Britain's ‘wokeist' university has finally seen sense

Telegraph

12-05-2025

Two months ago, Oxford University sent out a newsletter to faculties explaining why the introduction of gender-neutral degree ceremonies was 'necessary'. You may remember reading about the proposed move at the time, your head lolling forward as you laboured your way through whiny phrases about the pernicious effects of 'gendered language', 'better representation for those who identify as non-binary', and how by creating 'a single text for each ceremony' and successfully bastardising an 800-year-old script, Latin would finally become 'inclusive Latin' (and Oxford a global laughing stock).
That the university would vote 'yes' to replacing offensive addresses such as 'domini' and 'magistri' with the neutered 'vos' – 'yes' to scouring a 12th-century tradition free of toxicity – was a given, and last month, Oxford duly opted to remove masculine and feminine Latin words from some ceremonies. So far, so predictable.
What to make, then, of the extraordinary (partial) U-turn reported on Sunday? Of Oxford's decision to backtrack and 'amend those changes', so that 'some gendered words' will be retained? Add to this Oxford Union's rejection of calls to reinstate the mandatory flying of the LGBT flag every Pride month (after the order was mysteriously removed from the committee's rule book), and we have to ask ourselves: has Britain's 'wokeist' university decided to dial it down?
Although Oxford and Cambridge have wrestled over the dubious honour of that title for the past five years – with think tanks such as Civitas basing their rankings on the universities' endorsement of 'trigger warnings, white privilege and anti-racism' alongside other factors such as free speech disputes – controversies last year seemed to have put Oxford in pole position, at least in terms of public perception.
There were the numerous diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives: the targeting of freshers with ' unconscious bias training ', and let's not forget the plan to vet candidates for the chancellor position, which was widely criticised as an attempt to exclude a white male politician.
All of this followed years of no-platforming and debating skirmishes. As a man, my esteemed colleague, Tim Stanley, was not allowed to make the pro-life case for abortion at a Christ Church college debate in 2014 – or indeed present any view whatsoever (too many 'security and welfare issues'). That same year, you may recall that the gender-critical 'thought criminal' Dr Kathleen Stock was forced to temporarily halt her much-contested Union appearance, after a trans activist glued themself to the floor of the debating chamber. So what on earth could have prompted this sea change? Has someone contaminated the air over there with common sense?
According to Oxford, the decision to maintain the gendered words in their ceremonies came because 'they form part of the tradition handed down to us and they connote the respect shown by University Officers to graduands in the ceremony'. Which is, I'm afraid, a giant fib. You don't suddenly, from one month to the next, develop a reverence for 'tradition', or indeed decide that what was offensive a few weeks ago is now the hallmark of 'respect'.
The LGBT flag rejection is, admittedly, a little more complex. The primary issue, Union committee members believe, is that flying any kind of a flag could be seen as ' opening the floodgates '. Which is true. The view was also put forward that 'everyone in the standing committee supports the LGBTQIA+ community regardless of the flag being on display', which I would hope is also true. But was that not always the case?
I can't imagine that this is about America and Oxford fearing for its funding – not unless they're already looking ahead to a Reform rule. No, what seems more likely in this case and (to a lesser degree) that of the LGBT flag that will no longer be flown, is that these intrepid, inclusion-fighting progressives have seen which way the wind is blowing and shouted, en masse: 'Ready about!'
We should be happy, of course. Or at the very least relieved. But I, for one, feel irritated – borderline angry. Because whilst I always suspected that very little of this stuff was heartfelt (certainly on an institutional level), screeching U-turns reveal almost all of it to have been affectation – about running with the herd rather than any core belief system. And as with Starmer on Monday, when he used the kind of rhetoric on immigration that would have had him cancelled four years ago, there is something deeply dispiriting about witnessing that volte-face. So maybe it's that. Or maybe, in the case of Oxford, it's because you would have hoped that the smartest people in the world would have had better sense from the start.