The University of Liverpool has been panned as “divisive” after it emerged the institution told its lecturers to “problematise” whiteness and heterosexuality in their teaching as part of a drive to “diversify” and “decolonise” the curriculum.
This week, the university had circulated a report to history department staff encouraging them to “think creatively” about bringing gender and race into their subjects.
In the memo – titled the History Curriculum Diversity Audit – lecturers were told to consider questions like: “Can a module that teaches exclusively about race relations do more to problematise and de-centre whiteness?”
The “audit” also noted a dearth of “queer history” in the department’s teaching on gender, and queried staff on why their seminars were not “problematising heteronormativity” – a term meaning treating being straight as the norm.
The university said a “final decolonisation framework” would be a “useful and important guide for staff”
In another piece of advice from the report, staff were told it was “essential” to make sure their seminars were “safe spaces” – as topics like gender and race could be seen as “emotional” or “challenging” for Liverpool history students.
One anonymous lecturer at Liverpool University told the Telegraph: “It’s all ideologically driven… namely ‘Empire is bad’. But it’s the wrong way to approach history.
“Historians should have the freedom to teach what they believe is true rather than having an agreed ideology that you’re not supposed to question…
“Also, I’m not quite sure how we are supposed to problematise whiteness.”
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Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert slated “decolonising” as “divisive”
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While Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, a pressure group which calls itself “the UK’s common-sense voice on race”, slated the “audit”.
She said: “Non-activists who want an easy life need to realise decolonising has nothing to do with addressing discrimination or unequal access, nor is it about expanding knowledge.
“Any positive insights it may have once had regarding disciplinary blind spots or neglected past works, have long gone.
“It has morphed into an aggressive and illiberal political ideology that promotes divisive, epistemologically weak concepts like ‘whiteness’ and seeks to impose its narrow, highly speculative interpretation at the expense of genuine academic study that depends on exploring different viewpoints.”
A University of Liverpool spokesman said: “We are absolutely committed to an inclusive experience for all our students.
“Reviewing our curricula to ensure content is reflective of cultural, historical and societal contexts is an important part of this commitment.
“Following recent fruitful and positive conversations within our history department about decolonising the curriculum, a 2020 audit was circulated to colleagues to prompt further thought and discussion.
“A final decolonisation framework, once developed and agreed, will be a useful and important guide for staff in the development of their modules and, as always, colleagues will retain full academic freedom in how this is best applied.”
Source Agencies
