by Andrew Gilligan, Spectator
Students in at least one college of Cambridge University will be forced to take mandatory ‘inclusivity training’ from the start of the new term next week, The Spectator has learned.
The 90-minute sessions are being delivered by Stop Hate UK. This group has published a video demanding that university students must always display ‘positive attitudes’ and ‘use respectful and kind language that will not cause harm or offence.’ Its training syllabus for ‘educational settings’ tells students that their right to free speech should be ‘restricted by other duties, responsibilities, and legislative and contractual obligations’ and teaches them how ‘opinions, attitudes and prejudice are influenced and shaped by unconscious bias, media bias, fake news, etc.’
The hostility to free speech and the strictures about kindness and offence, in an institution supposedly about free intellectual enquiry, are ominous enough. It is a further sign of Cambridge’s intellectual decline that, if this syllabus is followed, among the first things its students will be taught is a concept, ‘unconscious bias,’ which has neither scientific validity nor empirical evidence of its effectiveness. As a UK government report found, ‘evidence that [unconscious bias] training content and techniques “works” is lacking’ and such interventions ‘do not seem to be effective at improving diversity outcomes within workplaces.’ Most of the evidence used to justify it ‘did not use valid measures of behaviour change’ and there was even ‘potential for back-firing effects.’
Stop Hate UK has also claimed that ‘Islamophobia is a crime,’ which is untrue. It will be interesting to know if the organisation will be able to peddle this direct lie to Cambridge students.