Prevented from speaking for having a different view:
An academic who has criticised the teaching of “white privilege” in schools has been no-platformed from an education conference over claims she would make other speakers feel “unsafe”.
Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, 62, was told her panel discussion at the Rethinking Education conference on Saturday had been cancelled because of complaints from speakers and delegates about her attendance.
She was the only non-white speaker. And she's been disinvited from speaking about race at a conference on education. Only white people, it seems, are capable of grasping the true extent of racism in the UK.
Dr Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, a campaign group which challenges the idea that Britain is systemically racist, had been invited to speak on a panel about “indoctrination within education” and “how we can avoid it”.
However, in an email from a conference organiser on Friday, she was told that the company had been contacted by seven speakers and delegates who said “they would not feel safe to appear at the conference alongside a representative of Don’t Divide Us”.
The organiser said: “In seeking to re-imagine an education system where all young people and adults can flourish and thrive, I strongly believe that we need to have difficult conversations and that people should be prepared to subject their ideas to scrutiny and challenge.
“However, psychological safety is a precursor to free and open debate and the need to subject ideas to scrutiny.”
Confirming the decision to cancel the panel discussion, he added: “I appreciate that the late notice of this decision is not ideal for any parties concerned but once the matter was brought to our attention, safety considerations needed to be our primary focus.”
The people who complain about feeling unsafe are clearly unhappy about their views being challenged: it's such a transparent and offensive move. Really? Feeling unsafe at the presence of a woman who takes an alternative view?
Even worse, though, the pathetic capitulation by the organiser....
Responding to the decision, Dr Cuthbert said: “The only person on a panel of three to be disinvited is myself – a woman of colour.” She said it “seems like my belief in colour-blind meritocratic approaches to race upset a few people who don’t have the courage to make their case publicly”.
Update: Alka Sehgal Cuthbert writes about her cancellation at Spiked.
This censorship must not be allowed to continue unchallenged in the public sphere. What kind of democratic conduct are we sanctioning if we continue to stand by as more continue to be silenced for ever more ludicrous reasons? Are we really going to let the landscape in which teachers are formed be shaped by such intellectual lightweights and moral cowards?
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