Race quotas in education will see rise in extremism, Maajid Nawaz fears

10 October 2020, 16:29

Maajid Nawaz: Racial skewing in education will bring rise in extremism

By Seán Hickey

As a top US university comes under scrutiny for discriminating students on the grounds of race, Maajid Nawaz believes this could lead to a spike in extremism.

"There's no way you can convince me that these white working-class men in particular but also women who are underrepresented in universities aren't hard done by, because the evidence is staring you in the face."

Maajid Nawaz insisted that race quotas are by no means the way to go in an effort to address disparity in education.

"If we go down that path," he warned, "if you can understand how radicalisation happens in muslim communities due to grievances, then you cannot pretend you don't understand how radicalisation will not equally occur in white working-class neighbourhoods."

Maajid insisted that "we've got to start paying attention to this problem" rather than hoping it fixes itself.

He added that if this sort of quota system continues "it will cause more problems than it solves."

Yale University in the US came under fire for alleged racial bias. Picture: PA

Maajid told listeners that this kind of approach to educational inequality runs the risk of sparking a trend of racial tokenism, reiterating that "it blinds us from the real problem."

"I'm tired of window-dressing and tokenism and that's what I think quota systems do and they pit groups against each other."

Offering a solution, Maajid concluded that "if we focus on equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome we can end up perhaps with the compromise that can address the issue."