Latest news with #UniversityOfEdinburgh
Reuters
3 days ago
- General
- Reuters
Edinburgh university confronts slavery links
LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - The University of Edinburgh benefited financially from transatlantic slavery and served as a haven for scholars developing racist theories in the 18th and 19th centuries, a review has found. The review, commissioned in 2021 and published on Sunday, found the university profited from slavery through individual donations to endowments that have funded bursaries, scholarships, chairs and fellowships. Donations were traced to profits made by individuals and industries involved in enslavement through the cultivation, production and sale of colonial commodities, such as tobacco, sugar and cotton. Edinburgh follows in the footsteps of other UK universities that have acknowledged historical ties to slavery in recent years, including the University of Glasgow, University of Bristol and University of Cambridge. Founded in 1583, Edinburgh holds 15 historic endowments linked to African enslavement and 12 tied to British colonialism in India, Singapore, and South Africa. Some remain active, the review said. "We cannot have a selective memory about our past, focusing only on the historical achievements which make us feel proud," the university's principal Peter Mathieson said. "We are right to address its complexities too." The report said that between 1750 and 1850 the university served as a "haven" for professors and alumni who promoted ideas of African inferiority and played an "outsized role" in developing racial pseudo-sciences that justified slavery and colonial expansion. Among the review's recommendations were the creation of a research and community centre focused on racism, colonialism, and anti-Black violence, and action to address under-representation of Black staff and students, degree awarding disparities and support barriers for those facing racism. As well as universities, other major UK institutions, such as the Church of England and the Bank of England, have also started to recognise how they benefited from slavery's injustices. Some activists and scholars have criticised such efforts as largely symbolic, arguing that true commitment to addressing historical injustices requires meaningful reparations, not just acknowledgements and reports. Calls for reparations have been gaining momentum but the backlash against it has also been growing, with critics saying modern institutions should not be held responsible for historical wrongs.
BBC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Edinburgh University had major role in racist theories
The University of Edinburgh played a major role in the creation of racist theories and profited from slavery, a review has published in the university's Race Review, lay out how it received at least the equivalent of £30m in "philanthropic gifts" which can be traced to the profits of colonial commodities like tobacco, sugar and money funded bursaries, scholarships and the construction of university review also says that staff, students and alumni played a "central role" in theories of human differences based on race and civilisation during the Scottish Enlightenment. University principal and vice chancellor, Prof Sir Peter Mathieson, pledged to "learn and move forward" from the report, which was commissioned in review points out that although the Enlightenment is often celebrated for its influence on modern liberal democracy, its thinkers were also responsible for nurturing "some of the most damaging ideas in human history".The work was overseen by Scotland's first black professor, Prof Sir Geoff Palmer, who had seen a draft of the review and contributed to feedback before he died in June. The Race Review sought to identify some of the ways that the university was implicated in the practices and systems of enslavement and colonialism, as well as the apartheid and genocide of colonised people, in Australasia, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. It says it also "considers some of the consequences of these histories today in terms of statistical under-representation and the persistence of institutional and structural racism".The report has been published online, amid a public pledge to address racial discrimination and research examined how the "legacies of wealth" amassed from slavery and colonialism in the 17th and 18th centuries can be traced to contemporary endowments and capital campaigns. It also looked at how leading thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, who were also prominent university figures in the 18th Century, promoted theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism used to justify year, the university funded further research into its historical links with Arthur Balfour, who played a key role in the creation of Israel and was a former chancellor of the university as well as a Conservative politician and prime minister. Sir Peter said: "Only by fully engaging with and understanding the entirety of our institutional past can we truly learn and move forward. "We are unwavering in our commitment to a future where racism, racial discrimination, and racialised inequalities have no place in higher education or society."We cannot have a selective memory about our past, focusing only on the historical achievements which make us feel proud."He paid tribute to Sir Geoff Palmer - who became Scotland's first black professor in 1989 - and said the work would "honour his memory through our ongoing commitment to advancing race equality within our institution and in society more broadly".In recent years there has been pressure on academic institutions to return exhibits linked with Britain's colonial 2019, the University of Glasgow agreed to raise and spend £20m in reparations after discovering it benefited by millions of pounds from the slave was believed to be the first institution in the UK to implement such a "programme of restorative justice".More recently, the University of Aberdeen repatriated a murdered Aboriginal man's remains, thought to have been obtained during a colonial conquest in is believed the young man was decapitated in the 1820s or 1830s - a time in Australia's history when colonisers used bounties to fuel a trade in tribespeople's body parts. What does the Edinburgh review recommend? Among recommendations in the report was the creation of a naming approval committee to manage requests for naming or renaming university committee would consider how the university acknowledges its historic links to racism and colonialism on campus.A response group identified actions as part of "reparative justice", including continued research into racial injustice, strengthening connections with minoritised communities, boosting scholarships, as well as reinforcing anti-racist educational programmes, after the university pledged to achieve "meaningful change" and transparency, and to "learn from and repair its past".Professor Tommy Curry, co-chairman of the Race Review's research and engagement working group, said the review demonstrates "a level of self-reflection that very few institutions have had the courage to embark on".He said: "We have fundamentally changed what we understood as the Scottish Enlightenment. "We have shown that the study of racial difference had a major home here, and that there are legacies of discrimination that we still have to correct today."We hope our findings will enable the University to emerge as a better version of itself. This sets a standard for other institutions to not only reconsider their historical perspectives and legacies, but also their institutional culture."Fiona McClement, co-leader of the Race Review response group, added: "Our aspiration is to be an anti-racist organisation. "We want to ensure that are a welcoming and nurturing environment in which all members of our community feel a sense of belonging, and can flourish and succeed without facing unjust racialised barriers."
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
University of Edinburgh Publishes Race Review Into Colonialist Past
The University of Edinburgh has published a review into historic links to slavery and colonialism following four years of research, and issued an apology. Principal and vice chancellor, Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, issued a formal statement following the University of Edinburgh's Race Review and pledged to "learn and move forward" from the report, which was commissioned in 2021.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Edinburgh University could unadopt antisemitism definition after report into its colonial links
The University of Edinburgh is considering whether to unadopt an internationally recognised definition of antisemitism that critics say inhibits freedom of speech on the subject of Israel and Palestine. Edinburgh, one of Britain's oldest and most prestigious universities, is also considering whether to divest from companies accused of enabling alleged human rights violations by Israel. Both issues are being reviewed by university authorities as a report on the legacy of its historical links with the region is published. The report is part of a broader investigation of the university's involvement in colonialism and slavery. It recommends that the university divest from companies allegedly complicit in Israel's military actions in Gaza and the West Bank, supports the reversal of its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, and establish a Palestine Studies Centre to investigate the legacy of the Balfour declaration and offer scholarships to students of Palestinian origin. The report focuses on the repercussions over the past century of the Balfour declaration, a 1917 statement by the British government in favour of 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'. As well as being British foreign secretary at the time, Arthur James Balfour was the University of Edinburgh's chancellor – a ceremonial and ambassadorial role – between 1891 and 1930. He had been prime minister from 1902 to 1905. Balfour played a 'unique role' in 'establishing and maintaining a century-long process of imperial and settler-colonial rule in Palestine, resulting today in one of the longest-standing colonial occupations and apartheid regimes in modern history', the report says. The IHRA definition and the university's investments were already under review, Sir Peter Mathieson, the university's principal, told the Guardian. The definition was a 'hot topic' and 'contentious', he said. 'There is not a unanimity of view. There are some Jewish people who think IHRA is a helpful definition, there are some people who think it's unhelpful, and so those discussions are ongoing and we haven't come to a conclusion.' This year's graduation ceremonies have been hit by a series of protests and walkouts by graduates, with about 200 students staging protests at 24 ceremonies; some directly accused Mathieson of complicity in the Gaza crisis. Last year, students occupied the quad in Old College, where Mathieson has his office. The university was setting up a 'responsible investment group' to examine its financial holdings, he added. Its remit included reviewing 'investments in relation to companies which are allegedly supporting Israel'. Research on the legacy of the Balfour declaration was added to the broader study of the university's links to colonialism a year after the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza. The report's authors, Nicola Perugini and Shaira Vadasaria, both academics at Edinburgh, told the Guardian the decision to include Balfour's legacy in the research was a 'direct response' to pressure on the university leadership by campus protests over the Gaza war. The pair, both of whom taught for several years at al-Quds University, a Palestinian institution on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, had already been researching Balfour's legacy for several years. They have been involved in divestment campaigns on campus, and last year Perugini demanded Mathieson apologise publicly after the principal met the Israeli deputy ambassador to the UK. Balfour's 67-word declaration said: 'Her Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.' During and after the first world war, Britain and other imperial powers were intent on dividing up the Middle East. Britain controlled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate between 1922 and 1948, during which its forces brutally suppressed Palestinian resistance to increased Jewish immigration in the wake of the Balfour declaration. The state of Israel was declared within hours of the end of the mandate in May 1948. The subsequent war drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during what became known as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Many Palestinians still blame Balfour for what they see as an act of perfidy and betrayal. The report's authors argue Balfour espoused openly racist views that explained his attitudes towards the Middle East, and had a record of supporting settler colonialism in Ireland, South Africa and Canada. In 1913, he became honorary vice-president of the British Eugenics Education Society. Some historians also say he was an antisemite who had backed the 1905 Aliens Act, which severely restricted Jewish immigration to Britain. The academics who oversaw the university review believe Balfour's views can be traced back to racist sciences that they say Edinburgh helped to formulate in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Although there is no evidence the university was involved in drafting the 1917 declaration, the report's authors maintain it was closely aligned with Balfour's career. It loaned him £12,000 – equivalent to more than £1.8m today – before he became its chancellor, and in 1925 Balfour wore his official university robes when he laid the foundation stone for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Vadasaria told the Guardian: 'Balfour signed a declaration that put in place an imperial and settler-colonial structure of racial domination inside Palestine, which has been sustained by military occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide.' The report points out that the declaration defined Palestinians as 'non-Jewish communities' rather than an Indigenous people with national rights to self-determination, and referred only to civil and religious rights rather than political and national rights. In the Nakba, Palestinians were forced into 'permanent exile that continues into the present'. Balfour's legacy was 'not merely a matter of historical harm,' it says. 'Indeed, harm to Palestinians today can be seen as an extension of Balfour's legacy in the present. While this violence may have begun with Balfour's declaration, it remains through ongoing policies that continue with the trajectory of imperialism, settler colonialism and the dispossession of Palestinian land and life.' The Balfour declaration was given an effusive welcome by the Guardian in 1917. Its then editor, CP Scott, had facilitated key introductions between prominent Zionists and members of the government. The report's forthright language and recommendations, plus the absence of any reference to centuries of Jewish persecution and dispossession that led to the development of Zionism, or the horrific nature of the Hamas atrocities committed on 7 October 2023, are likely to be controversial in a climate of bitter divisions over the war in Gaza. The IHRA definition of antisemitism was adopted by the university in 2020, 'without broad consultation with students and staff', according to the report. The definition 'violates academic freedom and freedom of speech by framing any criticism of Israel's policies of settler-colonial dispossession driven by state racism as a form of antisemitism', it adds. Alongside the definition, the IHRA offers what it describes as contemporary examples of antisemitism that critics say are used to protect Israel from legitimate criticism. Supporters of the definition say it is essential in helping to protect Jews from hate crimes and abuse. In 2020, Gavin Williamson, the education secretary in the Conservative government, threatened to cut funding to UK universities that failed to adopt the IHRA definition. The majority have done so. On the issue of divestment, the authors say the university authorities have 'adopted a 'conflict agnostic' approach, a term that denies the Nakba and its settler-colonial afterlife'. This month, a UN report highlighted the involvement of companies from around the world in supporting Israel during its war in Gaza. It noted that the University of Edinburgh was one of the 'UK's most financially entangled institutions', with nearly £25.5m invested in four tech corporations – Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM – that were 'central to Israel's surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction'. According to Perugini and Vadasaria's report, the investments have left the university exposed to 'complicity with genocide, crimes against humanity and illegal occupation'. A failure to divest would risk reputational damage and lead to further campus protests, the authors told the Guardian.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Edinburgh University had ‘outsized' role in creating racist scientific theories, inquiry finds
The University of Edinburgh, one of the UK's oldest and most prestigious educational institutions, played an 'outsized' role in the creation of racist scientific theories and greatly profited from transatlantic slavery, a landmark inquiry into its history has found. The university raised the equivalent of at least £30m from former students and donors who had links to the enslavement of African peoples, the plantation economy and exploitative wealth-gathering throughout the British empire, according to the findings of an official investigation seen by the Guardian. The inquiry found that Edinburgh became a 'haven' for professors who developed theories of white supremacism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and who played a pivotal role in the creation of discredited 'racial pseudo-sciences' that placed Africans at the bottom of a racial hierarchy. It reveals the ancient university – which was established in the 16th century – still had bequests worth £9.4m that came directly from donors linked to enslavement, colonial conquests and those pseudo-sciences, and which funded lectures, medals and fellowships that continue today. Sir Peter Mathieson, the university's principal, who commissioned the investigation, said its findings were 'hard to read' but that Edinburgh could not have a 'selective memory' about its history and achievements. In an official statement, Mathieson extended the university's deepest apologies for 'its role not only in profiting materially from practices and systems that caused so much suffering but also in contributing to the production and perpetuation of racialised thought which significantly impacted ethnically and racially minoritised communities'. The investigation also found that: The university had explicitly sought donations from graduates linked to transatlantic slavery to help build two of its most famous buildings, Old College on South Bridge in the 1790s and the old medical school near Bristo Square in the 1870s. The donations were equivalent to approximately £30m in today's prices, or the higher figure of £202m based on the growth of wages since they were received, and as much as £845m based on economic growth since then. The university had at least 15 endowments derived from African enslavement and 12 linked to British colonialism in India, Singapore and South Africa, and 10 of those were still active and had a minimum value today of £9.4m. The university holds nearly 300 skulls gathered in the 1800s from enslaved and dispossessed people by phrenologists in Edinburgh who wrongly believed skull shape determined a person's character and morals. Fewer than 1% of its staff and just over 2% of its students were Black, well below the 4% of the UK population, and despite Edinburgh's status as a global institution. The report's authors said their findings raised serious questions about the university's role as the seat of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries when it became famous for the work of luminaries such as the economist Adam Smith and the philosopher David Hume. The fact its history was in part 'connected to slavery and colonialism, the violent taking of bodies, labour, rights, resources, land and knowledge is deeply jarring, not least for an institution so closely associated with the humanistic and liberal values of the Scottish Enlightenment', it said. The report's authors urged the university to redirect the money from those bequests to hiring academics from Black and minority backgrounds and on research and teaching about racism and colonialism, partly to combat the institutional racism that permeated the institution, they argued. Among a sweeping series of 47 recommendations, the review's authors have also asked Edinburgh to support the unadoption of the definition of antisemitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) because it stifled 'free conversation' about Israel's policies and actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Most UK universities recognise the IHRA definition. The review also called on Edinburgh to urgently sell off its investments in companies with significant contracts with the Israeli government. Mathieson said Edinburgh was 'actively' reviewing its support for the IHRA declaration and its investments in Israel-linked companies after a series of protests by staff and students who have accused the university of complicity with Israeli actions in Gaza. He added that he recognised the strength of feeling but said he could not commit to withdrawing support for the IHRA definition or to divest in companies facing boycott until those reviews were complete. 'Obviously this is a very hot, contemporary topic,' he said in an interview with the Guardian. Mathieson said the decolonisation report had reached 'deeply shocking' and 'really discomforting' conclusions, including the discovery in student notebooks from the 1790s that one of its most famous moral philosophers, Dugald Stewart, had taught thousands of students that white Europeans were racially superior. Ironically, Stewart and his mentor Adam Ferguson were 'lifelong abolitionists' yet their theories of race had been used to justify slavery in the American south. The university had to accept harsh truths about its past activities, as well as bask in its successes, Mathieson said. This review, he added, was the most extensive investigation of its kind carried out by any university in the UK. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion Mathieson said: 'I think a lot of the report is hard to read, but I have confidence in its accuracy because I trust the experts that have produced it. I think we were seeking the truth – that's really the purpose of a university, and it includes the truth about ourselves as well as the truth about anybody else.' Mathieson and university executives set up the review, which was chaired by Prof Tommy J Curry, a specialist in critical race theory, and Dr Nicki Frith, an expert in reparations, in response to a groundbreaking review in 2018 by the University of Glasgow on its links to slavery and the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, which also affected Edinburgh. Among other findings was evidence that the university had invested endowments derived from African enslavement into government war bonds, colonial bonds and buying Scottish Highland estates, and had received money from taxes levied on ships transporting sugar and tobacco from those plantations. The university had reacted to the abolitionist cause with 'inertia', the report finds, by not joining three other Scottish universities and colleges who had petitioned parliament calling for the abolition of slavery, even though Edinburgh had professors at the forefront of abolitionist campaigning. Curry said: 'Scotland has a moral debt to pay by sustaining an ideology that helped to exploit, kill and dominate racialised people for centuries. 'There's no argument against the fact that the people who orchestrated colonialism came from Edinburgh. It is not the only place they came from, but the University of Edinburgh was at the forefront at that time of creating and proliferating those theories.' Edinburgh became one centre of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, when some staff and students demanded it rename a tower block named after Hume, the Enlightenment philosopher who published an overtly racist footnote that upheld the notion that black people were inferior. To the fury of some historians, the university agreed to temporarily rename the building '40 George Square'. A further review by the university has recommended the change of name should be permanent and that a new naming committee investigates renaming another modern building named after Dugald Stewart due to his theories of race. Mathieson indicated the university will accept many of the recommendations of the decolonisation review submitted by the 24-strong team of academics, researchers and consultants, but others would require consideration and external funding. 'If at the end of it we lose courage because we don't like the conclusions, that kind of invalidates the original decision to do the work,' he said. 'We knew that this was not going to be pretty.' The university will set up a new race review implementation group which will actively support the review's call for Edinburgh to establish a centre for the study of racisms, colonialism and anti-Black violence, he said, by helping find philanthropic donors and external funding, and find rooms for a community space. Mathieson said the university also had a lot of work to do to understand why it had so few Black staff and students. In contrast, a third of its students are Asian, including nearly 9,300 students from China. Edinburgh would 'undoubtedly' fund new scholarships for students from minoritised groups, he said. 'Some of the university's resources can be and will be diverted to this.' Even so, he said, the university may be unable to repurpose some bequests linked to slavery or colonialism if their terms restrict the money to specific purposes.
