No one expects institutions particularly universities, their lecturers and students to be rigidly conformist.
Indeed, university offers the time and space for students to explore different intellectual arguments and try on political positions for size.
My old college Magdalen, which now finds itself at the centre of a furious row over a portrait of the Queen, has been extremely radical in its long history and often fomented national debate.
In 1687, the Fellows of the College took on the king himself, James II. The college president had died and James II twice tried to force the Fellows to accept his choice of a replacement. When they refused, James II demanded they be expelled. The king s behaviour sparked outrage across the country and the Fellows became heroes.
A taxpayer-funded academic has labelled the Queen the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world .
Professor Kehinde Andrews, a campaigner who is regularly wheeled out on TV debates to air his divisive views, today said he did not know why it s such a big deal Oxford University students voted to take down a picture of the Queen from their common room.
The professor of black studies at Birmingham City University - where senior lecturers receive an average base salary of £46,000 - has previously branded whiteness a psychosis , called for the overthrow of genocidal capitalism and repeatedly compared Sir Winston Churchill to Adolf Hitler.
Matthew Katzman grew up in privilege in Bethesda, Maryland, a rich suburb of DC where he attended school with the Obama daughters, the Biden grandchildren and other politicians kids
Minorities of woke students now govern our universities
Having foolish demands rejected should be part of a university education – but, alas, this is a lesson on which students are missing out
9 June 2021 • 12:00pm
Let’s be honest: how many of us really care what paintings hang in the common rooms of Magdalen College, Oxford? I have no more right to object to the college’s interior décor than the President of Magdalen has the right to snoop through my windows and object to my somewhat uncoordinated wall hangings (which, I have to admit, do not include a likeness of any member of the Royal family).