The pathetic revolt at Durham
by Tom Slater, spiked:
To be a student radical today is to behave like an overgrown infant.
Student radicals aren’t what they used to be. That the Durham University free-speech row has limped into its second week, following threats of rent strikes from students infuriated that Rod Liddle was once allowed to address some of them, is a case in point.
Once students fought to be treated as adults, to speak and protest as they pleased. Some of them even fantasised about playing their part in the overthrow of capitalism. Now they fight tooth and nail to protect their brittle little selves from hurty words.
This strange business in Durham began on Friday 3 December. Liddle – a columnist, humourist and good friend of spiked – had been invited by Professor Tim Luckhurst, principal of South College, to address students at the college’s Christmas formal.
Liddle’s speech was on the importance of tolerance, a point he apparently intended to illustrate by giving the students a bracing run-through of some of his more ‘controversial’ positions – such as that someone in possession of a ‘long, dangling penis’ is a man.
Luckhurst’s intention was clearly to push back against the culture of intolerance that has been brewing on British campuses in recent years. Inviting Liddle, an un-PC national newspaper columnist, is sadly what passes for a provocation these days.
The students did not disappoint. They staged a walkout during the speech. They booed and jeered. All of that was their right, of course. As it was the right of Professor Luckhurst to respond. He reportedly called the protesters ‘pathetic’ as they stormed out.
What happened next was the sinister bit. Students being students is nothing to be surprised by. But the speed with which the university administration reprimanded Luckhurst and capitulated to the feigned outrage of the protesters was stunning.
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