Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: Durham students’ woke culture commission

Durham university (photo: iStock)

It looks like Steerpike’s favourite students are it again. Six months after the furore about Rod Liddle’s speech at South College, members of Durham University’s student body have published a fabulously self-lacerating screed about their seat of learning. For on Friday, Durham’s Students’ Union (SU) released a 48-page ‘Culture Commission’ which seeks to ‘articulate what “Durhamness” really means.’ And it transpires that it, er, doesn’t mean much good, given the university’s ‘deep-rooted classism, racism and misogyny’ in the words of its authors.

The report was headed by departing SU president Seun Twins because – in her words – ‘I was tired of being shipped out at every agenda item or panel to talk Durham culture,’ sighing that she has ‘the unique privilege of being an informed yet exhausted token.’ Durham has, as many readers will know, something of a popular reputation for being a popular choice for those unfortunate enough to be denied a place at Oxford and Cambridge.

And it is that reputation which Twins and her fellow commissioners take aim at in chapter one on ‘reputation, stereotypes and student expectations’ which begins with this classic quote: ‘I am not an Oxbridge reject.’ It goes on to moan about ‘the misnomer of the “Oxbridge reject”’ since ‘most students are not in fact unsuccessful candidates of Oxford or Cambridge.’ No bitterness here. Rather than being a tongue-in-cheek joke, ‘the comparison to other universities fosters a false and at times naive sense of competition amongst Durham students’ for which traditions like college formal dinners merely serve ‘to signal their proximity to this trope.’

It also includes this eye-popping quote as a header: ‘Sexual violence is so prevalent because the first time students have heard the word “No” was from Oxford and Cambridge.’

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Steerpike
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Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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