From trigger warnings to ‘woke’ ideologies — how does your uni rank on the scale?

A league table of the most radically progressive unis has been released by a think tank called Civitas — The Institute for the Study of Civil Society is a British think tank working on issues related to democracy and social policy.

This includes some of the nation’s most prestigious unis in the Russell Group.

In terms of what we mean by radically progressive unis, we mean institutions that are providing trigger warnings (TW) to students regarding the course itself or specific course material that students could find distressing in some shape or form.

But according to MPs who viewed this research, a ‘dark shadow’ of political correctness is falling over our most sought-after universities.

We’re really not a fan of that term. In fact, we’re overjoyed to see universities showing a progressive approach towards how their syllabus is taught. Plus, some pretty big Russell Group unis dominate the table, taking eight of the top 10 spots. Cambridge and Oxford come first and second, having introduced ‘unconscious bias’ and race workshops for freshers, followed by the University of Bristol, which has outlawed words such as ‘mankind’ to avoid causing offence to students and staff.

Let’s see how the unis were evaluated on their wokeness — and how your uni has ranked in the league table.

How was the research conducted?

The research was conducted by Dr Richard Norrie, a researcher at Civitas. In total, the table ranks around 137 unis, and was compiled based on their press coverage locally and nationally, as well as their promotional materials.

They found that 62% had references to TWs of some kind, with aims to alert students to material that they could find distressing. In addition to that, 79 unis mentioned the term ‘white privilege’ and a further 59% of unis offered materials and/or resources on anti-racism.

As reported by Daily Mail — Sir John Hayes MP, a former further education minister said that unis should be “places of light and liberty learning, but a dark shadow has fallen over too much of higher education”.

But is it really all that dark to warn students that they could be dealing with potentially difficult or harmful topics? If anything, this progression in the higher education sector reinforces the light and liberty of learning — does it not?

Some unis that issued TWs of note include:

• The University of Chester — said Harry Potter books can ‘lead to difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class and identity’, which we can only assume is attributed to the backlash JK Rowling received in recent years
• Aberdeen University, issued a trigger warning for Peter Pan because it could be ‘emotionally challenging’
• Imperial College London encouraged its students and staff to have ‘hard conversations with friends and family who deny white privilege’
• The University of Warwick has now banned the term ‘trigger warning’, claiming that it could upset students
• The University of Glasgow warns archaeology students their course might involve examining bones.

That’s not all…

Conservative peer Lord Wei of Shoreditch has said financial support for students and graduates should be linked to how “woke” they are to encourage them to vote Tory — according to a Yahoo! article by political respondent Nadine Batchelor-Hunt.

This is part of his series of proposals aimed at women, students, car owners, millennials and low-income men. He said that in order to appeal to a younger demographic, students could be seen taking “national tests” — which test for tolerance of other viewpoints, as well as lateral and critical thinking.

Translation: it’s to see how not offended you get by conservative statements.

Alarmingly, he also stated:

“Students could have their debts paid off based on their ranking in such awards, both at the level of the university and nationally, and institutions could themselves have their funding increased or decreased based on how many prize winners they have as students or alumni (with funds saved from institutions shut or trimmed down recycled into the funding of more prizes),”.

They also suggested universities could even have their funding increased if they demonstrated they were not woke.

The bargaining of debt relief based on lowering one’s wokeness is, in our eyes, disturbing. This not only takes advantage of the many hardships students are facing financally, but this will also impact the rights of many. It’s especially bad news if someone with this much power were to have actual dictation on funding, based on the radicalisation of views to increase diversity and inclusion.

Dr Rohit K Dasgupta, senior lecturer in cultural industries at the University of Glasgow also backs this up, saying this is “why we need better policy education”. “This is literally a Tory peer whose policy to win votes is to offer debt relief to graduates who can demonstrate they are ‘anti woke’,”.

Scary stuff indeed.

So how does my uni rank on the wokeness scale?

If you’re thrilled about unis taking a more progressive approach to teaching, then you may be interested to see where yours sits on the scale.

The score is based on the following:

• Anonymous reporting
• Anti-racism training
• Free speech controversies
• Official commitments to decolonisation
• Race Equality Charter Membership
• Transgender-related restrictions on speech
• TWs

The higher the score, the more the unis match the above — a lower score, means they match hardly any or none of these variables.

The woke university scale — ranked

1. University of Cambridge: 2.38
2. University of Oxford: 1.96
3. University of Bristo:l 1.81
4. University College London: 1.63
5. Newcastle University: 1.62
6. SOAS, University of London: 1.6
7. University of East Anglia: 1.56
8. University of Warwick: 1.51
9. Durham University: 1.49
10. University of Exeter: 1.42
11. The University of Sheffield: 1.4
12. York St John University: 1.34
13. University of Portsmouth: 1.34
14. Oxford Brookes University: 1.34
15. Queen Mary University of London: 1.32
16. Goldsmiths, University of London: 1.31
17. University of Birmingham: 1.17
18. University of Reading: 1.14
19. University of Brighton: 1.06
20. University of Essex: 1.01
21. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: 1
22. The University of Nottingham: 0.99
23. De Montfort University: 0.99
24. King’s College London: 0.99
25. University of Surrey: 0.98
26. Leeds Beckett University: 0.96
27. University of Glasgow: 0.95
28. University of the Arts London: 0.91
29. University of Liverpool: 0.9
30. University of Dundee: 0.87
31. University of Salford: 0.85
32. Middlesex University: 0.83
33. The University of Manchester: 0.82
34. University of Leeds: 0.78
35. Royal Holloway, University of London: 0.77
36. University of Stirling: 0.74
37. University of Central Lancashire: 0.74
38. The London School of Economics and Political Science: 0.73
39. University of Leicester: 0.7
40. University of Plymouth: 0.61
41. Imperial College London: 0.59
42. University of Aberdeen: 0.58
43. University of York: 0.57
44. University of Kent: 0.56
45. Keele University: 0.54
46. Canterbury Christ Church University: 0.52
47. University of Huddersfield: 0.49
48. University of St Andrews: 0.43
49. London South Bank University: 0.42
50. Nottingham Trent University: 0.4
51. University of the West of England, Bristol: 0.39
52. Bath Spa University: 0.39
53. City, University of London: 0.34
54. University of Bath: 0.32
55. Staffordshire University: 0.31
56. University of Lincoln: 0.3
57. University of Edinburgh: 0.29
58. University of Westminster: 0.26
59. University of Winchester: 0.24
60. Loughborough University: 0.21
61. Aberystwyth University: 0.2
62. University of Sussex: 0.2
63. University of Wolverhampton: 0.18
64. University of Hertfordshire: 0.18
65. Manchester Metropolitan University: 0.15
66. Coventry University: 0.14
67. Lancaster University: 0.12
68. University of Derby: 0.08
69. Anglia Ruskin University: 0.07
70. Brunel University London: 0.05
71. Liverpool John Moores University: :0.06
72. Sheffield Hallam University: 0.08
73. Liverpool Hope University: 0.1
74. Queen’s University Belfast: 0.12
75. London Metropolitan University: 0.16
76. The Glasgow School of Art: 0.21
77. The Royal Veterinary College: 0.22
78. University of Greenwich: 0.22
79. Buckinghamshire New University: 0.22
80. Swansea University: 0.28
81. University of Gloucestershire: 0.3
82. Birkbeck, University of London: 0.31
83. University of Chichester: 0.33
84. Robert Gordon University: 0.34
85. Falmouth University: 0.34
86. University of Bradford: 0.34
87. University of Hull: 0.37
88. Edinburgh Napier University: 0.4
89. University of Southampton: 0.42
90. University of Strathclyde: 0.43
91. University of the West of Scotland: 0.45
92. University of Roehampton: 0.47
93. Norwich University of the Arts: 0.47
94. University of Sunderland: 0.49
95. The Open University: 0.49
96. University of East London: 0.53
97. Aston University: 0.54
98. University of South Wales: 0.55
99. Bournemouth University: 0.59
100. Heriot:Watt University: 0.63
101. University of Northampton: 0.64
102. Bangor University: 0.66
103. Cardiff University: 0.66
104. Birmingham City University: 0.68
105. University of Worcester: 0.68
106. Edge Hill University: 0.77
107. Glasgow Caledonian University: 0.78
108. Plymouth Marjon University: 0.82
109. University of Suffolk: 0.85
110. Guildhall School of Music and Drama: 0.9
111. University of the Highlands and Islands: 0.92
112. Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance: 0.93
113. University of Chester: 0.98
114. Ulster University: 0.99
115. Leeds Trinity University; 1.01
116. Queen Margaret University: 1.04
117. Solent University: 1.07
118. Wrexham Glyndwr University: 1.1
119. University of London: 1.13
120. Northumbria University: 1.23
121. Kingston University: 1.25
122. University of Wales Trinity Saint David: 1.33
123. University of Bedfordshire: 1.38
124. Royal College of Art: 1.4
125. St George’s, University of London: 1.4
126. University of Bolton: 1.41
127. London Business School: 1.43
128. The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama: 1.48
129. Cardiff Metropolitan University: 1.48
130. Bishop Grosseteste University: 1.55
131. The University of West London: 1.82
132. Cranfield University: 1.85
133. Teesside University: 1.95
134. Royal College of Music, London: 1.96
135. University of Cumbria: 1.98
136. The University of Buckingham: 1.98
137. Regent’s University London (score not specified)

Source: Civitas

We hope this gives you an idea on how radically progressive teaching materials are at your uni. It’s especially useful to know if you’re thinking of applying for one of these unis too. Want to find out how else your uni might be more progressive than the rest? Check out how sustainable your uni really is.

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