Cambridge University ‘discriminating against privately educated white boys’, claims vice-chancellor at rival institution

17 February 2024, 08:37 | Updated: 17 February 2024, 08:39

Cambridge University is discriminating against privately educated white boys, according to a rival university vice-chancellor who has set up a course on 'woke culture'.

Professor James Tooley, the vice-chancellor at the University of Buckingham, has launched a course named the 'centre for heterodox social science' at the institution.

He said he had been inspired by the institution’s co-founder Margaret Thatcher when setting up the course and believes the former Prime Minister would have supported his fight for free and diverse speech.

Professor Tooley said that oppression came from the top as the demands of government mingling with peer pressure has created a groupthink.

He also claimed that regulators setting diversity and inclusion targets has resulted in the censorship of admissions and research.

“Cambridge famously, explicitly, is reducing the numbers of what you might call wealthier white males,” the former Newcastle University academic told The Times.

“They’re increasing the number of ethnic minority males and females, and females in general, and are therefore reducing the number of white males. And therefore what you see is admissions policies being undermined by a government regulator.

“Cambridge is absolutely being discriminatory against the privately educated, particularly privately educated white males. They are being discriminated against. It is very insidious but the government isn’t off the hook here.”

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Figures show that the prestigious institution increased its intake from state schools from 61.4% to 72.9% between 2013 and 2022.

“There is the potential for the regulator to use conditions of registration to interfere with academic freedom. They’re already using them to interfere with the selection of students,” the vice-chancellor continued.

He hopes Buckingham will become a home for “exiles and refugees” for those made uncomfortable at other universities.

The new course is set to be unveiled next week with already 100 people signed up with further plans to develop it in to a master’s degree and PhD in Autumn, he said.

Buckingham is the country’s oldest private university and was founded in 1976. It was granted university status seven years later.