Repression at Cambridge

[TomUS]

Looks like Cambridge U will not tolerate dissent & has singled out a student for pretty severe punishment for it. Is this just one indication of how increasingly conservative & intolerant UK society has become?

Last November, Holland, with a number of other students and some lecturers, committed the grave crime of expressing quite vocal but peaceful dissent during a visit of Conservative Party politician and Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willetts to the University. The punishment that Cambridge has decided to enforce against Holland for his protest......is draconian to say the least: suspension from the University for seven terms, or roughly two and a half years -- a period of time that will deeply disable and derail Holland's career as it simultaneously isolates him from his Cambridge colleagues and the University's resources (such as reliable access to libraries, colloquia, symposia, lectures, etc.) that a doctoral student needs for the enhancement and completion of his research.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tho...-in-repress_b_1373946.html?ref=world&ir=World

 

[Santino]

Is this just one indication of how increasingly conservative & intolerant UK society has become?

Well, it's not six indications, is it?

 

[London_Calling]

I should think this will make his career.

 

[ska invita]

I heard that a bunch of students and teachers said theyd suspend themselves alongside him in support...did that happen?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

As the event began, the dissenters in attendance were loud but peaceful, shouting Willetts down;

interrupting a government minister while he was trying to speak - I wonder where they got that idea from?

 

[butchersapron]

Must've been a really shit poem.

 

[Quartz]

'Quite vocal' covers a multitude of situations. Better details and video here: http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/protestor-sent-down-for-30-months

 

[DotCommunist]

a lot of Cambridge graduates are repressed

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's odd, because normally Cambridge has no connection with promoting particular social and political positions over others.

 

[Mephitic]

come the revolution, i'm turning Cambridge into a landfill.

 

[DrRingDing]

Must've been a really shit poem.

Pretty much.

 

[DrRingDing]

come the revolution, i'm turning Cambridge into a landfill.

Easy. Do the colleges but kindly leave Mill Road and our great pubs alone.

 

[mister_shine]

Are we really going to sit here and defend these students? They practically assaulted David Willetts. They're lucky they didn't get a more severe punishment.

What are we doing to ensure that this does not happen again? Surely the students and staff of Cambridge have to undergo some kind of intellectual vetting process - I understand that other institutions have had a lot of success with the EEG polygraphs. We should only be educating people to a high standard who are capable of being utterly loyal to the country and government that has afforded them that education.

 

[butchersapron]

As suspected - nutter.

 

[DrRingDing]

They practically assaulted David Willetts.

We have a live one!

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm hoping it was satire

 

[CyberRose]

come the revolution, i'm turning Cambridge into a landfill.

Personally, come the revolution I'd send the brightest prospects from the working classes to places like Cambridge so they can build on their potential for the benefit of all in the new society. But then I suppose I don't exactly have the mindset of the typical lefty?

 

[DotCommunist]

and these intellectual cadres could become leading lights in the Party obvs....

 

[butchersapron]

Personally, come the revolution I'd send the brightest prospects from the working classes to places like Cambridge so they can build on their potential for the benefit of all in the new society. But then I suppose I don't exactly have the mindset of the typical lefty?

Yes, that's what's happened since w/c kids went there hasn't it? Rather than defence of their earned privilege.

I it find funny that because you think that you don't exactly have the mindset of the typical lefty your plans somehow just work - despite facts, despite history and despite empirical investigation.

 

[CyberRose]

Sorry did I miss a revolution somewhere?

 

[JimW]

Personally, come the revolution I'd send the brightest prospects from the working classes to places like Cambridge so they can build on their potential for the benefit of all in the new society. But then I suppose I don't exactly have the mindset of the typical lefty?

That's what China attempted with Qinghua and Beida but sure enough a generation later very few workers' kids and you got a new ruling class packed with cadre or intellectual family background graduates of those places.

 

[Fruitloop]

There are no w/c kids at Cambridge. None.

 

[butchersapron]

Sorry did I miss a revolution somewhere?

You think oxbridge would exist after a revolution?

 

[CyberRose]

That's what China attempted with Qinghua and Beida but sure enough a generation later very few workers' kids and you got a new ruling class packed with cadre or intellectual family background graduates of those places.

Yea but that's because whoever leads successful revolutions becomes the new ruling class, rather than an ill thought out education policy. Says more about the ideology than the education...

 

[CyberRose]

You think oxbridge would exist after a revolution?

Why not?

 

[DrRingDing]

There are no w/c kids at Cambridge. None.

I nearly lumped a Cambridge Uni student that was giving it the large one about how w/c he was the other day.

He was physically and politically defending a talk by Jeremy Hunt. I should of.

 

[butchersapron]

Why not?

Why would an elite institution transmitting privilege exist post-revolution?#

Its function is dead in this world never mind the next.

 

[mister_shine]

Jeremy Hunt, no way! I voted for that guy in 2010. There is no point in a revolution, a conservative led democracy is the best option that this country has right now if it is going to survive.

 

[JimW]

Yea but that's because whoever leads successful revolutions becomes the new ruling class, rather than an ill thought out education policy. Says more about the ideology than the education...

There's a good book about it (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=16889) and it really does seem to have been linked with maintaining an elite education system, particularly that space it opened for a compromise between old intellectual and new political elites.

 

[DrRingDing]

Troll or pillock?