The rise of woke segregationism
by Joanna Williams, spiked:
Segregation is back, only this time it’s woke. Incredibly, while most of us look at Apartheid South Africa or Jim Crow-era America with unalloyed horror, today’s radicals see something to emulate. Not so long ago, the idea of a university that took account of race when considering student admissions, academic hires and even the content of the curriculum would have been thought abhorrent in the UK; now just such a plan is backed by the University College Union (UCU) and the National Union of Students.
The idea for a Free Black University is the brainchild of Melz Owusu, soon to be PhD student at the University of Cambridge and former sabbatical officer at the University of Leeds. After launching a GoFundMe campaign Owusu is now calling on universities to ‘redistribute’ money her way. The plan is for an institution focused solely on the needs of black students with a decolonised curriculum taught through online lectures ‘exploring radical and transformational topics’ together with a virtual library of radical readings; a journal and podcast as well as an annual conference for black radical thinkers. All of this is needed, Owusu argues, because existing universities are ‘built on colonisation – the money, buildings, architecture – everything is colonial’. The consequence for black students is that: ‘They fail. They experience racism all the time and the university doesn’t necessarily deal with that in the best way, or deal with it at all.’
But is this true?