June 11, 2021 - 11:50am
During the First World War, the philosopher Bertrand Russell was an outspoken and defiant pacifist. In 1916, he was prosecuted for “making statements likely to prejudice the recruiting discipline of His Majesty’s forces”. This led to his dismissal from Trinity College, and prevented him from taking up an appointment at Harvard. Then in 1918, he was sentenced to six months in prison for writing an article that criticised the US Army.
Though Russell later said that he “found prison in many ways quite agreeable”, the man clearly paid a cost for his anti-war activism. The same cannot be said of today’s academic activists, who prefer to shift the costs of their activism onto others.
On Wednesday, The Telegraph reported that more than 150 Oxford dons are boycotting Oriel College as a protest against its decision to keep the statue of Cecil Rhodes. The academics say that “until Oriel makes a credible public commitment to remove the statue”, they will refuse to teach Oriel undergraduates, refuse to assist the college in its outreach work, and refuse to attend lectures sponsored by the college.
In other words, they are withholding educational resources from Oriel students because of a decision made by the institution to which those students belong. Note: this is more-or-less what the United States does when it put sanctions on intransigent regimes (i.e., it imposes costs on the people of those countries because of decisions taken by their leaders). Quite ironic for the Oxford dons to have adopted the tactics of a “neocolonial” power.
Of course, given the academics’ juvenile behaviour, one may question how valuable the withheld educational resources really are. (Perhaps the boycott will be a boon for Oriel students.) But more importantly, is there any personal cost to those involved?
In fact, by remaining in their positions, they’re arguably legitimising the Rhodes statue. Surely someone who truly wished to “eradicate racism and address the ongoing effects of colonialism” would refuse to work at any university that glorified such an individual?
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SubscribeThe academics say that “until Oriel makes a credible public commitment to remove the statue”, they will refuse to teach Oriel undergraduates, refuse to assist the college in its outreach work, and refuse to attend lectures sponsored by the college.
So, what do their contracts of employment look like? Can they just be sacked? I hear every day that there aren’t enough jobs for graduates so they should be able to fill the vacancies easily enough.
If these 150 intolerant academics are unhappy they should leave or else be fired. Fight back. Start taking names. Their ultimatum should not be seriously considered.
Of course they’d never resign because they’d then be forced to make a living in the real world. Far easier to sponge off the brand that they are rapidly devaluing.
Oxford university should compensate the boycotted fee-paying students with deductions from the boycotters’ salaries.
Impeccable logic. Will these 150 academics take a principled stand, or confine themselves to gesture politics as a sop to their conscience? I think we all know the answer.
I would have thought they could all be summarily dismissed for bringing the university into disrepute.
Because Wokeness has no goals, the establishment is very comfortable espousing it. That keeps the Woke staff happy, but makes wokeness a parasite, dependent on the survival of its host.
As Peter Franklin wrote here yesterday, “Wokeness would be nothing without its influence over the institutions of a society it despises. It is therefore in no position to dismantle anything.”
That reliance makes Wokeness the enforcer of the big against the small, the corporation against the individual, the university against the students, the status quo against the dissenter.
In the end Wokeness — and the woke Oxford faculty — cares only about itself.
In a swift response, a modest proposal: we give the Dons a fair hanging and a trial.
They care more about a statue than they care about their students. They can and should be replaced.
Having had various run-ins with administration systems during Covid, my phrase for the summer is ‘logical … but stupid’.
It seems to have infected most of academia and the public sector. A self-consistent idea that in its own little narrative bubble looks logical, but becomes a laughing stock when it runs into reality of edge-cases, trade-offs, downstream consequences, competing views and plain real life. Huge amounts of British comedy used to take the michael out of “logical … but stupid” bureaucracies and the too-clever-for-his-own-good brigade.
My thoughts entirely.
Why on earth are they not cancelling each other for the “utter disgrace” of working for such as organisation.
contemptible hypocrites.
Surely these dons are engaged in unofficial industrial action which exposes them to the risk of fair dismissal? The nature of the dispute is such that it could never be made official and thereby gain immunity from retaliatory action by the employer because it doesn’t qualify as a trade dispute.
Hi Noah, on the subject of academic shenanigans was there ever any update on how you used the funds raised (to which I contributed) for your own case defence?
Hi David, there is a final update here. And I donated the money that was left over in my crowdfund to Will Knowland.
Thanks- I don’t tweet so hadn’t seen that.
The comparison you make is irrelevant. Russell didn’t resign he was dismissed, if he had not been he would, presumably have kept his fellowship. So you can hardly use him as an example of someone making a sacrifice that others should follow