Universities
Will my kitchen be designated a ‘safe space’?
As the father of four children who will be entering higher education in the next few years, I’m worried that…
The culture wars have crept into Oxbridge admissions
The negative discrimination of Oxbridge admissions
America has betrayed its young
Two articles last weekend made me feel sorry for American young people. We in the anti-woke brigade can be awfully…
Durham’s maths problem
More exciting news arrives from Britain’s dimmest university, Durham, which is embarking on a programme to ‘decolonise’ mathematics. About time.…
Why don't I come with a trigger warning?
Last week brought the news that some universities have attached more ‘trigger warnings’ to certain books, concerned that students may…
The mind virus killing academia
We lost a giant last month with E.O. Wilson’s passing. A man who stood on Darwin’s shoulders, Wilson had that…
Some (tentative) reasons to be cheerful in 2022
Someone sent me a job advert recently for a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen’s College, Oxford. It states: ‘The Queen’s…
My meeting with the Durham University mob
My abiding memory of this fairly appalling year is of the face of the young student at Durham University who…
Why liberals must stand with Kathleen Stock
I know what it feels like to be bullied and vilified for expressing views with which, eventually, many right-minded people…
How the culture wars are killing Western classical music
Ian Pace on musicology’s culture wars
The rise and rise of hate hoaxing
Last week, some racist graffiti was found at Parkway North and Parkway Central schools in the Midwest American state of…
America’s campus culture wars come for St Andrews
The University of St Andrews has been keen on American imports for some time. Americans make up 16 per cent…
When will exams get back to normal?
It wouldn’t be credible to say that this year’s A-Levels grades are comparable with 2019’s: almost 45 per cent of entries…
A culture of fear has taken over at Edinburgh university
It is undeniable that the University of Edinburgh is the jewel in the crown of Scotland’s higher education system. Among…
The problem with decolonising Shakespeare
Scarcely a day passes without a major British institution announcing it is ‘decolonising’ itself. Most recently it was the turn…
Why universities are bad for the arts
Members of the arts establishment have spent the past week outraged, following news that for the upcoming academic year funding…
Do spelling and grammar still matter?
Some universities have announced that spelling and grammar (i.e. morphology and syntax) are not all that important, but quality of…
In defence of Flannery O’Connor
I have a thought for the students of Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland: this Easter, why not resurrect Flannery O’Connor?…
University challenge: conservatives are now the radicals on campus
Conservatives are now the radicals on campus
The secret code of the ruling class
I naively hoped that last year’s statement by the Equalities Minister explaining why unconscious bias training was being phased out…
My advice for the next ‘free speech champion’
I was delighted to hear the government plans to appoint a ‘free speech champion’ to the board of the Office…
Of course there's a free speech crisis on campus
A free speech crisis on campus? Apparently, it’s a myth, concocted by right-wing commentators and latched on to by a…
Where would politics be without fighting talk?
‘Tencent Wykeham’ has a ring to it. It captures how easily British universities can be bought. It is the new…
How to be ‘liberal’, according to the ancients
Certain parts of academia seem to wish to turn the study of classics away from a historical, language- and evidence-based…
It isn’t always easy to give money away
I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach…
