'All black academics are ridiculed' in UK universities, claims Edinburgh professor

Professor Tommy Curry said black professors are “ridiculed for incompetence”, citing the recent death of Cambridge academic Prof Jason Arday.

“Everyone hides behind the idea that this is free speech,” he said, adding that debates over “woke” scholarship and decolonisation in UK higher education increasingly echo the arguments of American conservatives.

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The University of Edinburgh scholar claimed black academics are subject to heightened scrutiny when challenging British and Scottish history, while scholars with little specialist expertise in race are given a platform to question their work.

Speaking to The Scotsman ahead of a panel about free speech and academic freedom on campus, he said criticism and scepticism towards the work of black academics has become a “common racist trope”.

“The UK has a real reckoning,” Prof Curry said. He argued that Britain has yet to learn how to discuss race and racism “in the presence of Black scholars”.

Prof Curry was critical of comments by his colleague Professor Tom Devine, who he described as a “Scottish historian who’s never written a single piece about a black Scottish thinker”.

Prof Devine, who is frequently described as Scotland’s most well-known historian, previously criticised a 2022 official report on Edinburgh University’s slavery legacy for “naming and shaming” famous people from the past.

“He is a white guy who has never said anything about the connection to colonialism and enslavement, but he's so offended now that you have black professors talking about what his research missed,” Prof Curry added.

Last year, the university published a 120-page review of its links with colonialism and slavery, revealing that its academics played a significant role in developing white supremacist theories.

It faced political criticism as a “waste of resources” when the university is facing swingeing job cuts.

“What's wrong with a group of people choosing to research, reimagine, re-envision, and reassess that history of racism, colonialism, enslavement, and tie it to how certain groups of people feel they're experiencing the world today,” Prof Curry added.

“Is that not exactly what the Enlightenment is?”

Prof Curry said that academic freedom could not be separated from the responsibility to prevent minority scholars from being subjected to what he described as dehumanising arguments.

Students, he said, are far more open to challenging racism in academia.

Classes he teaches on imperial feminism and the history of race science have been full, he said, with some students encountering these subjects for the first time.

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“They’ve never been taught by a Black person,” Prof Curry said, arguing that the absence of black academics will affect how they respond when confronted with scholarship that challenges mainstream assumptions.

The free speech event, Conflict on Campus, is open to the public and will take place at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on October 21.

It is organised by Simon Fanshawe, rector of Edinburgh University, who co-founded the LGBT charity Stonewall before parting ways with the organisation and denouncing its stance on transgender issues in 2019.

His appointment as rector two years ago led to resignations among student groups.

Mr Fanshawe said cancel culture is “fuelling right wing populism” and added the day-long event is a forum to discuss ways of developing solutions to resolve free speech conflict.

Akua Reindorf KC, the author of the Reindorf Review of the circumstances around the cancellation of two speakers at Essex University in 2020, will also take part.

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Ms Reindorf said UK universities have “gone backwards” in protecting free speech despite new legislation intended to strengthen academic freedom.

She said she had hoped legislation and a string of legal cases over the past five years would have produced a significant change in university culture.

Instead, she said, academics still feel uncertain - and in some cases afraid - about what they can teach, research and say.

“There have been quite a few things that have happened in the last five years in the law, but whether they have translated into change on the ground is quite another matter,” she said.

Ms Reindorf criticised the government’s handling of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, expressing frustration that Labour had introduced a “watered-down version of the bill, which doesn't have any enforcement in it properly”.

She said the delay sent an “unfortunate” message to universities where some regard free-speech campaigners as conservatives seeking to legitimise offensive views.

The lawyer said this was particularly evident in debates over sex and gender, as well as rows over Israel and Palestine.

Ms Reindorf pointed to the treatment of Michael Foran, an academic at the University of Oxford who researches sex and gender law.

Mr Foran’s recent lecture series was disrupted by protestors.

Ms Reindorf said universities have a responsibility to ensure students and academics can participate in debate without being threatened or targeted, rejecting the idea that restricting controversial speech is necessary to create inclusive universities.

“People have got this idea about inclusion that it means something completely different than it does, and that idea has led them down a path which is just deeply authoritarian,” she said.

Universities, she added, have increasingly become commercial organisations competing for students and for commercial reasons are reluctant to risk controversy.

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Ms Reindorf also raised concerns about universities’ dependence on overseas students, particularly those from China, arguing that financial reliance could create additional pressures around academic freedom.

She said universities face a climate in which lecturers and researchers are increasingly inclined to censor themselves, risking academics becoming “bland” and avoiding subjects that could produce valuable or uncomfortable debate.

University leaders, she said, needed to give academics greater confidence that they would be protected when engaging with contentious subjects.

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Prof Curry said the argument over academic freedom will persist, saying the issue is not whether universities should permit disagreement, but who defines legitimate scholarship.

Headded: “While some people may be willing to question the ideas, they'll never question the people in power.

“And until those institutions open up, this is a debate that is going to exist well after I die, because there's so few of us.”