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The Oxford students Britain turned away

Mair Andrews and Stanley Arlidge
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The Oxford students Britain turned away

When you matriculate at Oxford University, the Vice-Chancellor asks that the attending students be accepted. Under Christopher Wren’s painted ceiling, after copious submissions, emails, and acceptances, the University still has one fleeting chance to turn around and say ‘no’. 

There is a sense of reward in this ritual. As the Vice-Chancellor herself says in the ceremony: “It is not easy to earn a place at Oxford – we are the number one University in the world, after all.” While many students recognise the role of luck in getting to this moment, few are aware of just how lucky they are. 

Over the past seven months, some of Oxford’s offer holders have been hoping for their luck to change. They met the academic requirements and demonstrated sufficient intellectual rigour. What led them to fail the test was, instead, the passports they held. 

They are the victims of a visa brake introduced by the Home Office, which blocks students from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan, and Cameroon from obtaining UK visas. Caught in the politics of immigration enforcement, these students felt the elation of an Oxford offer, followed by the cruelty of being told “no”.  

Seven months on, some still hold out hope of making it to Oxford. 

The visa brake was part of a wide-ranging immigration reform package that has driven anger at the Home Secretary in the Labour government. To justify the claims, Mahmood cited a 470% increase in those on student visas from the four countries claiming asylum. 

Over the phone, Yama jests that, as a scientist, he can recognise “when evidence is selectively deployed”. He is an Afghan British researcher who has worked at the Oxford Vaccine Group since 2013, and he believes that the countries were chosen for political reasons. “They are not a priority for our politicians,” he scoffs. Their lack of representation means those in power question, “‘Is it really worth fighting for?’ Morally, absolutely. But economically or publicity-wise, ‘it’s just 10 students’”.

Earlier this year, Yama wrote to then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer, met with MPs, and has led a UK parliamentary petition against the brake signed by nearly 40,000 people. He hopes that “next time someone thinks about Sudanese or Afghans or whatever other country,” this campaign would mean that  “they might spend one minute to pause and say, ‘I’m going to do this, and this is very unfair’”.

Filings from a court case challenging the policy serve Yama’s point. The Home Office’s own metric for the visa brake shows that, were all countries being treated equally, other countries, including Bangladesh, would have been included in the brake. The country was excluded, not because of its role in visa abuse, but because of deeper bilateral ties, such that “any action on Bangladesh would likely incur a far more pronounced impact upon relations”.

Ask any of the Oxford offer holders what they hoped to achieve with a British education, and they do not ask for asylum. When a coup in Myanmar turned into civil war, Eaint watched her home country fall apart from her student accommodation at King’s College London. Even knowing that, at home, conflict had “erased life as people knew it”, she never considered asylum. “For asylum to be framed as the easy way out,” she says, “is a very disingenuous justification”. She had an offer to begin a Master’s in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation in Oxford this October. 

Studying abroad is not just about attending a particular university. For affected students, it is one of the few ladders out of the devastation caused by decades of civil unrest. Afghanistan has not recovered from the Soviet invasion in 1979 and, since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls have been systematically excluded from education past primary school. For them, universities abroad can represent one of the few remaining routes to continue their education.  

Education is foundational to recovery. Alongside her studies, Aisha has piloted an e-learning programme providing university-level education to women in six Afghan provinces. “It is a process that needs building, but we should not be waiting for the moment the Taliban are no longer in power to start working on the workforce.” She had hoped to use her time in Britain to expand the programme through the University’s networks.

Back in Oxford, Yama runs a similar programme offering education for Afghan women and girls; he’s seen the impact of education through his sister, now a doctor in Denmark. Had his father not been so desperate for her to get an education, fleeing the Taliban in the process, “we would have a woman with no knowledge. We would have one less doctor.”

Eaint’s grief is twofold: the visa brake does not just represent the loss of her own offer, but the knowledge of “what doors this was closing for people who just wanted a better future and education”. “I had already gotten a bachelor’s degree in the UK,” she says. “I was so acutely aware that studying in the UK had changed my life in every sense possible.” 

Taking away the opportunity is equally life changing. One Afghan student told Yama:  “What I’m going to do is this: I’m going to go into those boats. I’m going to cross the channel. I’m going to come into this country, and I am going to study. Because I already have an offer. I have done everything in the past four or five years to qualify and get a scholarship from the UK, and now I’m being stopped not because I don’t meet their standard, but because I’m Afghan.” When Yama tried to dissuade the student, he was reminded that “you are in Oxford. That’s why you are saying, and you are advising me, ‘don’t do that’. Please, before going to sleep tonight, spend ten minutes putting yourself in my place and think about what you would have done.” They have not been in contact since. 

Underpinning the Home Office’s policy is a sense of why international students come to Britain. But these students saw their Oxford offers not as a way out, but as an opportunity to help their home countries. They are the students who fell through the cracks created by a blanket ban. 

Ibrahim was on a rare break from his internship when we called. For the first few minutes of the call, he recounts in detail the potential changes to Sudan’s health referral system he has identified. Working in hospitals in Sudan during the ongoing war, he witnesses daily the challenges of a health system under stress – just three months into his placement, the hospital he worked at was filled with victims of a drone strike in a nearby town.  “There was just so much pressure to take care of all these patients,” he says. Still, you have to be “vigilant”  to survive in an active war zone. At Oxford, Ibrahim wanted to focus on how to implement his changes in a “volatile” environment as part of his Master’s in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation.

Eaint calls from the Thailand-Myanmar border, where she is working on a project helping those fleeing her native Myanmar with medical and humanitarian aid. Ironically, she laughs, the project is funded by an Oxford research institute. 

For everyone, the Oxford offer symbolised that people cared. Ibrahim recalls coworkers and friends asking him why he was smiling so much after receiving his offer. To him, it validated that he had “ the potential to contribute” to the field. Having spent her interview talking about their plans to improve the health system back home, Eaint tells us her offer “felt like a validation of the fact that these issues mattered”. Safar, an Afghan student due to study an MPhil in Development Studies, told us that his offer “represented a possibility: the belief that, if people with the fewest resources are given an opportunity, they can become catalysts for change within societies that have endured decades of war and violence.”

What does it mean, then, that these offers are taken away? Yama describes himself as proudly Afghan British; he was a key part of the team that led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID vaccine and is currently working on the world’s first Ebola vaccine. His expertise means he could easily move to the US, should he choose, but he wants to stay: “This country has given me another home.” The current policy, he says, “is against British values”. 

For Safar, the policy has shaken his faith in what Britain and Europe stand for. Having faced discrimination growing up as a refugee in Pakistan, he always thought that “progressive” Europe was different. “One of the reasons I had always wanted to study in Europe was my belief that Europe was built on the idea of human equality. I never imagined that I would encounter discrimination embedded in government policy in a liberal, so-called first-world country.”

The Home Office itself recognised the dangers of the blanket ban – officials considered targeted interventions, including by course. Their own analysis noted that “the blanket ‘brake’ model offered speed and simplicity but raised proportionality and litigation risks”. The office intends the measure to be temporary and precede more “nuanced” interventions targeting the root of abuse. 

What the Home Office failed to consider was the human cost. By implementing the brake in March, when most offers for UK universities come out, many students felt both the elation of Oxford saying “yes”, before the “numbness” of it being taken away.  Having gone through the rigorous application process, Ibrahim assumed he would be exempt when he first heard of the brake. 

The Home Office did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment. 

As the case has developed, Oxford has issued many statements. Each notes that the University receives “a significant number of applications from talented students affected by war and persecution” and reaffirms the University’s commitment as a University of Sanctuary. A blanket script is the only way to answer a blanket policy – this national policy effectively ties the University’s hands from abiding by its promise to students.

Students, like Ibrahim or Eaint, who had the UK as their only option for 2026-2027 study were left with no options. If they were to look abroad, as many are now doing, they would have to sit out a whole academic year. 

Oxford has stated that it had “offered the same options to the same offer holders”. Whatever the University has offered, the consequences for students are scattered. For some students, holding out hope is painful and unrealistic. The blanket change resulted from the efforts of students, like Ibrahim, to fight for their offers. 

Though these students are not in the Sheldonian Theatre, they are waiting one last time to see whether the answer to their place at Oxford might be “no”. This summer they launched a legal challenge to the visa brake. While the initial case failed at the High Court this summer, Cherwell can confirm that they have applied for permission to appeal.

Hope remains for those who have not withdrawn their applications. Students with unconditional offers, including Ibrahim, have been given the chance to defer to allow for the result of appeal. Even for the Afghans we spoke to who lost their offers, Yama is optimistic that the overturning of the brake would allow them to say “This student was successfully selected for last semester, but they couldn’t get a visa. Could we renegotiate their position for next year?”

Should the appeal fail, the Home Secretary also retains the power to grant entry clearance to students outside immigration rules – the circumstances in which she would do so “are likely to be rare, and will be informed by the nature and purpose of the Student Visa Brake”. To be an exception to a government immigration policy might be rare, but to get into Oxford has always involved some degree of luck and a willingness to test the odds. 

Reflecting on the fact his future rests with a British judge, Ibrahim takes “satisfaction” from “deciding to persevere” till the very end. It has, he admits, been “a very long and very exhausting process”, but the thought of making it to Oxford still excites him. “I think Oxford is worth it. I think it’s really worth the wait. I hope it’s a wait.”

Allow term to change you

Elizabeth Millett
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Allow term to change you

It is well known that pride comes before a fall – an excessive assurance in one’s own invulnerability is a likely recipe for disaster. At university, however, an impenetrable facade and a certain self-conviction appear to have become the norm. My issue with this culture is how rarely – if ever – I hear about a desire to improve our skills. It often feels as if the term becomes about what one can prove, with social currency often being earned in the process.

The drama scene at Oxford frequently epitomises how student output can become more about personalities than prioritising the art itself. The Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) venerates certain student actors, often drooling over the idea of a student elite. The most recent Playhouse production went so far as to proclaim its own project to be the “height of student drama”, while another recent play even featured a rotation of chosen students acting on different nights, presumably intended to have the feel of ‘celebrity-guest’ appearances.

The BNOC list produces another obvious example of this obsession with student reputation. Sure, revealing the campus’ popular names is just some light entertainment. But there is a danger in viewing students as “Oxford’s most famous – and infamous – characters”. This preoccupation sets a precedent that students are not in a process of growth, but rather formed figures to be put on a pedestal.

This unnerving attitude of projection over progress produces more smoke than there is fire; it becomes more about the ‘who’ than the ‘what’. The opportunities term holds appear to be approached by many with self-promotion or social kudos in mind; to my mind, they lack earnest desire to develop a passion. Students often act as if they and their peers are final products, as if we’re professionals already – we’re not. In the racket of this desire to prove ourselves, self-reflection appears to be a lost concept.

Our academic studies require a willingness to change – without humility, we would consistently be chained to our old methods and opinions, and would never grow. You would look ridiculous walking into a tutorial trying to prove yourself, rather than submit to being broken down and remoulded. Yet, look for this attitude outside the vulnerable confines of the tutorial room, and you will find that Oxford culture lacks this genuineness.

Stubbornness also shows up in the chaos of student life. Oxford is rife with poor management and even self-deprecation; admissions of poorly written essays or various social regrets echo around daily. The assumption that students here are put together is wildly incorrect. But amongst missed deadlines, cancelled plans, and failed projects (which are often a product of an admirable ambition to do anything and everything), a genuine desire to learn and improve from experience is rarely talked about – at least not publicly. It is acceptable to be in an ‘essay crisis’, or to not care about making your 9.00am lecture (or any other plan, for that matter), yet a sincere want to change habits or fix your failings is looked down upon; transparency is a weakness. 

It’s important to clarify that I am in no way taking issue with excellence. High standards are ideal, and Oxford consistently witnesses excellent student work that should absolutely be acknowledged. I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t have self-conviction and be aware of our talents – my issue is not with confidence, nor is it with skill-based hierarchy. It’s the lack of servitude. There’s a profound difference between timidity and humility that Oxford students appear to be unaware of. There is an immense grace in possessing talent (and knowing it) and still constantly submitting yourself to being changed and reformed for the better. Skill and personality should not be about reputation and popularity, but about using skill for greater purpose. Fostering natural talent in this way is an ultimate form of self-respect.

A genuine desire to constantly reshape and reform what you pursue will take you far. Treating term time like a showcase for your facade of impartiality or self-assuredness in the hopes of external validation has made Oxford’s student culture about protecting and perpetuating one’s image – throughout the spectrum of students parading their skill to apologising for a lack of it, it appears to be devoid of genuine humility and desire to improve. Passion has been confused (or at least overshadowed by) prestige, and a desire to serve true purpose and apply oneself seems rare. Why can’t we transfer the humility needed in the tutorial room to all aspects of our time here, whether socially, artistically, or practically?  

Ultimately, if student culture continues to work against the virtue of self-improvement, and we carry on being quite so unapologetic, the fall from pride may not be public, but will be a personal one – the loss of the most developed version of yourself. Immense strength can be found in allowing the term to change you, no matter how weak this is made out to be.

Burning the candle at both ends: Diwali in Oxford

Priya Burrow
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Burning the candle at both ends: Diwali in Oxford

Oxford has a curious relationship with time. We do not so much live through autumn as progress through Michaelmas, dividing our lives into eight neatly numbered weeks. Ask a student the date, and you may get a blank look. Ask what week it is and the answer comes instantly, usually with a sigh.

Somewhere among the tutorials, the essay deadlines and the increasingly frantic conversations about fifth week, Diwali arrives. This year it falls on Sunday 8th November, the very first day of fifth week. The festival of lights is entirely indifferent to the university calendar. It does not know that an essay is due on Friday. It simply turns up, as it always has, and asks to be celebrated.

Diwali had been looming in my calendar for weeks, heralded by a formal hall whose menu did the festival few favours. Even so, it has managed to creep up on me, and I am yet to buy a single card or box of sweets. Oxford time, it seems, runs rather faster than the lunar kind.

Spend long enough here, and the eight-week term stops feeling like an administrative convenience and starts to feel like the natural unit of existence. We talk about time as though it were a countdown: “It’s already fourth week”, “I’ll deal with that after sixth”, “I can’t believe we’re halfway through”. Each phrase measures life by how much of the term has been spent and how much remains. There is something charming about this private language, but also something faintly alarming. The Oxford calendar becomes so dominant that everything else must be fitted around it. Birthdays, visits home, and religious festivals become things to be accommodated, slotted between a tutorial and a deadline or postponed until ninth week.

The point is not that Oxford prevents anyone from celebrating Diwali. Nobody is forbidden from lighting a diya – fire regulations permitting. It is that Oxford shapes how we think about the time available for celebration. The term does not tell us what to value. It simply makes sure we are always counting. Diwali demarcates a different kind of time. Its date moves with the lunar calendar, landing anywhere between the middle of October and the middle of November, but its substance barely moves at all. It has been celebrated across generations and continents, through migration and through the ordinary upheavals of family life, and it asks for many of the same things each year: lamps lit at dusk, the house made ready, sweets shared, and family gathered. Where Oxford is preoccupied with moving forward, Diwali is built on return. Part of its meaning lies in the fact that you have done this before, and that others did it before you.

I inherited Diwali from my nani. For as long as I can remember, it has been the thing that draws our family together. My dad is English, and he has never once treated it as someone else’s festival. He has thrown himself into it so wholeheartedly that it now belongs to all of us, and we all love it. This points to a quiet paradox. We tend to treat repetition as the opposite of progress, the thing you do once you have stopped improving. Yet traditions draw much of their meaning from being repeated. A ritual performed once is a novelty. Performed for a lifetime, it becomes a way of belonging.

Oxford continually urges us to advance: to read more, achieve more, and move on to the next deadline. Diwali suggests that coming back to something familiar can matter just as much. Why, then, can a festival like Diwali feel like an interruption to university life rather than part of it?

It would be rather unfair to accuse Oxford of being hostile to tradition. Few places are quite so enthusiastic about preserving it. This is a university where students sit exams in gowns and carnations, where grace is said in Latin before dinner, and where a college’s age is a matter of competitive pride. Tradition is not merely tolerated here. It is the house style.

Yet there is a telling difference between the traditions built into the institution’s routine and those students must make room for themselves. Formal hall is on the timetable. Matriculation has its own day. Christmas falls conveniently during the vacation, so nobody has to ask for an extension because of it. Diwali, by contrast, is something you fit in: a society dinner, a puja between essays, a call home squeezed in before the library.

At Oxford, Diwali often feels makeshift. Last year a few of us held a puja on our staircase, with candles and a handful of murtis, small statues of the deities, balanced on cardboard boxes. It did not go especially smoothly, and it was over almost as soon as it began. But we had made the time to celebrate, and that, more than anything, was what gave it meaning.

None of this requires anyone to have been deliberately exclusive. Institutions tend to remember what they were built to remember. The question, perhaps, is not whether Oxford makes time for tradition, but which traditions have the privilege of being considered part of ordinary life. This is not an argument for abolishing the term, or for telling everyone simply to slow down. Oxford’s eight weeks are useful. They concentrate effort, give shape to an otherwise shapeless amount of work, and end, mercifully, on a fixed date. But they are also an artificial structure, and life carries on beyond their boundaries. 

Diwali is a reminder that not everything important can be measured in deadlines, achievements or weeks remaining. Some things are measured instead in years of return: the same lamps, the same food, the same people, one autumn after another. Perhaps the strange thing about celebrating Diwali at Oxford is not that an ancient festival must find its place within an eight-week term. It is that we have grown so used to the eight-week term that we forget how arbitrary its boundaries really are. Diwali does not interrupt Oxford time. It reminds us that there are other ways of keeping it.

Cowley cinema nominated for top award amidst campaign for survival against Oriel

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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Cowley cinema nominated for top award amidst campaign for survival against Oriel

The Ultimate Picture Palace (UPP), Oxford’s only independent cinema, has been shortlisted for Cinema of the Year at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). 

The cinema on Cowley Road is one of five contending cinemas. It is currently in the midst of a battle with its landlord, Oriel College, to secure its tenancy.

In reaction to being shortlisted, the UPP told Cherwell: “We’re absolutely delighted. To make the final five, from more than 70 cinemas across the UK, is a huge achievement. We’d like to thank everyone who nominated us, who visits the cinema and has supported our campaign to protect its future.

“The UPP exists because of the people who care about it. We’re community-owned, supported by more than 1,200 shareholders made up of locals and film lovers, and everything we do is driven by a belief that independent cinemas matter and that community matters.”

The BIFA’s Cinema of the Year award is the only award celebrating  UK cinemas at the heart of their communities. The award is decided by a public vote of 50,000, which decides the shortlist and nominees alongside a jury of industry professionals. Other finalists this year are Abbeygate Cinema in Suffolk, Campus West in Hertfordshire, Hippodrome Cinema in Scotland, and The Kinema in the Woods in Lincolnshire. 

Open seven days a week in an Art Deco single-screen auditorium, the UPP screens a mix of foreign-language and classic films. With nearby suppliers like Missing Bean and G&D’s Cafe, it offers locally-sourced drinks and snacks before the film.

One voter featured on BIFA’s website said:  “I’d gone on my own, but the UPP has such a strong sense of community that I felt like I was in a room full of friends.” The UPP collaborates with student initiatives like the Oxford University Filmmaking Foundation and aims to connect individuals and communities through social inclusion.

After its last owner, Becky Hallsmith, passed away in 2018, the UPP became community-owned through a fundraising initiative. Their screening of Hamnet with Dame Pippa Harris, the film’s Golden Globe-winning producer, BAFTA CEO, and longtime fan of the cinema, helped the UPP gain attention. 

The building needs repairs, which investors refuse to fund because of the current lease’s 2037 expiry date. It would need a lease of at least 20 to 25 years to secure funding. In 2025, a National Lottery grant was withheld from the UPP as it did not meet the lease conditions. The UPP have said that Oriel “won’t commit because our building is in the footprint of their plans for a ‘Fifth Quad’ to accommodate graduate students”.

Concerning the current status of their campaign to secure their future, the UPP told Cherwell: “Our landlord, Oriel College, has so far been unwilling to commit to the long-term future we need. However, we’re currently in positive discussions with Oriel about a way forward, and we’re hopeful that we can reach an agreement that allows the UPP to stay in its historic home.

“Our Save the UPP posters seem to be in every other window on some streets around Cowley Road and East Oxford. Being shortlisted for this award just shows how much the cinema is valued, and we hope it will help reinforce the case for protecting the UPP.”

Oriel did not comment on the impact that this award could have on their negotiations; it told Cherwell: “The Ultimate Picture Palace is one of the country’s historic cinemas. We are very proud that it has been shortlisted for the BIFA Cinema of the Year award.”

One of last year’s entrants for Cinema of the Year said that they saw a 20% increase in ticket sales after their BIFA nomination. BIFA notes that “votes are weighted taking into account the footfall through your cinema over the course of the preceding year”. With a petition of over 24,430 verified signatures to save their cinema, the UPP say it is an exciting time for them. 

The UPP told Cherwell: “We’d love to bring the Cinema of the Year award back to Oxford when the winner is announced on December 6th.”

Forty-nine Oriel SCR members condemn Nathan Cofnas’ views in statement

Oskar Doepke
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Forty-nine Oriel SCR members condemn Nathan Cofnas’ views in statement

Members of Oriel College’s Senior Common Room (SCR) have described Nathan Cofnas’ claims about race and intelligence as “racist, abhorrent and without scientific foundation”, a week before he is due to speak at the college. 

In a statement signed “in a personal capacity”, 49 fellows and members of Oriel’s SCR said they do not support Cofnas’ views. The statement said his claims are “fundamentally at odds with the values of equality, dignity and respect” that should define the “academic community”. 

Cofnas, a self-described “race realist”, is due to speak at Oriel’s Harris Lecture Theatre on 17th November. The event, titled “An Evening with Nathan Cofnas: Is DEI Undermining Higher Education?”, is organised by the Oxon Universities’ Reform Society (OURS). 

Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, was previously dismissed by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, after writing a blog post claiming that the number of Black academics would “approach zero” under a meritocracy. Cambridge’s internal investigation later found that his comments did not constitute discrimination or harassment. 

In July, Cofnas published a Substack post accusing Jason Arday of plagiarising his doctoral thesis. Arday, who denied plagiarising, resigned from Cambridge after weeks of media scrutiny and was found dead on 14th August. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded the doctorate, concluded Arday’s doctorate should stand. 

The signed statement rejects “the suggestion that Black people owe their place in universities and public life to anything other than their abilities” and says that the event “has caused great distress among students, staff and colleagues, and in particular among members of our Black community”. The statement also adds that Cofnas’ invitation “undermines and distracts from the many positive actions the College has taken in recent years to support greater diversity, equity and inclusion, which have greatly enriched College life”.

The statement reads: “Freedom of speech is not freedom for ideas or opinions to go unchallenged by evidence, questioning and argument.” 

The signatories stressed that the statement “does not represent the position of the College” and that they “respect its [Oriel’s] position of not commenting on the views of speakers at meetings held in the college”. They added that “there are many reasons why others in the Senior Common Room may be unable to sign this statement”.

Cofnas’ invitation has prompted widespread opposition across Oxford. An open letter initiated by Oxford Students’ Coalition Against Racism has been signed by nearly 30,000 people at the time of publication, and Oxfordshire Stand Up To Racism is planning a protest in Oriel Square at 5pm on 17th November, an hour before Cofnas’ scheduled event. 

The Oxford SU has also called an extraordinary meeting of the Conference of Common Rooms on 11th November to discuss the motion ‘No Hate Speech At Oxford’. Oriel MCR was one of the five common rooms that requested the meeting. If passed, the motion calls for the SU to spend £1,000 on a diversity initiative and issue a statement about the Cofnas event.

In a statement on 3rd November, the University’s Chief Diversity Officer, Tim Soutphommasane, acknowledged receiving “concerns about racism, and the safety and welfare of Black and ethnic minority students and staff” from a “significant number of students and staff”. However, he reaffirmed the University’s legal duty to “promote and secure freedom of speech” and did not call for the event’s cancellation. 

A spokesperson for Oriel told Cherwell: “Oriel College is committed to upholding freedom of speech within the law and has a statutory duty to do so. This includes the freedom to express views that many find deeply offensive.

“We are also committed to promoting inclusion and maintaining an environment that is free from all forms of discrimination and harassment, including racial discrimination.” 

The spokesperson added that it is Oriel’s policy to permit events booked by students who are committee members of registered societies, but that permission “does not imply endorsement”. The college also referred to its Bullying and Harassment Policy and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy. 

OURS has also said that Oriel is legally obliged to host Cofnas “by virtue of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023”. Guidance published alongside the act states that universities and constituent institutions – such as Oxford colleges – must maintain a “very strong presumption in favour of admitting lawful speech”.

Others have also defended Cofnas’ right to speak. For example, the Free Speech Union’s website includes a template email congratulating Oriel for “standing firm” and holding the event. 

OURS was contacted for comment.

No, I won’t buy a scholar’s gown

Ben Woodward
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No, I won’t buy a scholar’s gown

On the day I arrived in Oxford, my college mother gave me one piece of advice: “Oh, don’t worry, Prelims don’t matter at all”. Of course, on paper, she was right: for most students at Oxford (provided you pass), Prelims or Mods don’t affect your degree classification nor what you can pick in second year. In theory, for the humanities, they are a chance to practise the art of essay writing under time pressure. But, as an ancient academic institution, Oxford risks forcing division between students by encouraging rivalry between the best of the best. Thus is the philosophy behind the scholar’s gown: a “black gown of Russell cord or synthetic material in full style with a gathered stiffened yoke behind and short open sleeves” (according to the University guide to academic dress), bulkier than the modest commoner’s gown, and given to those who achieve a distinction in their first set of Oxford examinations.

I am no scholar. I made the humble mistake of merely passing my Prelims. It therefore came as a surprise when I received an email saying that I’d been given an exhibition – an award given by certain colleges for reasons ranging from good Collections results to simply being in the favour of your tutors (which one I fall into remains, as yet, a mystery). Both awards entitle recipients at my college to wear the scholar’s gown as part of our sub fusc, alongside a host of other rewards that vary between colleges. Yet I refuse to subscribe to this privileged and elitist attitude towards academic achievement.

All of us worked hard to get into this university: we endured months of prep for the personal statement, put together written work, and faced the intensity of the interview season. Behind that are good GCSE results and likely years of seeking academic validation from teachers. Every person at this university deserves their place; we do not need to prove ourselves further. Some, naturally, work harder than others, and that is reflected in the variety of degree classifications handed out alongside academic prizes. But we must remember that academic reward is not the end goal, and that Prelims are just that: preliminary examinations. When simply settling into the rhythm and social circles of university life is hard enough in first year, must we pile on the pressure even further?

I do not, and cannot, consider myself above my academic peers. Neither the English cohort at my college, all of whom worked hard during exam season and both struggled and shone throughout the year, nor anyone else in other faculties, where marking criteria and the number of Distinctions handed out vary massively. So why would I draw attention to this with a billowing gown? During Finals, as you gaze around the marquee full of hundreds of students in sub fusc, I imagine the last thing you want to be fearing is your own academic inferiority.

The way some colleges reward scholars seems disproportionate to how most are won. At my own, St Hugh’s, I have been invited to “make a short Declaration” at the Governing Body meeting, as well as to attend a free formal and drinks reception with my tutors. All for only one week’s worth of exams! I am only thankful that, unlike central colleges, gowns are discouraged at our formal halls, so there is no obligation to parade around your luck in first-year exams for the next few years. The scholar’s gown is an overt sign of academic comparison, fostering jealousy and rivalry between friends and coursemates – it has no place in what should be friendly, encouraging communities.

Another major issue is the disparity between scholarships across courses and colleges. This is apparent in the criteria for a Distinction: in English and History, candidates must achieve an average mark of 67 with two papers above 70. In Modern Languages, an average of 70 is required, although History and Modern Languages need one mark above 70 and no mark below 64. The boundaries for the sciences are far more vague, since marks are scaled depending on the difficulty of each paper.  Meanwhile, in Medicine, tutors at each college decide scholarships. The prevalence of certain subjects amongst lists of scholars speaks to an inconsistent approach to Distinctions, and so it is hardly fair for their reward to have such a large financial and material benefit for students.

Between colleges, there are all sorts of discrepancies: Pembroke displays a list of scholars and exhibitioners near the porters’ lodge whilst subtracting £1000 from scholars’ battels and inviting them to a scholars’ lecture and dinner. At St Hugh’s, the sum is £300 a year for the rest of their course, whilst at Somerville it is £500 and at Hertford it is £250. Such large monetary gifts as incentives for good academic performance are surprising but also out of proportion. My tutors informed me in Freshers’ week that they valued the growth of my academic voice and development through tutorial essays far more than exam performance, yet the rewards for the latter speak volumes as to what the University values: prestige for the institution.

Of course, it is important to recognise and celebrate academic achievement, and this article ignores the not inconsiderable number of choral and organ scholarships given for talent and dedication to the colleges’ music scenes. And yet it is perfectly possible to skip most lectures and not bother with class or tutorial work, and come out with a Distinction in Prelims and a shiny scholarship to go with it. The way scholarships and exhibitions are awarded at Oxford is an out-of-date system, not recognising true academic talent outside the limited examination system.

The fact that I am here at Oxford, the place I spent so much time and effort to get into, the university I both desired and feared, should be good enough for me. Wearing a fancier gown in front of my friends does not make me cleverer, nor does it make me feel superior to the coursemates who have taught me more than many lecturers could. The friendships I have made at university, the experiences I have had, the joy (and tears) in tutorials, the love and human connection – all these mean so much more than a piece of fabric. No one here should ever feel inferior because they didn’t excel at a set of, quite frankly, mocks. And so, if you see me in the marquee during Finals, I will be wearing my commoners’ gown proudly. I have nothing to prove to others: simply being at this university is reward enough for me.

Realisations of a country girl in Oxford

Amy Cartlidge
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Realisations of a country girl in Oxford

My home village, in the quiet countryside of Cheshire, has a population of 200. Within walking distance, you’ll find a church, a pub, and an upscale coffee shop for passing cyclists. If you want anything else, you’ll need a car – there’s no public transport here, unless you’re willing to tame one of the hundreds of cows scattered throughout the fields. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of damp and muddy Boxing Day rambles through the neighbouring farms, or board game nights when the weather wasn’t hospitable enough to be outside. After receiving an offer to study at Oxford, local scrutiny was everywhere. I couldn’t attend any local tractor run, village fête, or even birthday party without questions about my future following me wherever I went: a side effect of how few people, especially young people, were in the community.

By results day, the prospect of moving to Oxford had become a reality, and it wasn’t the intimidating reading list or the prestigious collegiate system that daunted me. It was the idea of living in the beating heart of a city that never seemed to sleep, where something was always happening. The perpetual chatter of tourists as they snake through the narrow alleyways to peer through the huge wooden doors of another college; the warble of buskers on Cornmarket Street, gathering crowds who toss pennies into their open guitar cases; the wailing of sirens as yet another ambulance drives beneath my bedroom window, startling me awake at night. It was all of these things that made the city feel more alive than anything I’d ever experienced at home. 

The streets of Oxford are like rivers. You are packed shoulder to shoulder in a flowing stream of people, each rushing off down their own channel. I often found myself longing to slow down and meander, like a duck floating downstream, admiring the rich history of my surroundings. That was my first lesson upon my arrival in the city: keep moving. Just as the city never stops, neither can you. Coming to a halt to admire a monument or ancient building will result in the agitated mutters of passers-by, inconvenienced by your wonder. 

On my way to a lecture at the Schwarzman Centre in my first week of Michaelmas, I remember slowing to read an inscription on a grave marker in the churchyard of St Giles’ (a reminder of the old churches I regularly encountered at home, being both a resident of a countryside village and the daughter of a rural priest). My curiosity was cut short when a woman, probably 20 years my senior, knocked me sideways and delivered a strongly worded admonishment I can’t replicate here. The whole interaction struck me as a little sad: humans are so focused on their own trivial goings-on that we find it so difficult to slow down and admire the things around us. Rather than let the city’s relentless pace deter me, I resolved to make the most of its history. I consider myself an expert at ducking out of people’s paths and taking every winding street to soak in everything I can. 

The city’s relative anonymity is another thing that takes some time getting used to. Where a passer-by might stop to chat with you on a rural country lane, the same privilege will not be extended to you down an Oxford alleyway. This reality hit me hard during my first time at the post office, sending letters home to my mother – perhaps an antiquated practice, but there’s something unmatched about the joy of popping a letter in a postbox, or receiving one in your pigeonhole after a difficult day. I was there not only sending letters but also buying postcards for future communications, chatting away merrily with the shopkeeper about the recipient of my letter, and some of its less personal contents. My enthusiasm, however, was met with little more than the occasional nod and a mildly judgemental stare. Equally, many students will whip by you, completely ignoring your smile, nod, or wave. Instead, their heads are down, puffer coats wrapped tightly around them (but rarely zipped, I’ve noticed), backpack or handbag slung over one shoulder, rushing to the library or the coffee shop or the lecture theatre. This surprised me at first, but now that my own classes and lectures have begun, I can sympathise with such individuals. For a student, life often seems to go faster than the average person, between laundry, meal prepping, and completing essays or problem sheets. Balancing the domestic with the academic takes a lot of energy, often leaving little to offer others.

And amid all this rushing around, there’s another challenge: knowing where to go. With so many places to eat, study, and visit, it’s easy to feel lost. Where before my choices were limited to my room, the garden, or a footpath, there are now countless places to explore. This newfound space will almost certainly affect how you study. Personally, this meant finding my feet incredibly quickly, without anyone to tell me quite how I was supposed to do it. The first thing you try is unlikely to be the strategy that sticks. I have played with my screen time, my study location, my social calendar, and found that my day sometimes feels like walking a tightrope between becoming a workaholic and a procrastinator. The allure of city life will distract you from work and likely drain your wallet (the thrill of actually being able to order pizza delivery still hasn’t left me). But don’t let the sheer volume of options overwhelm you. The core takeaway from my experience is to find your calm space amongst everything else going on in your life. Without it, the ebb and flow of Oxford will easily sweep you away with its tide. Finding peace and quiet stabilises you, offering somewhere to drop your anchor and rest for a while.

On the subject of finding calm, if in doubt, go back to what you know. Some days, I do my reading from my bedroom desk, a familiar setting I became all too acquainted with during my A-levels. Others, I take a walk around University Parks – the closest thing I have to walking through farm fields in the middle of Oxford. Above all, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to find your feet immediately. Adjusting to city life has been as much about learning to navigate Oxford as it has been about learning to live independently. When you return home for Christmas and find yourself begging your parents for yet another lift into town, you’ll miss how accessible the city can be. The freedom it brings is something impossible to find in the countryside, and something I’m sure I’ll grapple with when the time comes. For now, though, I’m learning to enjoy my newfound autonomy and the academic challenges of university without getting swept up in the rush, all the while being amazed at how far I’ve come.

One f**king thing after another: ‘The History Boys’, revisited

Saul Grenfell
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One f**king thing after another: ‘The History Boys’, revisited

Grab your motorcycle helmet. Sharpen up on the subjunctive. And cue the synthetic pulses of ‘Blue Monday’. The History Boys is back.

Alan Bennett’s 2004 play followed a cast of candidates vying for an Oxbridge place. Last month it was announced that the play is set to return to the London stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket early next year. But we may ask: what’s the point of this revival?

I have to confess that I’m not quite a dispassionate observer of what a 2013 poll found to be Britain’s best-loved play. Bennett numbers among my favourite playwrights, and The History Boys among my favourite plays. When applying to Oxford, I didn’t consider Jesus or Corpus, as Irwin failed to get in there. I’m aware this is hugely embarrassing.

Despite my love for it, it’s hardly an uncontroversial work. AQA chose to remove the play from its GCSE syllabus in 2022. The frequent gripe for a contemporary audience is the play’s disturbingly frequent gropes. The idolised general studies teacher Mr Hector fondles his pupils on the back of a motorcycle. Whilst they’re all adults (just about), the pedophilic behaviour is deeply uncomfortable, especially so given Bennett’s initial wish for student Posner’s voice to be unbroken.

Though Bennett acknowledges this as a fault (“a grope is a grope. It is not the annunciation”, the terrific Mrs Lintott bites), he treats it as no more than a foible in an otherwise idealised picture. The final scene glorifies Hector with a funeral no less exalting than that of his mythic namesake. In another particularly delightful line, the “big man” can refer either to God or Hector. This issue aside, the play also undoubtedly has an air of entitled schoolboy arrogance, though I think Bennett is partly aware of it. Think Dakin’s cocky declaration: “We are so fucking clever.”

Perhaps more compelling than these reasons not to stage the play is the seeming absence of any reason to stage it. What’s it for? Just a cash grab? Would Forty Years On not be a better choice, his moving school-play-within-a-play that reappraises a postwar, post-Suez Britain? Why The History Boys? Why now?

A tenuous case could be made for its particular relevance today. In Burnham’s Britain, burdened by housing crises and championing vocational education, it’s apt that the most brilliant success of the play is Rudge’s business building homes for first-time buyers, whilst Posner (the only one who took all Hector’s teaching to heart) is unhappy at Cambridge, and persists in parasitic nostalgia for his schoolboy days. However, when speaking to The Times, even director Sir Nicholas Hytner couldn’t stomach a “specious” claim about its pertinence to today’s conversations about the education system.

The revival seems to be Hytner’s idea. Sir Nick is brilliant. Balancing Acts, his memoir on twelve years as artistic director of the National Theatre, is a tremendous read. His 2013 production of Othello is electric, and One Man, Two Guvnors is deftly delightful. His film direction of The Madness of King George (1994) is excellent if only for the climax: “I am the King!”, George declares, strapped into a chair. “No, sir, you are the patient!” returns the doctor as Zadok the Priest swells in this perverse anti-coronation. But can’t he do better? Following The Standard of Living earlier this year, is rehashing this old work the best Hytner can bring to the West End?

Perhaps Bennett suffers from a similar condition. His last effort was the film The Choral (2025), which, whilst moving, was a touch derivative. It became a tick-box list of Bennettisms: passions unfulfilled, power of art, Yorkshire. A scene towards the end echoes Bennett’s admittedly devastating Talking Heads episode, ‘Waiting for the Telegram’. There’s a whiff of Posner to this revival: a reliance on younger, more successful days. We have a 2020s remake of a 2000s play set in the 1980s based on Bennett’s 1950s schoolboy years.

But try as I might to scoff at it, I can’t help but be excited by the return. Crowther’s elegy for Hector may work well as a verdict on the play itself: “He was stained and shabby and did unforgivable things.” But “even his death was a lesson that added to the store”.

In all its blemished brilliance, The History Boys has lessons to add to the store. It speaks to us about the value of education, the struggles of growing up, and – perhaps most fascinatingly – the “sheer randomness of history”. Dakin’s discussions of how history happens, the unpredictability of Halifax’s teeth winning Britain the war, Rudge’s declaration that it’s just “one f***ing thing after another”, even the boys’ playing around “in the subjunctive mood”; these are all questions that play out in the narrative itself, with Hector’s potential expulsion, and the plot (and motorbike’s) lurch.

Whilst it’s easy to mock the play’s soppy view of literature, it’s both intensely moving and true. A poem can be that hand across history, reaching out and holding yours. The cast of characters is vividly sketched, from the plight of love-sick Posner serenading his unrequited sweetheart with Ella Fitzgerald, to the swaggering arrogance of Dakin, the razor-sharp satire of revisionist Irwin, and the no-nonsense and brilliantly perceptive Rudge.

It’s also great fun. Bennett captures the playful musicality of schoolboys teasing teachers: “Are jokes gonna be a feature, sir?” The film adaptation (a guilty pleasure) is similarly charming. It adds Penelope Wilton as an Art History teacher brushing the boys up in culture, and Adrian Scarborough as a devoutly religious press-up-demanding PE teacher (“give me 20!”, “what? Hail Mary’s?”).

These lessons might not be much, but, to butcher AE Housman’s words: all plays are worthwhile whether or not they serve the slightest human use. The History Boys numbers among them.

“Why now?”, we may ask. “Why not?”, we may answer. I’ll see you at the Royal Haymarket.

What are you looking at? A reflection on the Ashmolean’s Aphrodite exhibition 

Abigail Riley
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What are you looking at? A reflection on the Ashmolean’s Aphrodite exhibition 

The woman crouches, nude. A gauzy blue curtain hangs where she hides her chest; behind it I can just see the other artefacts. She isn’t looking at me. Over one white shoulder, she stares into the distance. This is Aphrodite, or perhaps the later Venus – not Mesopotamian Inanna, or Assyrian Ishtar. I know she couldn’t be the Cypriot Aphrodite either.

The plaque calls her Crouching Aphrodite; she’s the first of many images in this room that depict the goddess bathing. Some Romans sculpted her in the second century, but she is really only a copy; there was a Greek original. In many ways, the image of her is a succinct summary of the Ashmolean’s exhibition. The voyeuristic pose, the elaborate up-do, her naked back; these are the marks of beauty and desire. She implies sex, perhaps looks towards love. When I sit down later to write about her, however, I realise I didn’t truly notice much at all about her date, her body or her history. All I know is that she looked right past me.

The first room of the exhibition, Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess at the Ashmolean, is painted a dark blue. Statues and friezes glow, though they were originally brightly-coloured, and the vases shine above their small lights. We have begun in media res, if you like to think of the goddess’ journey through time as one long story – which I, and presumably the curators, would. The next room takes us from the second century to around 3000 BC. We are now with Ishtar, Inanna, the goddess of love, as she began in the Middle East and, later, as she was in Cyprus; the goddess when she wasn’t a goddess of love at all. 

It makes sense to begin there, though, with the classical: we know her image the best. When I walk into the second room, I see that familiarity cast against the strange. Small fertility statues line the left wall. Etched into their features are some of the same rough lines I made in clay at school, using wooden pottery tools. A huge pink circle illuminates the space from the opposite end; everything is bright and quite literally rose-tinted. The sense of time is enormous, only matched by the weight of the goddess’ gaze; here, she looks right at me. 

Where the classical goddess looked away, her Middle Eastern ancestor was almost always facing straight ahead. Of course, there are logical explanations. Classical sculptors had very consistent ideas about which poses best displayed the body, and thus statues rarely looked straight ahead. Similarly, the function of these older statues fits a straight, forward-facing structure far better. Many were made for small shrines, for personal luck. 

But I do not believe that the sole purpose of an exhibition like this should be education. There is something valuable in how we respond to it, which parts stand out and why. I know it is probably a coincidence that the more powerful the goddess is in her culture, the more ancient and remote from my own imagination, the more direct her eyes are. It still feels a little like we have lost something there, and I cannot quite put my finger on it.

The final room reinforces my vague sense of loss. A replica of the Venus de Medici stands there, nude and shy as Crouching Aphrodite. On the opposite wall hang drawings that detail her precise measurements. They believed, in the Renaissance, that the Venus de Medici portrayed the perfect feminine form. The drawings thus measure out every limb, every joint. Little numbers and dotted lines scatter her body; drawn from the front, drawn from the side. I know that these were made, at least ostensibly, for artistic education. And yet, I can only imagine that these men were getting ready to cut the goddess open and sell her body for parts, like a pig or a side of beef. And, if she can be cut open like this, as though Venus de Medici lay on the table of the butcher’s shop and not on a pedestal in The Uffizi, then Aphrodite must no longer be a goddess. Now, she is only another woman. 

Hanging next door is A Girl Drawing by Peter der Werff, small and perhaps even unassuming. Of everything I have seen, though, I feel the closest to that little girl. She sits at a table, drawing the Venus de Medici. Between her and the statue, a boy holds the bust of another woman and tries to distract her. The girl’s gaze is unchanged and her mouth a little slack. I can’t see what’s on her page, but something tells me she isn’t trying to measure the goddess’ breast size. As always, Venus does not look back. Like the Crouching Aphrodite, the goddess looks over her shoulder and into the background. In this little painting, I feel maybe we have found something of what we lost from the statues of Inanna and Ishtar. Aphrodite might not be looking back at us just yet, but we at least are trying to catch her eye.

The early bird gets the worm

Alice Sanders
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The early bird gets the worm

At least, that is the age-old adage. It is what many Oxford students, often cast as the ‘ambitious type’, will have heard time and time again. Whether it be early entry undergraduate applications or job interviews, we as a society are obsessed with being first at everything, and those who are first are, inevitably – so we are told – successful. However, while this may just be symptomatic of the world we live in, there is one race that I will never compete for first place in: that of waking up first.

Let me just clarify: I am, resoundingly, not a morning person. The precise moment at which my alarm clock begins to beep and my phone begins to buzz is, without fail, the worst of my day. Add a grey sky, cold room, and soft duvet to the mix, and I think few would dare suggest I am overexaggerating.

Then comes the slog: snooze, snooze, snooze, but eventually it has to be time to get out of bed and, in the murkiness of the delightful British autumn, start my day. It is a process certainly not unfamiliar to any student, but one made all the more pertinent today, when the proverbial ‘early bird’ has become an even greater icon of success than it has been before. More than ever, too, we have become obsessed with maximising our productivity in every aspect of our lives, streamlining our time to push our busyness to its capacity.

This busyness is certainly no stranger to an Oxford student, for whom ‘doing everything’ is not so much a choice as it is a doctrine. Inscribed in early sporting commitments, the morning essay deadline and 9am lecture are, inevitably, alarms variously beginning with a seven, six, or even five. This is often supplemented with copious amounts of coffee and usually makes for a begrudging start to the day.

For some, however, this is the ideal lifestyle: an early night, an early start, and an undeniable sense of achievement obtained before the sun has even peeled back its sheets, and ditched the pyjamas. It is a way of life sustained by the modern cult of productivity, in which the very act of doing is an invaluable social currency that feels impossible to escape. In our desperation for constant advancement, we capitalise on the doing of everything. We are told that two cooked breakfasts, a workout, meditation, a walk, coffee, and the completion of all our work is possible before the (I would argue still early) hour of 10am, and, honestly, I am sceptical.

Some call the discipline necessary to engage in this morning routine ‘self-improvement’, but it can hardly fail to be self-destructive in the immensity of its expectation. I don’t know about you, but I will not be making any seismic decisions before breakfast. In fact, it is unlikely I will have even decided what I’ll be wearing. Perhaps this is narrow-minded, for there is an undeniable (if egotistical) reward in being able to reel off the imposing list of tasks you completed all while your friends and family slept, letting the early bird start hunting.

However, I cannot help but doubt this 5am alarm and the gloating that accompanies it. Under constant pressure that this is the right, the healthy, the committed, and the successful way of life, it is impossible for guilt not to shadow those who hesitate to admit that no, they have not ‘done’ anything yet, even though it is 11am. There is a certain shame in accepting you haven’t ‘achieved’ anything yet with your day, and one that is only exacerbated by the cacophony of blaring opinions on social media and ‘productivity guidelines’, in which we are baited with success, and teased with the ever superior successes of others.

Perhaps this comes only as some form of self-vindication for the many days that I, red-faced, have admitted to having wasted my morning, those precious hours in which time is endless and potential is limitless. And yet, I do not seem to be alone in this feeling, and we are not scientifically unjustified in it, either. It is an uncontested fact that circadian rhythm changes with age, and is set to a later schedule in the years of twenties and teenagedom, meaning it is only natural to sleep later, and to wake later in accordance. Studies have proven not only this, but also that students’ performance in cognitive activities (such as taking exams) is better at 1.30pm, than either 9am or 4.30pm.

Bolstered by such evidence, this unmatched productivity and glamour of the early morning is marred: while the choice of some, this obsession with the early hours is unfounded as a miracle solution to the perfect life, and its propaganda is not enough to tempt me. After all, while so often confounded by our academic environment, there is much more to our day than the achievements perceived as ‘productive’ in the traditional sense. Although a midnight essay crisis is a situation where I know I’m not alone, the evening often lies in wait with open arms for so much more. Social events, in particular, are usually hosted in the evening, stretching into the hours of the night. Evenings are not exempt, either, from those pursuits typically associated with the morning. It is only at the cost of these evening hours that the early bird can rise.

I imagine that I will always be a night owl, taking advantage of the dying light for everything that can be achieved before dawn, and more. While this avian foil is the most well-known image, the appended ending of the early bird proverb is an even greater favourite of mine: “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” Perhaps some of us will never be first to the mark, chased by the growing light, but we should all take our rewards when they come, without rising to an impossible standard of what is productive or admirable, for there is no shame in choosing to bide our time, and rising, if just a little later. 

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