act, as well as her record of forcing students to undergo dubious “unconscious bias” training in her current university role.
Academics are entirely right to call out politicians for such ill-conceived stances on free speech. The government should listen, learn, and compel universities to comply with their legal duties.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press 2: A new opinion poll suggests Bridget Phillipson would lose her seat in Sunderland South to Reform if an election was called tomorrow:
— Stats for Lefties
NEW: Poll suggests Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson would lose her Sunderland seat to Reform.
REF 36.31% (+7.2)
LAB 36.26% (-10.8)
CON 16.73% (+3.0)
Reform GAIN from Labour (9% swing) pic.twitter.com/kydAihdSZU(@LeftieStats) October 13, 2024
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