A Cambridge Professor has said that accepting people of colour into Cambridge causes them harm.
Priyamvada Gopal, who is a Cambridge academic, has echoed arguments that efforts to increase the number of people of colour in Cambridge causes the recipients “harm”.
The Professor, replying to an initiative to increase the proportion of black students at Cambridge University, said that there was no point in increasing diversity on campus if the University was unwilling to change the “collegiate culture”.
The original article, authored by The Black Students’ Support Fund, argued that:
“There currently exists a historic under-representation of Black British students at the University of Cambridge and Churchill College. Widening participation work in this area is being carried out at both a University and College level, but more needs to be done.”
Professor Gopal responded to the initiative on Twitter by saying:
“This is something that current students, including those on the cancelled Working Group have commented on. There is no point pronouncing pieties abuot [sic] increasing diversity of intake if you are not prepared to change collegiate culture.”
One Twitter user responded to Ms Gopal’s comment by arguing:
“Bringing more people into a structure that will harm them or which will ignore harm done to them by others is *not* an act of generous inclusion.”
This led to the Professor saying:
“Precisely. Again, current students who identify as black have pointed this out.”
