October 6, 2021 - 11:00am
None of my peers at the University of St Andrews were surprised to see the re-emergence of a compulsory “Diversity Training” module this year.
Last year, we had to complete mandatory “Consent Training” and “Training in Environmental Sustainability Action” modules to matriculate as students. We were also tasked with a “Student Diversity Online Training” module — though it was taken down following complaints from some students that it was, among other things, “bad”, “half assed” and “slightly not okay”.
Although the failure of this first attempt at a diversity module proved that ideas about what equality and diversity are not universal, there remained a strong desire among the student body for a replacement. This is likely because we have the largest proportion of American students of any British university. Through them, and intensified by social media, American-style campus movements such as Black Lives Matter appear in the form of an enthusiastic and energetic activism, much of which occurs online.
The summer of 2020 also saw the creation of of “St Andrews Survivors“, an Instagram page that revealed hundreds of harrowing stories of sexual harassment and abuse. In response, the University attempted to address the issue of sexual harassment on campus, of which the introduction of a compulsory module on consent played a small part.
Ultimately though, these compulsory modules do not amount to anything except a token effort to address a problem whose solution is far more complicated than an eighteen-question quiz.
This is especially the case for the “Diversity Training” module, which was patronisingly easy to complete. The yes/no format could be finished within five minutes, without the need for the reams of attached information. This was also true of the “Consent Training” module.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe‘This is likely because we have the largest proportion of American students of any British university. ‘
Someone ought to remind the American students that they are now in the UK, and that they should keep their particular neuroses to themselves.
Indeed. By imposing the American Culture War on the rest of the world, these American students have become the colonialists of today. St Andrew’s could decolonize its curriculum by sending these mandatory modules back across the Atlantic.
In the lifetime of many of us (1967) it was a criminal offence in many of the states of the US for people of different “races” to have sex and marry. This has never been the case in the UK. As a result people from the US have a weird attitude to inter-racial relations and are desperate to overcompensate for past attitudes. We should kick out the current US racist attitudes which are an odd inversion of their previous barmy ideas – but still racist.
Brits may feel free to disregard them too, you know. You don’t *have* to indulge them.
The problem, perhaps so acute in St Andrews, is that the University has granted the wishes of students without whose income it would face severe financial difficulties.
The root of the problem is really with the UK Governments of Blair/Brown/Cameron and the posturing of Salmond and Sturgeon in Scotland. Scottish students pay no fees in Scotland, but their numbers are capped; until Brexit, EU undergraduates also went for free (at considerable cost to Scottish taxpayers). So, elite universities have gone on a campaign to recruit rich overseas (non EU) students. Other UK countries are less attractive as their fees are capped at ca. £9k.
These students now appear to be influencing how the university is run from the position of a high value customer.
It’s saddening to see the ideological poison of American universities seeping across the Atlantic.
The core of these ideologies is identity politics. It runs thus contrary to the most basic principles of humanism which underpin Enlightenment values. It degrades the individual and robs us of our sense of free will.
I keep asking myself who is in charge at a University, the student body or the University? In the long run, students will lose respect for a university that gives in every time someone cries social injustice. Universities that do not show leadership and guidance have lost sight of their responsibility, which is to educate future generations to be able to work and survive in a very tough business world.
The same rubbish is ubiquitous in business now.
Both the administration and the students themselves consider the latter to be customers. That is, I think, a large part of the problem.
From 1672 to 1854 anyone wanting to be fully accepted in the ruling class had to sign up to the 39 Articles of Religion. No doubt there were many back then who ticked the boxes without really believeing, but it had a suffocating effect on public life. It seems that St Andrews is aiming for a place in history by defining the articles of the newly emerging religion.
Whilst I agree that the mandatory nature of this “trainings” is not on, these things are actually pathetic. Multiple choice questions and answers tests can be done simply by clicking randomly until you hit the required combination. I recently had to do about 8 hours of these in order to do some work for a drug company and got so bored I just clicked away at it like a bad game of click a brick. I can’t remember much of it at all other than a few bits about not bribing doctors.
And I agree with the university, these “trainings” (ridiculous word) are demanded by people. They get cheap useless rubbish because there are only cheap useless rubbish people making up the stupid stuff and no one with a brain cares what’s in it.
“…though it was taken down following complaints from some students that it was, among other things, ‘bad’, ‘half assed’ and ‘slightly not okay’.”
Before we can even get to the issue of diversity tests, we need to urgently address the question of why we have students enrolled in one of the most prestigious universities in the land who actually write things like “half assed” and “slightly not okay”.
Because they pay.@And in foreign currency, too.
A commentator here the other day compared all this to Calvinism. It sounds to me more like Catholicism, as most cynically practised. Go to confession, admit you’re a sinner, say the right form of words, get absolution, and on you go regardless. Here absolution = matriculation. Tokenistic indeed.
Not the same. Going to confession is still your choice. Not going won’t affect your career or earning potential.
You’re right. That’s because Catholicism isn’t a theocracy, unlike the new orthodoxy.
I certainly see Wokeism as a religious phenomenon.
You make a good point, but the essence of all Christianity (and to a large extent, Judaism) involves FORGIVENESS. We are to forgive each other endlessly, and through Christ we are graced with a perfect forgiveness.
The essence of woke is extremely unforgiving. You may or may not be forgiven a transgression regardless of any atonement or amends you make. There are also “sins” which are never actually forgiven, such as being white or otherwise privileged. Wokeness is also diametrically opposed to Christianity/original sin in that those who are classified as oppressed victims are viewed as something like angels, incapable of truly sinning.
Wokeism is a false religion, an inversion of Christianity. It preaches hatred and immorality.
Yes, but what is the point of your quoting various bits of the Bible? Most of us do not adhere to it, I could not care less what an ancient text, full by the way of made up events (aka ‘lies’), has to say about anything. It will in any case have absolutely zero impact on this political and cultural debate.
Just asserting that Christianity is true – all religions claim the same – doesn’t get us anywhere.
It’s a beautiful book with a message for the ages. The Old Testament served as a blueprint on how to build a healthy society during a time when most cultures were evil or insane. The living proof of this are still around, 4000 years later, despite the fact that many powerful tribes, empires, and nations tried to exterminate them.
The New Testament taught us how to act toward others and extend Grace to those who were born with very little. The warnings in both testaments are very clear and not simply dished out arbitrarily. They come from the lived experience of the people living in those times, and although they are open to interpretation, I would hesitate to call them lies as that suggests intent to deceive, which I don’t believe is the case here.
It’s easy to dismiss all this when you live comfortably, but most of your comfort is derived from the fruits of Judaeo-Christian religion and history. Saying it’s irrelevant is like a fish saying water is irrelevant. If we do away with our Christian foundations, we are left to the mercies and morality of the rich and powerful, most of whom seek to deceive, control, and make profit from us. Judging by the evidence of the times we live in, when we stopped believing in God, we started to believe in everything.
You have missed out penance, which involves some sort of action , even if ‘only’ on the spiritual plane. These tick box exercises have no sincerity, and they do not result in any improvement, either of the sinner , or for the sinned against.
Yes, I did miss out penance. I was talking about cynical use of the confessional, in which genuine penance is absent. This is analogous to the tick-box ‘absolution’ offered by St Andrews. The difference is that the confessional, when working properly, provides liberation from the weight of sin, while St Andrews rubs your nose in it (even if there is none).
No. No one has to go to confession. It’s entirely up to them. No one is keeping track.
Also no: in Catholicism all are sinners. In woke-ism there are oppressors and there are their victims.
And, as with Catholicism, go away and commit all the sins again?
Until we recognize that training and education are polar opposites, this stuff will never end.
I don’t want to suggest that the students who pushed for such modules are bad-intentioned, but they are misguided in their efforts.
I do want to suggest that they are bad-intentioned, in fact, I’ll go further and say that they are malign, evil c….Where did they get their playbook from? Mao’s Cultural Revolution? Vietnamese re-education camps?
Normal people are subject to cancellation everywhere for minor indiscretions that are often not even indiscretions at all. These people–those who would take away our rights, our free speech, or way of life–are evil and must be resisted at every opportunity. This is not a respectful disagreement where reasonable minds can differ, this is war. They must be called out with personal attacks, personal destruction, even–fighting fire with fire.
Can we stop fighting the culture war with our hands tied behind our backs, please? Time for the gloves to come off!
I’m a Yank and the US is heading for Civil War. I don’t exactly welcome it, but I see it as inevitable. No one should be forced to live in a country where half his fellow citizens do not share even the most basic common values and the woke half attempts to impose their “woke” values on the non-woke. Civil War soon. Lock and load!
Bad intentioned? F fs. Whatever happened to the perfectly useful expression “mal-intentioned”, which has the advantage of being elegant and correct?
Ill-intentioned is correct.
Did the photo (?of St Andrews’ graduates?) make anyone else think of The Handmaid’s Tale? A tale for our times it seems…
Yes, it did.
I was going to post something similar, except that it made me think of Squid Game.
People are getting paid for this legalised corruption.
Find out who and how and how much , expose them and depose them
Thank you, George, for this report. Perhaps St. Andrews students should be required to play a round of golf with a bona fide minority person. By the the time they walk through 18 holes together, they’ll be jolly good fellows/femmes.
Good idea, but the likelihood is that this could take 6 or 7 hours.
The key issue, I think, is that students who disagree (or question) the terms in which ‘diversity’ is being defined can’t matriculate. Of course they can lie about it and just tick the box. But what sort of university system is it that requires students to lie at the moment they arrive? If they are honest they can’t study at the university. And that’s true even if they are accepting of the LGBTQ+ agenda, but worry about the coherence of the way in which the question is framed. Surely this violates multiple elements of the European Human Rights Convention – including freedom of expression and freedom of religion? Why is nobody mounting a court challenge?
The key issue, I think, is that students who disagree (or question) the terms in which ‘diversity’ is being defined can’t matriculate. Of course they can lie about it and just tick the box. But what sort of university system is it that requires students to lie at the moment they arrive? If they are honest they can’t study at the university. And that’s true even if they are accepting of the LGBTQ+ agenda, but worry about the coherence of the way in which the question is framed. Surely this violates multiple elements of the European Human Rights Convention – including freedom of expression and freedom of religion? Why is nobody mounting a court challenge?
So, rather than students requesting this (other than the usual activist cohort, which also appears to be from the USA), as the University claims, many actually expressed a great dislike to it and rejected it. So students were made to sit it again the next year and give the right answer; and were told that they themselves mandated it???
Sound familiar to anyone?
I’m also assuming that ‘George Smith’ is a pseudonym, much as how articles from junior doctors use a shared nom-de-plume here. If so, That he or she feels the need for this is utterly chilling.
I am not an expert on Scots law but I suspect that a compulsory belief test of this sort, I.e. as a condition precedent for matriculation, would be unlawful in the rest of the UK.
“Acknowledging your personal guilt is a useful start point in overcoming unconscious bias”. Wow, this is verging on the worst parts of Free Presbyterian and Catholic belief, that we are born and remain sinners.
I am a diversity consultant and this kind of training is giving the whole industry a bad name. Small discussion groups are the best way of discussing complex and personal issues but they are timely and expensive and this is just a box ticking exercise.
If you are indeed a “diversity consultant,” you are part of the problem, as is the whole industry. Your exist to blackmail others, make them feel guilty about the supposed sins of the fathers and various and sundry other crimes. In the USA before wokeness, people like you were called “poverty pimps,” now the range has expanded.
I fancy to say that you make a good living off this wokeness, and your professional existence, as well as that of your industry, is simply disgusting.
I think you need to check the meaning of the word industry. Unless that now means the complete opposite too.
I sense prejudice in the negative responses to this comment, most likely based entirely on “I am a diversity consultant” rather than the comment itself. UnHerd cannot succeed if its commentators are a herd. The response by James Joyce is depressing.
I’d like to hear your take on diversity training in general as I am sceptical of its value to society. Perhaps you could write a piece for unherd?