Should the organ scholarship be abolished? At the time of writing, 23 of the 43 colleges in Oxford offer organ awards. These consist in a mixture of funding, housing privileges, and symbolic perks such as the right to don a scholar’s gown.
It is no secret that those who secure the scholarship are likely to have been educated privately. Partly due to the nature of the instrument, opportunities to learn and master the organ are rare for state-educated pupils in the UK, and the primary use of it in church settings has also meant that students brought up without that background are effectively excluded. Putting these together, it becomes clear that while the award is competitive, it is heavily skewed in the favour of families with wealth and ties to the Christian tradition.
Seen under this light, the organ scholarship predictably attracts the ire of those who preach the gospel of equal opportunity, sincere in their belief that rewards are undeserved until the mechanism for securing them can be reformed to eliminate such biases. If we cannot, for whatever reason, eliminate the biases, then justice requires that we eliminate the award.
One thing to notice about this kind of argument is the way it’s designed to mirror arguments against the more familiar kind of biases that no one would defend, such as biases against people on the basis of their race and gender. The move is rhetorically effective, since no one would think to defend a system that excluded women and ethnic minorities. If the organ scholarship’s exclusion of state-educated pupils is comparable, then nothing short of its abolition would seem to be in order.
Perhaps the most obvious objection to the analogy is the way in which the “bias” in question relates differently to the objective of the relevant contest. Whereas race and gender bear no relation to a person’s ability, those who took advantage of their background to excel at the organ are, by hypothesis, better at playing the organ than others. It is not “bias” for those who are better at the organ to be appointed to the organ scholarship, anymore than it is bias that those who sprint the fastest are given Olympic gold medals for the hundred metre race.
This observation clarifies the nature of the objection raised against organ awards: it is not that those who object to the award are in doubt as to whether organ scholars are indeed good at the organ, but rather that they do not see why being good at the organ should entitle anyone to the benefits associated with the award mentioned at the outset. No doubt hard work goes into acquiring such a skill, it is arbitrary nonetheless that students skilled in this rather random and idiosyncratic way should be able to derive advantages over others because of it.
Once we recognise that this is the sentiment behind the unease some feel towards organ awards, we realise that it is a complaint that no reform can satisfy. This is because there is no principled way of distinguishing between arbitrary and non-arbitrary talents, and not at all clear whether justice will be served when benefits thus derived are redistributed. It is arbitrary that being skilled at kicking balls, for instance, can in our society earn you great money and power and prestige in a footballing career, whereas being skilled at juggling balls — which may have required just as much talent and practice and discipline to develop — condemns you to the fate of a circus clown. It is no less arbitrary, however, to decide therefore to abolish football, or to subsidise jugglers in an effort to mitigate our knee-jerk disquiet.
Perhaps a deeper reason why the organ scholarship in particular is targeted is due to the way it embodies the clerical heritage that gave rise to this university, an awkward reminder of our Christian past that embarrasses those who prefer a secular, cosmopolitan identity for our institutions. Unlike the previous suggestion, reforms in this direction may well succeed, and succeed all too well.
We can well imagine aggressive campaigns to erase those final vestiges of the Christian faith under the guise of progress and fairness. The organ award, which sustains and facilitates the choral tradition, is an obvious target. We may also decide that “Michaelmas” and “Trinity” should really be replaced with “Winter” and “Summer” to keep up with the times. At the far end down this path, we will have succeeded in covering our bases from all charges of cultural bias. We will also, at precisely the moment when this is achieved, have lost the University of Oxford.
