Edinburgh University accused of bias against ‘non-black' students

Times

5 days ago

Edinburgh University has been accused of discriminating against 'non-black students' by whistleblowers, after a race report recommended more scholarships for ethnic minority groups.
The group, identifying as academics from the institution, said evidence showed that white working-class boys were least likely to enjoy higher education as they hit back at a race review commissioned by university management.
Sir Tom Devine, an historian and emeritus Edinburgh University professor, also said the findings of the review were not 'intellectually credible' and described the university principal's deep apology for the institution's links to slavery and colonialism as 'a rush to judgment'.
'This report has the very real potential to damage the university's historic reputation when it is already experiencing criticisms over its financial management,' he said.
'Therefore, crucially, careful consideration of the review's controversial content should first have been considered by acknowledged representatives of the university community and not confined only to the principal and his coterie before any major public statements were made.'
The Race Review was ordered in 2021 by university leaders after the Black Lives Matter movement emerged.
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Its findings, made public this week, include 47 recommendations such as renaming buildings and the creation of scholarship programmes to support students from underrepresented ethnic groups at undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral level.
In response, the university has promised to take a series of actions including boosting scholarship opportunities.
A statement, issued by a group calling itself Edinburgh Academics 4 Free Speech, and which is said to represent 130 staff, said: 'The University already discriminates against non-black students by allowing race-based scholarships.'
They cited the Andrea Levy Scholarship, in memory of the novelist, which is directed at those with a black African or Caribbean background.
The statement continued: 'The university, in today's response, appears to be committed to increasing the level of scholarships which are based purely on skin colour.
'Many colleagues have raised concerns directly with [university principal] Professor Mathieson, arguing that as an evidence-based organisation which should use empirical data to inform its policies, the university should be funding those students which research shows are most excluded from higher education.
'Countless studies have shown that white working-class boys remain the most academically disadvantaged group in the UK.'
The group highlighted UK education department statistics showing university participation grew 21 per cent faster for Asian students and 17 per cent faster for black students compared with white students, adding: 'In choosing to ignore this overwhelming evidence, the University of Edinburgh is going against the very basis of academic rigour: evidence-based decisions.'
Mathieson described the publication of the review as a 'landmark moment'. It found that one of Edinburgh's celebrated moral philosophers and mathematicians, Dugald Stewart, taught thousands of students that white Europeans were racially superior.
The university's role as the seat of Scottish enlightenment is also reconsidered. It says: 'The University of Edinburgh was a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism, such as the idea that Africans were inferior to whites and that non-white peoples could be colonised for the profit of European nations.'
Devine, who edited a book detailing Scottish connections to the slave trade and the wealth it generated, warned the review 'crudely imposes early 21st-century values on the pre-1900 past'.
'The report gives the impression that Edinburgh was the centre for racist thought,' he added. 'Yet such views were commonplace not only among university thinkers and informed members of the public in the 19th century throughout Europe and North America.
'Only by situating Edinburgh in an international academic comparative context of analysis could rigorous conclusions be drawn. This was not done or even hinted at.'
The report describes the university as 'a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism'
ALAMY
In taking forward recommendations, including the renaming of buildings, he called for the university senate and court to be fully informed and the wider views of the university community to be considered.
The Academics 4 Free Speech statement said its members needed to remain anonymous. It flagged the case of Neil Thin, a senior tutor who was falsely accused of being racist after opposing the renaming of the David Hume Tower owing to slavery connections.
Fiona McClement, the university's equality, diversity and inclusion lead and co-leader of the Race Review Response Group, said: 'We want to ensure that are a welcoming and nurturing environment in which all members of our community feel a sense of belonging, and can flourish and succeed without facing unjust racialised barriers.'