Jonathan Emmesedi>> Universities are large publicly subsidised institutions, as vulnerable to self-perpetuating cycles of dysfunction as any other. It is reckless to think they will course-correct under their own momentum.....Unless and until academics identify a specific, realistic mechanism for their own regulation, any complaints about externally imposed reforms have little credibility.<<
Although the authors rightly draw attention to a real problem of ideological conformism in some humanities departments, the cure they seem to be proposing, government interference in the content of humanities research and education in the name of "accountability", would be far worse than the disease, as it would signal the end of academic freedom in UK higher education.
The authors do not help their case by sprinkling it with irrelevant right wing talking points; for example, student campaigning against the Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford, far from representing a suffocating "wokery", was actually part of a vigorous and healthy public debate about British imperial history and public art. Isn't that just the kind of public debate humanities academics should welcome?
