The Dystoopeian schemes of a Woke Canadian At the Head of Cambridge University

By Douglas Murray

The Spectator, June 17, 2021: Regular readers may be aware that in recent months I have been having a running-spat with a Canadian lawyer called Stephen Toope. I am rarely exercised by Canadian lawyers, but this particular one is the current Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and he seems intent on running that crown jewel of an institution into the ground. 

Since taking over as Vice-Chancellor, Mr Toope has been responsible for a wide array of anti-free speech initiatives through which, as I recently remarked in the Daily Telegraph, he appears to want to transform Cambridge University into something like the Canadian bar association, but without the thrills, or the pay.

Anyhow – our spat came to a head after Mr Toope last month published his new guidance for informers in Cambridge. 

The purpose of his new initiative was to allow students and faculty to anonymously inform on each other and report "micro-aggressions."

As I accurately wrote in the Telegraph, one of the examples of a micro-aggression offered by Mr. Toope's website for informers was a member of the university raising an eyebrow while any member of a minority was speaking. In the wake of the negative publicity, Toope took down his website for informers, claiming that it had gone off early, that the dog had eaten it, or some such lame excuse.

Anyhow, to my great amusement, Mr Toope has finally found some friends at Cambridge, or at least some suckers-up willing to write a half-arsed defence of him. Thus this letter appeared in the letters pages of the paper at the weekend. Here is the text in full:

Sir - 

Douglas Murray has twice made unwarranted and highly personal attacks on the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Stephen J Toope (Comment, May 22 and June 8). 

As heads of the University’s six academic schools, we are independent of the central administration, but we cannot stand by as Professor Toope is subject to such gross misrepresentation.

Cambridge is a democratic institution with roots stretching back 800 years. This means that no vice-chancellor can impose their will on the university, and all policy decisions proceed through an intricate and finely balanced committee structure. While we are sure generations of vice-chancellors have found this frustrating, it is a fact of life at Cambridge.

Mr Murray makes the absurd suggestion that Professor Toope wants to limit free speech and push an agenda in which academics can be punished for raising an eyebrow at a student. The reality is more mundane. Errors were made during the launch of a campaign to introduce new policies and procedures covering conduct in the workplace. The campaign website was taken down as soon as the mistakes were spotted and the policy and procedures are now subject to further democratic scrutiny.

Professor Toope is an eminent international lawyer and experienced university leader. He has made clear his commitment both to championing freedom of expression and to making the university a welcoming place for our students and staff, who hail from all over the world. The two aims are complementary, not incompatible. As a leader, he commands respect from across the University and as senior academics we offer him our unwavering support. 

Professor John Dennis, Head of the School of Technology, Professor Tim Harper. Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences' Professor Patrick Maxwell, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine, Professor Nigel Peake, Head of the School of the Physical Sciences, Professor Anna Philpott, Head of the School of the Biological Sciences, Professor Chris Young, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities

I much enjoyed reading this attempt to defend Toope because if this is the best that the case for the defence has, then the defence is indeed what we used to call "piss-poor."

Let me take these academics' points one at a time:

First, they say that "Cambridge is a democratic institution… with a finely balanced committee structure&." But if this is so, why did Toope not seek formal approval from the General Board and Council of the university for all parts of his recent initiative? The reason that Toope himself gave for taking the website down was that it had not received proper scrutiny.

And if the structure of accountability at the university works so well, why did he not seek approval via the proper democratic mechanism? That would have been done by issuing a "Publication" in the Cambridge Reporter, which would have to be followed by a "Discussion" for scrutiny from Regent House before the final "Grace" (that is, democratic authorisation) was formulated.

These procedures may well be a "frustrating fact of life" at Cambridge, and it is perfectly possible that VCs have had to suffer through them for centuries. But then why did Toope ignore them completely?

Next the loyal Toopians (or Toopites) claim that my suggestion that Toope wants to limit free speech at Cambridge is "absurd." And they add that: 

The campaign website was taken down as soon as the mistakes were spotted, and the policy and procedures are now subject to further democratic scrutiny. 

This is completely ill-informed, and rather surprising from academics of such distinction. For their edification, here is the timeline: 

Toope's campaign website went live on 17 May. The first Telegraph report on micro-aggressions material was published on 20 May. Yet the Vice Chancellor’s senior official overseeing the campaign (Pro Vice Chancellor Eilis Ferran) defended the campaign website in its entirety and in its original form in a letter to the Telegraph which was published on 24 May.

It was only after this defense that a part of the website was taken down. So Ferran, onToope's behalf (that's what the "pro" bit is for), should have known about the disgraceful material because it was what she was responding to in her letter. 

The website to encourage snitches and informers in Cambridge University then went back up on 27 May.

Only after that was the entire campaign website taken down – on 7 June, three weeks after it went live, and two weeks after concerns were expressed in public. All this for a campaign that had been in the works for more than two years. Was that not time enough for proper scrutiny by all the relevant university bodies?

A further claim of the Toopians did make me laugh. They say: 

"Professor Toope is an eminent international lawyer and experienced university leader." Of course "eminent" and "experienced" are terms much open to eye-of-the-beholder-ism. But if Toope is so very eminent and experienced, why has he demonstrated such monumental incompetence, not least in the most basic tools of university governance? 

Toope permitted the ridiculous materials to be published. Toope failed to respect the democratic mechanisms of Cambridge by ignoring the need for approval from Regent House, the General Board, and the Council. And so, Toope has not only attempted to impose woke and other anti-free speech ideologies on Cambridge University, but he has done so via successive acts of extraordinary incompetence. Where exactly is the experience or eminence on display here?

It goes on. For if Toope is such a very great lawyer, why did he permit what could amount to unlawful changes to the disciplinary regime for all students and staff at the university? 

Perhaps the eminent Canadian is simply ignorant of the fact that, for a full week, the university he presides over defined racism in a way that a court might have ruled, not just as unlawful, but as actually, in itself, an act of systemic discrimination against white students and staff on the basis of skin colour. 

The definition of racism with which the Cambridge "Report + Support" begins says that "Racism...is a system of advantage that sets whiteness as the norm." 

This definition – by suggesting that racism is a white phenomenon – would surely have fallen foul of section nine of the Equality Act, which Toope could have realised by reading the act. But perhaps it is too much to ask for him to have done so.

The Toope-ites claim that Toope himself "is committed to championing freedom of expression…As a leader, he commands respect from across the university and as senior academics we offer him our unwavering support."

But that just reads like the effusions of a few sycophants. If Toope commands such respect and is such a champion of free speech, why did he lose three major votes on his statement on freedom of speech last year? And by some of the biggest margins recorded at Regent House since the Second World War.

Finally, the Toopians claim that defending free expression and being a welcoming place to people from all over the world are "complementary, not incompatible" aims. 

But putting aside for a moment why these dons think Cambridge was ever such an unwelcoming place, their assertion is clearly flat-out wrong. There plainly are contradictions between the two aims and it is stupid to suggest otherwise.

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Understanding How the Media Changed the Meaning of Justice, Privilege, and Equality

Following the resignation of journalist Bari Weiss from the New York Times, Eric Weinstein, managing director of Thiel Capital, had this assessment of the Times and other beacons of progressiveism from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the Guardian, the BBC and National Public Radio.

This is the moment when the passengers who have become increasingly alarmed, start to entertain a new idea: what if the people in the cockpit are not airline pilots? Well the Twitter Activists at the @nytimes and elsewhere are not journalists. What if those calling for empathy have a specific deadness of empathy? Those calling for justice *are* the unjust? Those calling “Privilege” are the privileged? Those calling for equality seek to oppress us? Those anti-racists are open racists? The progressives seek regress? The journalists are covering up the news? Try the following exercise: put a minus sign in front of nearly every banner claim made by “the progressives”. Q: Doesn’t that make more sense?

Jordan Peterson Has One Thing Right: Academic Psychology's War on Masculinity Is Political Not Scientific

University of Toronto psychology professor, Jordan Peterson, talks too much. We have that from Peterson himself, quoting his father, who must know. But whatever he says, whether it be complete rubbish, as in the case we noted here, or a well-reasoned argument, Peterson demonstrates an oratorical force and a disdain for consequences rarely to be seen in the political, let alone the academic, arena.

To this combination of forceful outspokenness Peterson adds a thoroughgoing contempt for the ideology of political correctness, which he perceives to be a threat not only to the integrity of the academic enterprise but to the continued existence of Western civilization. It is in his critique of the present-day manifestation of feminism, anti-white racism, and indeed white self-abnegation, together with every other form of Marxist-inspired group identity politics that Peterson has achieved international recognition. His scathing critique of the American Psychological Association's denigration of masculinity, a critique published in today's National Post, will only enhance Peterson's standing as a champion of rationality opposed to the toxic leftist dogma that has permeated the Western academic world.

It’s ideology vs. science in psychology’s war on boys and men By Jordan Peterson National Post, February 1, 2019: The American Psychological Association (APA) recently released its Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men. It manages to be simultaneously predictable, reprehensible, infuriating and disheartening — no mean feat for a single document. Make no mistake about it: this document constitutes an all-out assault on masculinity — or, to put it even more bluntly, on men. The coup of the APA undertaken by the ideologues is now complete. The field has been compromised, perhaps fatally. And the damnable guidelines provide sufficient, but by no means exhaustive, evidence of that. Why should we care? For that, I defer to Robert W. Levenson, when he was president of the Association for Psychological Science, an organization formed in an attempt to retain integrity in the field: “We all will come into close contact with mental illness during our lives. The diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental illness must reflect the very best science possible. Good intentions are not enough. History is replete with well-intentioned practitioners offering treatments of no proven scientific value, that were enthusiastically embraced by patients and their families but ultimately did absolutely no good and kept people from seeking truly effective treatments.” We cannot allow ideology and political correctness to prevail over science. The Boys and Men document is propagandistic to a degree that is almost incomprehensible. Read more

Despite the plausibility of Peterson's argument, it is far from certain that the absence of a male parent is the reason that fatherless boys are prone to antisocial behavior. Equally plausible, it would seem, is that fatherless boys are more liable to engage in antisocial behavior because they have a greater than normal chance of inheriting paternal genes that predispose to irresponsibility. Peterson is correct, however, in condemning the American Psychological Association for asserting a mere hypothesis of low credibility as a scientific fact and as a basis, quite outrageously, to encourage mothers to dispense with a male partner in raising their sons.

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