In the world university rankings, only one British university is in the top 25, which unsurprisingly is Oxford, and is ranked first. Last year’s figures revealed some uncomfortable reading, not just for the University of Oxford but for all universities in the country. Only last year, the National Education Opportunities Network released a report that claimed, ‘Over 50% of universities admit less than 5% of white students from low participation neighbourhoods.’ Oxford, as from last year, had only a 2.73% intake of poor white students, which seems unfair, to put it mildly, and only recently a Cambridge academic tweeted white lives don’t matter. The problem here is if Oxford is ranked first in the world of the official world university rankings, why should they change?
There are two arguments here. The first is that institutions like Oxford should shed their elitist image and embrace modernity. The other argument is they should do no such thing; for why should they when they are ranked as the best university in the world? The last elected prime minister attending university outside the city of Oxford was Neville Chamberlain. The University of Oxford, however, is not the only university that has such an appalling record when it comes to accepting people from less privileged backgrounds. Bath, Warwick and Aston accept even less than Oxford, the Royal Agricultural University, which, according to the NEON study, takes no poor ‘white participation neighbourhoods,’ Bristol takes only 2.85%, Reading 3.23, Surrey 3.26, Manchester 3.37, and so on.
There is a counter-argument here for the status quo to continue. The distinguished professor, literary critic and author, Harold Bloom, who passed away last year, was often criticised for his ‘elitist’ approach. Bloom did not argue for the status quo at British universities but what he has said concerns works of literature. The School of Resentment is a term coined by the former Yale professor, a vituperative term. His claim is that literary criticism in universities since the last fifty years favoured the politically correct, student activism, removing the emphasis away from aesthetics in the field of literature. What Bloom thought particularly troublesome were propagators of this, most famously, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida, which, so Bloom stated, favoured adding authors from minority groups, basing their merits not on the works they produce but who they are and represent. He also was dismayed at the removal of literary works which contain racism, misogyny and unfavourable views.
Propagators of this practice need not alarm themselves over this as there are very few who are like Bloom, putting this view forward. The relevance to this to the University of Oxford and other universities in England is if the general idea is to protest at Oxford’s elitism to such a degree that we are left with the option of accepting students from poorer backgrounds, from ethnic minority groups, introducing quotas, with that comes the possibility of standards slipping. If it was accepted by the university to accept 25 percent of young people from more diverse backgrounds, but failed to meet the standards of the institution, standards evidently, would slip, and just as Bloom argued, what we are left with is setting a preference of diverse representation over high standards, excellence and ability.
What we are left with is not one dilemma, but two. If the status quo continues, universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE will be responsible, as they have been already, for destroying the futures of young men and women who could have, if it were not for this discriminatory practice, gone on to become as successful as many prominent Oxbridge graduates. There needs to be, any rational, sensible and mature person will argue, a balance between the two dilemmas.
The first of these must be to stop this discriminatory practice and permit students of excellence or the potential of excellence to attend these elite institutions. The second point and equally important is the second dilemma: that the institutions must not take persons from disadvantaged backgrounds merely because they are poor or to appease the school of resentment but to be productive sensible and to be bold and take the principle of the former Yale academic himself and start to prioritise talent, skills, ability, over the new culture that is not emerging but has emerged. Getting the balance right between the two is not merely just important, as people’s futures and even livelihoods depend on it.
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