A new report from the think tank Civitas into has revealed just how captured Britain’s universities are by hard-left, woke ideology. The Daily Mail has more.
More than half of Britain’s universities are peddling controversial and radical ‘woke’ ideologies on students, a damning league table has revealed.
Some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions are “poisoning the minds of generations to come”, critics said last night, by subjecting undergraduates and academics to ‘trigger warnings’ and guidance on ‘white privilege’.
Elite Russell Group universities dominate the table, accounting for eight of the top ten spots. Cambridge and Oxford come first and second, having introduced ‘unconscious bias’ and race workshops for freshers, followed by the University of Bristol, which has outlawed words such as ‘mankind’ to avoid causing offence.
The findings were slammed as “disturbing” by free speech campaigners and MPs, who say a “dark shadow” of political correctness has now fallen over our most sought-after universities.
Compiled by Dr Richard Norrie, a researcher at the think-tank Civitas, the table ranks 137 universities after scouring websites, national and local media, and promotional materials for examples of ‘campus wokery’.
A staggering 62 per cent were found to have had references to trigger warnings or ‘content notes’, designed to alert students to material deemed potentially harmful or worrying. Seventy-nine institutions had mentions of ‘white privilege’ in guidance offered to staff and students or on their website, while 59 per cent were offering training materials or resources on ‘anti-racism’ online.
Sir John Hayes MP, chair of the Common Sense Group of Tories and a former further education minister, said universities were wasting resources on “woke nonsense”. “Universities should be places of light and liberty learning, but a dark shadow has fallen over too much of higher education,’ he told the Mail.
“Woke nonsense has replaced scholarship and too many universities are not only wasting resources but risk poisoning the minds of generations to come. The report is disturbing.”
The study found Britain’s elite universities were almost twice as likely to promote ‘radical’ and ‘controversial’ concepts than lesser-known institutions, which Dr Norrie slammed as a “new moralism that reeks of hypocrisy”, especially with many happily taking Chinese money.
The analysis comes amid a rise in ‘campus wokery’. Alarming examples include:
- Aberdeen University, which issued a trigger warning for Peter Pan because it could be ‘emotionally challenging’;
- The University of Chester cautioned students reading the Harry Potter books, claiming they ‘can lead to difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class and identity’;
- Imperial College London encouraged its students and staff to have ‘hard conversations’ with friends and family who deny white privilege;
- The University of Warwick has now banned the term ‘trigger warning’, claiming that it could upset students.
Bosses at the University of Glasgow also warned archaeology students their course might involve examining bones and looking at a preserved ‘bog body’.
Worth reading in full.
This shocking report reveals how far British universities have been captured by a far-Left, anti-white, anti-British ideology, while at the same time happily climbing into bed with China, a totalitarian state that has imprisoned nearly two million Muslims and is no friend of Britain.
At some point, British taxpayers, who currently fund universities to the tune of £21 billion a year, are going to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ Why should they continue to fund institutions that seem hell bent on running down our country, demonising our citizens and giving succour to our enemies?
If fat cat Vice Chancellors want to cling on to their half-a-million-pound salaries, grace-and-favour homes, domestic servants, 20-week annual holidays and vast pensions, they’re going to have to put their house in order.
The Woke League Table
For any sixth formers reading this worried about what university to go to – or any parents or grandparents involved in that choice – here is the Civitas league table, with the worst at the top:
- University of Cambridge 2.38
- University of Oxford 1.96
- University of Bristol 1.81
- University College London 1.63
- Newcastle University 1.62
- SOAS, University of London 1.6
- University of East Anglia 1.56
- University of Warwick 1.51
- Durham University 1.49
- University of Exeter 1.42
- The University of Sheffield 1.4
- York St John University 1.34
- University of Portsmouth 1.34
- Oxford Brookes University 1.34
- Queen Mary University of London 1.32
- Goldsmiths, University of London 1.31
- University of Birmingham 1.17
- University of Reading 1.14
- University of Brighton 1.06
- University of Essex 1.01
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 1
- The University of Nottingham 0.99
- De Montfort University 0.99
- King’s College London 0.99
- University of Surrey 0.98
- Leeds Beckett University 0.96
- University of Glasgow 0.95
- University of the Arts London 0.91
- University of Liverpool 0.9
- University of Dundee 0.87
- University of Salford 0.85
- Middlesex University 0.83
- The University of Manchester 0.82
- University of Leeds 0.78
- Royal Holloway, University of London 0.77
- University of Stirling 0.74
- University of Central Lancashire 0.74
- The London School of Economics and Political Science 0.73
- University of Leicester 0.7
- University of Plymouth 0.61
- Imperial College London 0.59
- University of Aberdeen 0.58
- University of York 0.57
- University of Kent 0.56
- Keele University 0.54
- Canterbury Christ Church University 0.52
- University of Huddersfield 0.49
- University of St Andrews 0.43
- London South Bank University 0.42
- Nottingham Trent University 0.4
- University of the West of England, Bristol 0.39
- Bath Spa University 0.39
- City, University of London 0.34
- University of Bath 0.32
- Staffordshire University 0.31
- University of Lincoln 0.3
- University of Edinburgh 0.29
- University of Westminster 0.26
- University of Winchester 0.24
- Loughborough University 0.21
- Aberystwyth University 0.2
- University of Sussex 0.2
- University of Wolverhampton 0.18
- University of Hertfordshire 0.18
- Manchester Metropolitan University 0.15
- Coventry University 0.14
- Lancaster University 0.12
- University of Derby 0.08
- Anglia Ruskin University 0.07
- Brunel University London 0.05
- Liverpool John Moores University -0.06
- Sheffield Hallam University -0.08
- Liverpool Hope University -0.1
- Queen’s University Belfast -0.12
- London Metropolitan University -0.16
- The Glasgow School of Art -0.21
- The Royal Veterinary College -0.22
- University of Greenwich -0.22
- Buckinghamshire New University -0.22
- Swansea University -0.28
- University of Gloucestershire -0.3
- Birkbeck, University of London -0.31
- University of Chichester -0.33
- Robert Gordon University -0.34
- Falmouth University -0.34
- University of Bradford -0.34
- University of Hull -0.37
- Edinburgh Napier University -0.4
- University of Southampton -0.42
- University of Strathclyde -0.43
- University of the West of Scotland -0.45
- University of Roehampton -0.47
- Norwich University of the Arts -0.47
- University of Sunderland -0.49
- The Open University -0.49
- University of East London -0.53
- Aston University -0.54
- University of South Wales -0.55
- Bournemouth University -0.59
- Heriot-Watt University -0.63
- University of Northampton -0.64
- Bangor University -0.66
- Cardiff University -0.66
- Birmingham City University -0.68
- University of Worcester -0.68
- Edge Hill University -0.77
- Glasgow Caledonian University -0.78
- Plymouth Marjon University -0.82
- University of Suffolk -0.85
- Guildhall School of Music and Drama -0.9
- University of the Highlands and Islands -0.92
- Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance -0.93
- University of Chester -0.98
- Ulster University -0.99
- Leeds Trinity University -1.01
- Queen Margaret University -1.04
- Solent University -1.07
- Wrexham Glyndwr University -1.1
- University of London -1.13
- Northumbria University -1.23
- Kingston University -1.25
- University of Wales Trinity Saint David -1.33
- University of Bedfordshire -1.38
- Royal College of Art -1.4
- St George’s, University of London -1.4
- University of Bolton -1.41
- London Business School -1.43
- The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama -1.48
- Cardiff Metropolitan University -1.48
- Bishop Grosseteste University -1.55
- The University of West London -1.82
- Cranfield University -1.85
- Teesside University -1.95
- Royal College of Music, London -1.96
- University of Cumbria -1.98
- The University of Buckingham -1.98
- Regent’s University London
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Just working out whether there are any Russell Group universities in the latter half of the list….
So there are only three Russell Group Universities pushing back against the wokery: Cardiff, Southampton & Queen’s, Belfast.
Thank you for this helpful article – I only wish we had known this 2 years ago. I think our family’s UCAS forms would have looked quite different….
Pleased to note that the only place of Higher Education I patronised is at position 128, at -1.48!
There was once a concept of education feeding an enquiring mind to further the knowledge of the individual, and by extension, society. It appears that today the concept of education has been replaced with systematic brain washing, and social engineered subservience. The very opposite of what education is supposed to be, and therefore should not be called so.
No surprise.
Universities have not been Academia for ages. Instead, they’re storage facilities for large sections of the population who can’t decide what to do with their lives and have been sold a dud.
Probably not their fault, at least not initially. They’re products of the “Education” System. I was the same at “Uni”, but I left in disgust after about five months and got a job where I learned useful skills – and got paid. Not much, but at least I didn’t get into mountains of debt.
Indeed, though in reality “mountains of debt” is not accurate. Repaying student “loans” is simply a tax on graduates who end up earning reasonable enough money to meet the threshold for repayments. Ultimately the huge increase in Uni attendance has been funded and underwritten in large measure by the government, and therefore the taxpayer. Some huge % of students will never repay their loans in full.
There’s an important bit missing here: They’re storage facilities for the offspring of well-to-do families the parents no longer want at home all the time because they’re causing too much trouble with their drugs & sex & hip hop lifestyle. There’s no reason why these people would ever need to do something with their lives as the only job they’ll ever have is wait for the inheritance to manifest itself. That’s also the reason why they’re generally work-shy scum without the remotest resemblance of human decency. XY is a student means the family has more money than he has brains and he has no desire to ever do anything except spending it on legal and illegal short-term pleasures.
Interesting that the wokest are the most likely to be Russell Group. If you were going to systematically capture the establishment then those are the ones you’d focus on because those are the ones most likely to supply the ruling “elite”.
This also answers yesterday’s question about so-called conservatives and the yoof: They don’t much attract them because their political opponents own education and are exploiting this for active recruitment starting from elementary school. It’s presumably also helpful that they offer at least some purpose of life for those seeking one while all the other side has to offer is whining about how fixing potholes on roads they never plan to drive on would be theft and not really being interested in anything but semi-legal tax evasion.
This may be a mock purpose (I’m meanwhile pretty convinced of that), but that’s difficult to see when being the constant subject of ideology-driven brainwashing and under strong peer pressure to conform in order to be allowed to participate in university social life, ie, the drug & alcohol fuelled hunt for suitable sex partners.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/follow-the-science
https://off-guardian.org/2023/01/16/science-blessed-be-thy-name/
I read a comprehensive book on the Middle Ages and it taught me that all things in life are temporary and Woke will go the same way. The “Vast” majority find it amusing apart from both Guardian readers.
Way before “woke” came into use I was shocked at how a young relative had become indoctrinated at school over LGBTQII+++ etc.
The problem was with balance – it was all one-way. And with a fervour bordering extreme.
We need to abandon discriminatory terms like feminist, LGBTQII+++ and the like in favour of “equalitist”. That is a term which covers all without itself being discriminatory as those terms are.
It cannot and should not be all one-way. We all deserve equality of treatment but we cannot all enjoy equality in all things. We are not all equal and we cannot all do the same things as others can.
And there is always a need to balance one set of rights with another and the same applies to responsibilities.
This is just as I espouse freedom of speech alongside freedom from abuse.
Education has been replaced by indoctrination in too many universities.