The week in higher education – 21 July 2022

The University of Winchester’s decision to warn English literature students about the “racism” and “domestic violence” contained in Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello has led to fresh criticisms over the “infantilising” of young people, The Daily Telegraph reported. “Students don’t need protection from ideas that they might find difficult or offensive,” said free speech champion Dennis Hayes on the trigger warnings attached to the Bard’s 1603 masterpiece, which Winchester warned “might be difficult” for some students to read given their experience of similar themes. Other classic texts highlighted as potentially traumatising for undergraduates include Christopher Marlow’s 1589 play The Jew of Malta, which contains racism, John Donne’s sonnets that allude to rape and Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story The Gold Bug that features a “racial stereotyped depiction” of an African American character. English literature purists may be more outraged to know that Stephen King’s schlocky horror novel Salem’s Lot is on university reading lists at all, let alone that it features “discriminatory language pertaining to gender and sexuality (homophobia)”.

The Sun was once again on its hobby horse of student snowflakery, reporting that “woke university bosses” at the University of Manchester “have banned students from using the words brother and sister – and even mum and dad”. “Husband and wife are also discouraged so as not to offend anyone, with partner being the preferred term instead,” said the tabloid, which highlighted the -university’s inclusive language guide as part of its “Wokeipedia” campaign to call out “PC poppycock”. The fact that the gender-inclusive terminology guide was first highlighted back in March 2021 didn’t seem to blunt the newspaper’s attack on the university’s woke policies. News that a record 193 speakers were cancelled from speaking on campus in 2020-21 may, however, constitute stronger evidence that the politically correct brigade are running the show. But the fact that more than three-quarters of these were nixed for dull procedural reasons of not complying with rules and regulations, according to the Office for Students’ figures, may suggest the supposed no-platforming epidemic isn’t quite as bad as many think.

Poor turnout for classes can test the most motivated of teachers but an assistant professor in India was so despairing about absent students that he has tried to return two years’ worth of salary to his institution. Lallan Kumar, who teaches Hindi at Nitishwar College in the north Indian state of Bihar, tried to hand back Rs 23,80,000 (£25,108) and said he fears “academic death” unless he is transferred to a different college in the state, according to the Independent. The college reportedly declined Professor Kumar’s munificent gesture and disputed his claim that no students had turned up for his classes, blaming any attendance issues on pandemic disruption. The college professor also alleged his name was left off a transfer list several times, prompting his principal, Manoj Kumar, to tell the local NDTV station that Professor Kumar “should have told me directly if he wanted a transfer”. The despondent teacher has promised that he will continue his protest if his cheque to the college’s parent Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University is not accepted.

Faculty diversity remains high on the agenda at many US colleges and universities, but few have considered whether they need more conservatism. A recent survey carried out by the Harvard Crimson newspaper found that more than 80 per cent of staff at the Ivy League institution identify as having either “liberal” or “very liberal” political views. Only a quarter said that the university should hire more conservative professors to redress the imbalance, with almost a third opposed to such diversity hires. Resistance comes despite a leftward drift; last year’s survey found the proportion identifying as “very liberal” was almost 8 per cent lower. In contrast, the number calling themselves conservative has fallen by 1 per cent compared with last year, coming in at a measly 1.45 per cent. The most ideologically endangered segment, those that are “very conservative”, has dropped from 0.4 per cent to zero. Looking at last year’s findings, the newspaper said the university had made “a concerted effort across the past decade to promote gender and racial diversity among its faculty” but had not made any explicit attempts to straighten its ideological skew.