Teh One Who Knocks
01-16-2017, 01:33 PM
By Anna Rhodes -Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/NnrWPpRh.jpg
Students at a top British university have attacked white staff, claiming they are incapable of teaching black students properly.
A scathing report from the students’ union at SOAS, a renowned institution in London, accused staff of unconscious racism and complained about “60-year-old white men” being tutors.
A 46-page report – entitled “Degrees of Racism” – said that BME students are affected by “racial exclusion and discrimination in… learning and teaching.”
(SOAS students are pictured above at an unrelated protest)
It renewed complaints that the school has a “white curriculum”, that non-white students are “excluded” from classroom discussions and said teachers had made “explicitly racist comments”.
One section said: “when one or more of these three (authors on reading lists, teachers, and students dominating class discussions) were predominantly white, it sent an implicit message as to whose perspectives mattered, and whom the course [in question] was for” and this overarching “whiteness” felt “othering”, “alienating” and “erasing” for students.
It continued: “Non-white students were comparatively less likely than their peers to be able to access the advantages of cultural familiarity with their tutor” and that “some felt it unrealistic to expect their white tutors to be able to empathise with their problems.”
Comments relating to this by students included the criticism that “most teachers come from privileged backgrounds which (some) BME students can’t relate to.”
It concluded by demanding that “unconscious bias” workshops are introduced for staff, and that SOAS write and publish research papers on its “colonial legacy”.
The report came under intense criticism from academics, with the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, Sir Anthony Seldon, telling The Sunday Times “White people can’t teach BME students? Really? I think this claim is unfair and untrue and disrespectful to universities and members of staff.”
The union’s latest statement comes soon after philosophy students at SOAS insisted that white philosophers be excised from the curriculum, and only studied if strictly necessary.
http://i.imgur.com/NnrWPpRh.jpg
Students at a top British university have attacked white staff, claiming they are incapable of teaching black students properly.
A scathing report from the students’ union at SOAS, a renowned institution in London, accused staff of unconscious racism and complained about “60-year-old white men” being tutors.
A 46-page report – entitled “Degrees of Racism” – said that BME students are affected by “racial exclusion and discrimination in… learning and teaching.”
(SOAS students are pictured above at an unrelated protest)
It renewed complaints that the school has a “white curriculum”, that non-white students are “excluded” from classroom discussions and said teachers had made “explicitly racist comments”.
One section said: “when one or more of these three (authors on reading lists, teachers, and students dominating class discussions) were predominantly white, it sent an implicit message as to whose perspectives mattered, and whom the course [in question] was for” and this overarching “whiteness” felt “othering”, “alienating” and “erasing” for students.
It continued: “Non-white students were comparatively less likely than their peers to be able to access the advantages of cultural familiarity with their tutor” and that “some felt it unrealistic to expect their white tutors to be able to empathise with their problems.”
Comments relating to this by students included the criticism that “most teachers come from privileged backgrounds which (some) BME students can’t relate to.”
It concluded by demanding that “unconscious bias” workshops are introduced for staff, and that SOAS write and publish research papers on its “colonial legacy”.
The report came under intense criticism from academics, with the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, Sir Anthony Seldon, telling The Sunday Times “White people can’t teach BME students? Really? I think this claim is unfair and untrue and disrespectful to universities and members of staff.”
The union’s latest statement comes soon after philosophy students at SOAS insisted that white philosophers be excised from the curriculum, and only studied if strictly necessary.