Adrian Hilton

A School of Anti-Semitism?

  • From Spectator Life

As a teacher and lecturer, I’ve had a fair amount of indirect contact with Soas — the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. I first met one of its doctoral students in 2001, around the time I began to send my A-level students to join its impressive list of alumni, which includes government ministers, ambassadors, diplomats, judges and a Nobel laureate. It has also produced impressive research tomes of international renown and is always high up in the university league tables. A sea of diversity under one scholastic sky, with so much to learn through intercultural exchange. For many, the Soas library is a place of pilgrimage.

But I’d now think twice before writing a Ucas reference to send one of my young students there. Not because I’m into the cotton-wool cladding of ‘safe spaces’ against freedom of expression: on the contrary, I view academic study as battleground of radical ideas. But I also value an academic environment in which minorities are not intimidated into self-censorship or bludgeoned into the acceptance of Islamo-Marxist political orthodoxy.

‘When I started there, Indology had presence,’ recounts Dr H, who doesn’t want his name published for fear of repercussions. ‘The corridor I found myself in was that of the South Asian languages department, and it was vibrant. Lecturers had open doors and you were easily acquainted with half of them, even if they didn’t teach you personally. There was a spiritual interest in India and its exoticness, and the number of students was vast. Now, the corridor is quite lifeless.’

School-of-anti-semitism3

This isn’t a consequence of a fall in demand for ‘exotic’ courses, or the fact that students are now encouraged to be more ‘sensible’ about qualification ‘relevance’ in the competitive world of employment.

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