UK Edition
Cambridge University discriminates against white, conservative men, academic claims
Cambridge University is guilty of discrimination against white, conservative men, an academic has claimed.
Professor Nigel Biggar, whose study on the legacy of colonialism was the subject of protest by fellow academics, said that the institution has done “serious damage” to its reputation and to intellectual freedom by its recent actions.
Writing in the Oxford Magazine, Prof Biggar compared the university’s handling of Professor Jordan Peterson with that of one of its own academics, Dr Priyamvada Gopal.
Prof Peterson, a controversial Canadian psychologist who was briefly awarded a visiting fellowship by Cambridge before having it rescinded earlier this year, was treated in a “grossly discourteous” and “humiliating” way by the university, Prof Biggar said.
Prof Peterson, who styles himself as the "professor against political correctness", came under fire for posing in a photograph next to a man in a shirt with the slogan "proud Islamaphobe".
He has argued for enforced monogamy, pushed the view that men are victims of gender discrimination, and said that the idea of white privilege is a “Marxist lie.”
Prof Biggar explained how when he complained to the Master of Churchill College about Dr Gopal attacking his Ethics and Empire project on social media, they stood by her right to make such remarks.
He said that comparing the two episodes shows that Cambridge “does in fact discriminate on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all morals and politics”.
He said: “If you’re non-white, female, and aggressively ‘woke’, then you’ll be accorded maximal benefit of doubt, given a pass on official norms of civility, and let free to spit hatred and contempt on social media.
“However, if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt about prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all.
“And, should you do so much as appear to transgress ill-conceived norms of inclusiveness, you’ll be summarily and rudely excluded.”
A Cambridge University spokesman said: “We recognise Nigel Biggar’s right to hold views on Cambridge in relation to discrimination against white, male, conservative men, which are claims which we refute utterly.” Dr Gopal said “how very tedious”.
Academics launched a vociferous attack on him after he suggested that people should have “pride” about aspects of their imperialist past.
He said that the history of the British Empire was "morally mixed" and that "just like that of any nation state, then pride can temper shame"