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Student calls out ‘racism’ at Cambridge in PhD withdrawal letter
The University of Cambridge is making headlines this week after a PhD student publicly announced she was withdrawing from her studies due to the racism she says she witnessed.
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Cambridge dodged a bullet getting rid of this loon. It this woman cannot see the irony in a privileged white woman claiming to have the authority to set the rules about the use of racially-charged terminology, then she deserves to never find another PhD position. By her logic, she has no greater right to set the terms of the discussion than the white lecturer she criticises.
Her entire argument is ridiculous. To say that a literature professor reading a quote from, say, “Huckleberry Finn” should have to censor the words of the text when Huck uses the word “n—–” is ludicrous. Her PhD might be related to literature, but she apparently has never read “1984”.
As for the Ghanaian speaker, if Cambridge was so racist, then they would not have invited Ampfofo to give the annual lecture in the first place. But that level of logic is obviously beyond this woman’s reach.
The university as an institution is over if instructors are to be expected to self-censor and ignore the primary materials whenever a challenging concept is up for discussion. The free exchange of ideas should not be sacrificed to safe spaces. And voluntarily dropping “confronting” topics certainly is not doing our students any favours. A student too fragile to handle opposing viewpoints will have a hell of a time once they start their first job.
I am afraid that I hold different opinion from the previous comments. First, Take racial name-calling and jokes is certainly a form of racism. If you have read her initial post, you would realise it is not about a lecturer reading a quote, but use the term repeatedly even after some students protested. If a lecturer has to use such words in a classroom, at least, he/she can take effort to acknowledge the potential misinterpretation. Instead, Cambridge could not even be bothered to take such action.
Second. there are other issues at Cambridge and this student had tried multiple avenues to address to no avail, and took the action of quitting as her protest. She was brave to do so as she will certainly offend someone in her research area, and she put her conscious ahead of her personal gain.
This is not about the university expecting instructors to be self-censored, but about university acknowledging cultural diversity of students and treat everyone in the classroom in a respectful way.