21 Oxbridge colleges took no black students last year

[MaeMobley]

Here is an article in the Guardian:

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/06/oxford-colleges-no-black-students?dm_i=D9F%2CBP8Z%2C2P0DKY%2CX1T9%2C1

Elephants - ha! Applicants often ask about whether they should arrange practice interviews and I think it can be useful to have practised dressing up slightly awkwardly (which they needn't, but many still do), shaking hands, answering questions when nervous and so on. But beyond that I'm not convinced. The 'interview polish' can just be really annoying as the interviewer - it just stops you getting at them. Which isn't really a problem if they're an 'obvious in' or an 'obvious out' (as probably 40% at interview are) but it doesn't do those in the middle 60% or so any favours.

At my undergraduate Oxford college one (very well known) tutor was banned from teaching women students from St Hilda's because he made them so uncomfortable. Far from this incurring any disciplinary action, he boasted about it as an achievement for years (on the grounds that they were dim anyway). Really disgraceful behaviour, and of course if you object you seem like a shrill woman.

But the real problem - in any institution of that sort, I'm sure it's the same at the bar or wherever - is not the really offensive old dinosaurs but the hordes of perfectly nice men (and some women) who are just blind to the bias in the system - all the small ways in which women/ethnic minorities/the disabled are made unwelcome - because they know nothing else.

Getting off the point, but my friend had a supervisor who sexually harrassed/assaulted so many of his female students that he was eventually banned from closing the door during teaching, but you know...that was all. Heaven forfend he should take his "brains" elsewhere.

I don't agree missmiss that working class students are not prepared for Oxbridge. Many of the best students I knew had come from state schools and quite poor backgrounds (e.g. got help every term from the hardship funds).

But I agree that the atmosphere of Oxbridge (as a consequence of the "bias in the system" and the history) does not lend itself to making working class students feel coomfortable. Or rather, if you attend a vair posh public/private school, you will find a second home in the atmosphere of Oxford/Cambridge.

Regardless though, I would always be ready to belief that there is discrimination in individual tutors' minds when they make choices. Not so much out and out racism, but the "oh look someone who looks/sounds like me, pin a badge on him" thing Helena Kennedy described.

Well...I know one who did lose his job, and in part it was because of his attitude to women. Which, naturally, was vile.
He left an email trail, there was an inquiry, but he resigned before he was sacked. (There were other issues too, incl racism not directed at anyone of an ethnic minority. He was an all round, equal opportunities sort of a cunt.) Of course Oxford were relieved that he resigned, it meant it could be buried. He went on to a job abroad but in a country where they call a bastard a bastard, and from what I hear they got his number on about day one.

v intrigued by arionater;'s culprit - PM me arionater?

This article is obviously to be taken with a pinch of salt, and doesn't (to my mind!) really make anything much better, but anyway:

www.ox.ac.uk/media/behind_the_headlines/101307.html

Not sure how to PM but will experiment - as long as you promise you are not a journalist (or said tutor in cunning Mumsnet disguise).

Have sent you a message elephants. I think!

ha thanks arionater - def not journo scum, I promise :)

How would you like it if I called you "scum"?

FFS.

Because countries without a free press are much better places to live, after all.

Sorry, shouldn't have lost my temper above ^

Asked for MNHQ to delete but they wouldn't...

Sorry ... who called you scum?

Elephants mentioned 'journo scum'. But I have no doubt it was tongue in cheek .

Oh ... I read that as elephants saying she wasn't going to do some kind of expose on a lecturer who'd been banned from teaching, and it's that that would be scummy, rather than journalism per se?

(None of my business: I had a horrible feeling it was in the article I linked to, as I'd only skimmed and not read through it.)

The point was more that he actually hadn't been banned from teaching in general despite no longer being welcome to teach female students from one (all women's) college.

And yes, I took Elephants' remark to be tongue in cheek too. No offence meant to journalists in general, I'm sure.

Well as an aside, my very able black son (on course for 3 As min)decided that he did not want to sit for Oxbridge. He said that they were not the places for him. My very able black daughter has decided (for now) that Oxford is for her.

I think that the "white look" of Oxbridge was one of my son's deciding factors. I was looking forward to him taking me punting... sigh...

He's decided that Bristol is more his kind of university. So we await the offers and to see if the same things turn my daughter off.

How especially lovely for women students everywhere else.

I was taught by someone in my first year at Cambridge who said (clearly thinking he was carefully avoiding racism) that there was a lot in the theory that non-white races had smaller brains. I'm not belittling that with an angry emoticon, I need a Fucking Furious one.

Indeed LRD! And v. shocked at your lecturer. Presumably head size does vary along with general stature between different ethnic backgrounds as between genders, but that seems a totally provocative and unnecessary sort of remark to make from a position of authority to first year students - unless I suppose he went on to stress that there is absolutely no correlation between head/brain size and intelligence.

MarsLady - ime Bristol has rather a "white look" too but I know it a lot less well than Oxford or Cambridge. It's a shame that your son was put off but I'm not surprised to be honest. As I said upthread, I think I would have been too. I teach in London now and one thing I particularly like about it is the much greater diversity of the student body in this respect (even in my subject, which tends to have a lowish level of students from ethnic minorities).

Yes it does, but less so than Oxbridge. When we looked around he liked it and felt at peace there. So, if he's happy, he'll study!

He won't stay in London cos that's where we live. I want him to go to Bristol because:

1)I have a friend who lives there (two birds one stone)
2)I like the shops (two birds one stone)
3)Friends' children have gone there and are happy

We'll see what DD1 does. Who knows what changes may happen before DDs2&3 and DS2 are ready for University.

I have friends in Bristol too so go there quite often - a great city I agree - nicer to live in than Oxford and not as tiny/student-dominated as Cambridge. Good choice I reckon! And excellent university of course.

ooh blimey Josie so sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone! Was just reassuring arionater that I'm not a journalist scouting for a story, in the guise of a humble MNer. I love journalists, me. Some of my best friends are journalists - actually true.

I belong to a "privileged" minority (Jewish) and we were over-represented (ie as a % of the total population).

Jewish and East Asian students are overrepresented because these groups have high average levels of academic ability. Years of psychometric research confirms this (Linda Gottfredson has some excellent papers on this).

This is likely due to both cultural and genetic factors.

articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/18/science/sci-jewish-iq18

unless I suppose he went on to stress that there is absolutely no correlation between head/brain size and intelligence.

There is a small positive correlation between brain size and intelligence although you adjust for body size. UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson & Yale psychologist Jeremy Gray have an excellent paper on this.

www.yale.edu/scan/GT_2004_NRN.pdf -

Well, for what it is worth, no, he didn't go on to say any such thing. He was an unpleasant person who made exactly the same point about brain size re. men and women.

I really shouldn't have brought it up, it's just something that shocked me deeply at the time and left me feeling very concerned. But he's not teaching any more, and I don't think he was remotely representative of Oxbridge in general. The scary thing was that (at least back then) these dinosaurs - often emeritus - were tolerated and indeed treated as eccentric rather than bigoted.

I seem to recall there was a problem with a notably racist lecturer in history somewhere else (Leeds? Apologies to Leeds if not), and I'm sure Oxbridge isn't the only place where students can run into bigoted twats.

Whew. Think I'm done now.

This is what posting in a stress does to you. I meant to say, 'he didn't say any such thing as to stress that there is no correlation.