University of Woke
Social justice has replaced education
Welcome to university! First, let’s get you a pronoun badge. Here we are, please pick the one that best represents your gender identity. And while you’re doing that, I’ll just show you this big red button on our brand new app. We’re a really friendly campus but if anyone does anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter how slight - perhaps misgendering you, asking where you’re from or raising an eyebrow - do just hit the button to report a microaggression and we’ll have the situation dealt with pronto. Just below that you’ll find the details of your induction programme. In Week One you’re going to work through our modules on consent, inclusion, diversity and unconscious bias. Got that? Good!Â
Now let’s show you to your room. We go down here, past the empty plinth on your right and up to building 362. It did have a name, I forget what now, but it was removed after students protested about it a few years back. No one could agree on a replacement so we’re sticking with numbers for the time being. Right, here we are. Before I let you in, you’ll need your identity card, a rape alarm and a swipe pass so we can keep you safe by tracking your movements across campus. Enjoy your first week here!
I’ve invented this monologue. But every single thing described is happening in our universities right now. The woke campus makes headlines when particularly outrageous examples of censorship come to light or when over the top punishments are handed out to staff or students who say the wrong thing. More often than not however, woke is taken for granted; it’s so much a part of the campus culture as to be barely noticeable. This essay makes the woke university visible, shows where it came from and why it is a problem.
University of Woke
In the fevered imagination of university administrators, higher education is fundamentally, structurally, systemically and irredeemably racist. At least, there can be no other explanation for so much time and money being committed to anti-racism initiatives. Worse yet, staff and students are not just racist but sexist, homophobic, transphobic and classist. Anarchy would ensue were it not for an endless cycle of workshops, awareness raising campaigns, anonymous reporting systems and institutional policies setting out exactly how staff and students should relate to each other - right down to which words they should use.
At the University of Manchester, staff have been advised not to use terms like ‘mother’ or ‘father’ but instead to use more inclusive and gender neutral words like ‘parent’ or ‘guardian’. Likewise, ‘men’ and ‘women’ should be replaced by ‘individuals’ while ‘manpower’, ‘mankind’ and ‘chairman’, and should be replaced with ‘workforce’, ‘humankind’ and ‘chair’. The University of Edinburgh provides a list of transphobic phrases that academics and students must not say. It includes ‘all women hate their periods’ and ‘you’re either a man or a woman’. In the US, Northwestern University advises that rather than greeting friends with ‘Hey, guys’, people instead say ‘Hey, everyone’. It also issues guidance for ‘socio economic language’ recommending ‘under-resourced’ rather than ‘inner city’ and ‘working hard to make ends meet’ rather than ‘working poor’.
These lists unwittingly reveal what passes as offensive on today’s campuses. Universities are not having to outlaw swear words, racial epithets or gross insults. Staff and students are far too polite and well-intentioned to utter such phrases in public. No; universities are proscribing common words that are part of most people’s everyday vocabulary. Staff employed to write linguistic guides dictate the limits of acceptability according to their own political perspectives. The upshot is that spontaneous interactions are replaced by a stilted deference to the rules. Â
Spontaneous interactions are replaced by a stilted deference to the rules
It’s not just their words that people are expected to monitor and regulate. Personal behaviour, even unconscious actions, can be labelled as ‘microaggressions’ and get you into trouble. Cambridge University hit the headlines after students were encouraged to report any professor who raises an eyebrow, gives backhanded compliments, turns their backs on people, or refers to women as girls. Its Report and Support website permitted anonymity, meaning offence-givers could be accused and investigated while not knowing they had done anything wrong and having no idea as to whom they may have upset.
Fortunately, Cambridge’s plans met with a backlash. Following national publicity, professors launched an ‘open revolt’ over the snitching site. In a signed public letter, they accused the university of trampling on free speech, and denounced the reporting system for fostering a culture ‘akin to that of a police state’. The university subsequently took Report and Support offline saying that some material ‘was included in error’.
But this goes far beyond Cambridge. One in four of the UK’s top universities allows anonymous recording of microaggressions, microinsults and microinvalidations. Durham University lists ‘not giving someone eye contact’ and ‘constantly criticising and never praising’ as examples of behaviour worthy of investigation.
We might assume that when insults are so ‘micro’ as to be barely perceptible, students have little to worry about. Or we might think they should be encouraged to give the offender the benefit of the doubt or even - whisper it - strike up a conversation and explain why they are upset. But no. On the woke campus, anonymous reporting is the order of the day. Meanwhile, students who are not suitably offended by a raised eyebrow are given training in the sin of unconscious bias and taught to see themselves as too vulnerable ever to risk an off-the-cuff conversation. Meanwhile professors - particularly the older, paler, male variety - are fair game for being disciplined off the back of anonymous and potentially groundless accusations.
‘Not giving someone eye contact’, and ‘constantly criticising and never praising’ are examples of behaviour worthy of investigation
At the University of Woke, people are either vulnerable, oppressed and offended; or bigots, blasphemers and heretics. Of course, no one gets to choose which side they are on. Roles are allotted based on ‘immutable characteristics’ such as skin colour, gender identity and sexuality. Those who transgress are brought in line through practices like issuing ‘trigger warnings’ at the start of lectures.