Educational campaigner tweets about completing philosophy, politics and economics degree
The Nobel prize-winning campaigner Malala Yousafzai has expressed her “joy and gratitude” after completing her degree at University of Oxford.
The 22-year-old shared two pictures of herself covered in confetti on Twitter with the caption: “Hard to express my joy and gratitude right now as I completed my Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford.
Continue reading...Few imperial icons, including Churchill, will escape the need to reappraise Britain’s past
The toppling of slaver Edward Colston’s statue has electrified a longer term – and already deeply polarised – debate among British historians and academics, with some celebrating a “moment of history” as others warned of dark consequences for society.
Inaction over figures such as Colston had bred anger that would be felt “all over Britain”, said Andrea Livesey, a historian specialising in the study of slavery and its legacies and who described the events in Bristol as “wholly justified”.
Continue reading...Candidate for ‘cake rep’ sparks anger after comparing killing of black man to flour shortages
An Oxford college has ordered staff and students to undergo training to combat racial bias after an undergraduate made a “joke” drawing a comparison between protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and flour shortages.
The comments, described as racist and trivialising by witnesses, were made during a virtual hustings event by a candidate for the position of “cake rep” – a welfare position on the junior common room committee at Christ Church college.
Continue reading...Swedish climate activist visits Yousafzai’s college while in UK for Bristol youth protest
The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has met Malala Yousafzai at the University of Oxford where the Nobel peace prize winner is a student.
Yousafzai, 22, posted a photo on Instagram of herself and Thunberg sitting on a bench with their arms around each other on Tuesday, with the caption: “Thank you, @gretathunberg” and a heart emoji.
Continue reading...Author says she was not at Oxford with Australia’s energy minister, and his implication she was part of an ‘elite’ attacking Christmas is an ‘antisemitic dogwhistle’
The American author Naomi Wolf has accused Australia’s embattled energy minister, Angus Taylor, of an “antisemitic dogwhistle”, and of falsely claiming they were at Oxford University together.
In his maiden speech to parliament in 2013, Taylor told a story about “political correctness” and a dispute over a Christmas tree at Oxford in 1991, when he was a Rhodes scholar at the university, mentioning that Wolf lived on the same corridor.
Continue reading...Visa system for researchers is hostile and costly and risks jamming a pipeline of talent, universities warn
After eight years researching music history at Glasgow University, Elizabeth Ford hoped her request for a visa extension would sail through this summer. Instead, the Home Office gave the American academic two weeks to pack up her life and leave the country.
Ford has held a research fellowship at Edinburgh University – which, like Glasgow is in the elite Russell Group – and is due to begin a new research fellowship at Oxford University. But this is in jeopardy after a letter from the Home Office in July, which said that her leave to remain, granted a year before, was erroneous, and that she must leave within two weeks.
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