Tuesday 7th October 2025
Blog Page 760

Oxford’s controversial donors revealed

Tobi Thomas
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Oxford’s controversial donors revealed

Two of Oxford University’s top donors have been accused of facilitating climate change denial in public debate and enabling money laundering, Cherwell can reveal.

Multinational fossil fuel corporation ExxonMobil and Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo both donated between £1 million and £4.99 million to the University in 2016-17, a Freedom of Information request shows.

Their donations were directed to the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine and the Saïd Business School respectively.

The University classifies its donations in three bands: “£10 million and above”, “£5 million to £9.9 million”, and “£1 million to £4.9 million”.

ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publically traded oil and gas company with assets over $348.7 billion and 69,000 employees, helps to fund scholarships linked to the Global Health department.

Funding is available for candidates domiciled in developing countries who study the MSc International Health and Tropical Medicine, which focuses on the archetypal health impact of climate change.

The company has been involved in an ongoing climate change controversy dating as early as the 1970s. ExxonMobil is alleged to have engaged in research and lobbying with the purpose of delaying widespread acceptance and action on global warming.

From the 1980s to the mid 2000s, the company, which was headed by former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson between 2006 and 2017, was a leader in climate change denial. It consistently opposed regulations to curtail global warming.

In February 2017, a lawsuit was filed by former ExxonMobil employees, claiming that the company deceived them by making misleading and false statements regarding the financial risks of climate change.

In July 2017, three communities in California sued 37 oil, coal, and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, for contributing to sea level rises while engaging in a “coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their own knowledge of those threats”.

In August 2017, a report was published by researchers at Harvard University claiming that ExxonMobil had mislead the public on the effects of climate change.

They found that between 1977 and 2014, 80% of ExxonMobil’s statements to the public expressed doubt about climate change, despite 80% of the company’s research acknowledging the validity of climate change and its cause in human activity.

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“Our findings are clear: ExxonMobil misled the public about the state of climate science and its implications. Available documents show a systematic, quantifiable discrepancy between what ExxonMobil’s scientists and executives discussed about climate change in private and in academic circles, and what it presented to the general public,” Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, Harvard academics and authors of the study, wrote in The New York Times.

Supran told Cherwell: “By accepting millions of pounds from ExxonMobil, Oxford is helping legitimise a company that has worked for decades to confuse the public, undermine policy, slander scientists (including me), and sabotage science.”

Just last month, ExxonMobil were accused of continuing in their pursuit of an oil deal with Liberia despite concerns of corruption.

Under the leadership of Tillerson, who was fired via Twitter by Donald Trump in March of this year, ExxonMobil signed a $120 million deal with Broadway Consolidated/Peppercoast (BCP), despite an allegation of corruption by the transparency organisation Global Witness. BCP engages in oil and gas exploration and production in the West Africa region.

The investigation by Global Witness showed that Exxon executives were aware that the purchased oil was partly owned by former politicians who had taken ownership of the block through illegal means.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson told Cherwell: “ExxonMobil’s funding to Oxford is for a range of programmes that deliver benefits in the areas of health, women’s empowerment and energy studies. The programme you have referenced is for scholarships that foster the next generation of leaders to tackle malaria and other diseases around the world.

“Since 2011, the ExxonMobil Global Health Scholars programme has provided 38 outstanding young doctors, researchers and health professionals from Cameroon, China, India, Liberia, Mexico, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Russia, South Africa and Tanzania the opportunity to learn about the global burden of disease, epidemiological principles and how to apply classroom lessons to the real world.

“Students have pursued global health-focused Master’s degrees at Oxford University, and then taken the skills and knowledge they have learned back to their home countries to continue to fight health issues.”

Should students be doing more to protest Oxford’s controversial donors?

Write for Cherwell and have your say – send a 150-word pitch to our comment editors.

Meanwhile, Intensa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank, were fined $235 million by New York’s financial regulators for violating anti-money laundering and bank secrecy laws, as reported by the Financial Times in December 2016.

The report also said that between 2002 and 2006, Intensa Sanpaolo has conducted over 2,700 clearing transactions, which amounted to more than $11 billion on behalf of clients subject to US economic sanctions.

Intensa Sanpaolo have total assets amounting to over €725 billion and has over 96,000 employees.

In March of this year, Carlo Messina, CEO of Intensa Sanpaolo, and Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson formally recognised their “strategic partnership”.

This partnership includes the funding of the first Intensa Sanpaolo Research Fellow, Dr Rita Mora, based at the Said Business School.

A University spokesperson said the ExxonMobil donation “enables students from low and middle income countries to study an MSc at Oxford’s Centre for Tropical Medicine & Global Health.”

The spokeperson added: “The ExxonMobil Foundation also supports the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN)”.

The spokesperson said: “The University is grateful to both donors for supporting these substantial academic projects which all address challenging issues of global concern.

“Oxford University has a robust and rigorous donor scrutiny process. All major prospective donors are carefully considered by the Committee to Review Donations under the University’s guidelines for acceptance.  High profile companies and organisations may well have been the subject of individual controversies over the years.

“The Committee will consider such controversies in the wider context of the respective institutions’ overall reputation and standards of good governance. Donors to the University have no influence over the content of academic programmes, how academics carry out their research or the conclusions they reach.”

The hidden costs of trashing revealed

Matthew Roller
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The hidden costs of trashing revealed

Post-exam trashings cost the University £25,000 a year, Cherwell can reveal.

Security staff were paid £20,000 in overtime in 2017 to control celebrations, while a further £1,881 was spent on hiring barriers to manage pedestrian flow.

A further £3,500 was reimbursed to Oxford City Council, who clean Merton Street following trashings.

A University spokesperson told Cherwell: “inconsiderate, entitled behaviour passed off as ‘trashing’ can damage Oxford students in the minds of the community and the wider public.

“Getting through examinations is a milestone but we urge our students to find ways to mark this which are far less damaging, costly and – frankly – annoying to community neighbours, the City Council and fellow members of the University.”

The University also reiterated that participating in trashing can lead to fines and disciplinary action.

Several colleges have attacked the tradition. Mansfield labelled it “stupid…damaging to the environment, and wasteful”, while Corpus Christi said trashing was “just not classy”.

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According to the University’s code of conduct, trashing is banned. Section 3.3, Part 1 of the regulations states: “No student member shall, in any place or thoroughfare to which members of the general public have access within six miles of Carfax, throw, pour, spray, apply or use any thing or substance in a way which is intended, or is likely, (a) to cause injury to any person, or (b) to cause damage to, or defacement or destruction of, any property, or (c) to cause litter.”

Similarly, it is officially an offence even to be “in possession of any thing or substance with intention to [trash]”, and to “gather without the prior permission of the Proctors in a public thoroughfare within 300 metres” of a place where an exam is being held around the time of its completion.

The University also confirmed that it informs Thames Valley Police of locations that trashing is expected to take place.

While most reports about trashings suggest that it started in the mid-1990s, Cherwell can reveal that it dates back to the 1970s.

Reports from alumni suggest that the tradition caused logjams on the High Street several times a term, and regularly led to fines from proctors.

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Cherwell has reported on disciplinary offences related to trashings since the 1980s. A news piece in the final edition of Trinity term 1986 said that all students had been sent an official letter from the Proctors “threatening arrest for those who persisted in holding post-Finals celebrations on the High Street”, after the Thames Valley Police said that charges of obstruction and littering would be brought against them.

The then-Junior Proctor, Dr Paul Slack, said: “Twenty years ago, when I was a student, none of this went on. We used to retire quietly to our rooms to drink champagne. The whole matter has got out of hand.”

Similarly, archive photographs show that students have been using silly string and fizzy wine for over 30 years, although the use of shaving foam is more recent.

The word “trashing” has been used since the early 1990s, and in 1996, the proctors described the concept as a “perennial problem”. They said: “it can be offensive and dangerous, and it does the University’s name no good. [The problem is] exacerbated nowadays by the example set by Formula One racing drivers and by television slapstick.”

In 2007, OUSU President Martin McCluskey urged students to tighten their privacy settings on Facebook, after it emerged that proctors had been using social media to identify who had been involved in trashings.

That year, the proctors fined students over £10,000 in trashing-related offences, more than five times the total that had been raised in all fines in the previous proctorial year.

The following year, Oxford pubs banned trashed students from entering the premises, while the Kings Arms banned any student wearing a gown during exam season.

In 2011, the proctors sent an email to all students reminding them that certain substances were “a disgrace, and potentially dangerous”. They said: “No flour, no eggs, no beans, ketchup, let alone rotting food or worse. Rotting food, vomit, broken glass and other items causing litter are simply not what any of us wants to see. They are a disgrace and potentially dangerous.”

The same year, one student was fined £80 for throwing a trifle at a finalist.

Are trashings worth the 25k cost? 

Write for Cherwell and have your say – send a 150-word pitch to our comment editors.

In 2012, there were allegations that two members of staff were assaulted outside of Examination Schools by a celebrating finalist, although Thames Valley Police claimed the men “were not injured”.

In 2014, a now-defunct website called trashing.me for trashing supplies was set up. A member of the team said: “[Trashing] is a unique thing about Oxford which makes it particularly special: I do not know of any other universities where people come to see their friends when they finish their exams. Trashing marks the end of your degree, and the beginning of summer and real life – and as such, is a symbolic and integral part of Oxford life.

Last summer, Christ Church Meadow was shut in order to prevent students from trashing each other there. A notice on the gates of the main entrance said: “For the next six weeks, while examinations take place, Merton Gate and Rose Lane Gate will be closed for three hours or so twice a day to prevent undergraduates from ‘trashing’ in Christ Church Meadow, which creates an appalling mess.

“Students have also been causing a nuisance and putting the safety of members of public at risk, hence we are taking this measure to ensure that the Meadow remains a quiet place for people to enjoy.

“We are also liaising with security services of the University of Oxford and the proctor’s office. We apologise for the inconvenience this temporary gate closure will cause members of the public.”

There is still power in a union – but it erodes with our apathy

Greg Ritchie
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There is still power in a union – but it erodes with our apathy

After weeks of chanting on Broad Street, picket lines outside libraries, and countless missed lectures, the strikes are at last over. UCU members have voted ‘Yes’ to the creation of a “joint expert panel”, with the stated aim of sorting out this whole mess. And in good time, too, what with exams around the corner. Hurrah for worker solidarity!

Or perhaps too soon. For this ballot has divided a union, and the deal it produced may still unravel. As is often the case, the left and dispossessed scream a lot louder at branch meetings (and on Twitter) than the silent majority. In these arenas, support for a ‘No’ vote was sometimes deafening, with over 20 union branches and countless hashtags calling on members to reject the deal.

The fact that they were emphatically defeated in the ballot has led to outrage similar to that of the ‘45%’ in Scotland, or the ‘Remoaners’ over Brexit – made all the more venomous by the UCU leadership’s undisguised campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote. For some militant members of the ‘No’ caucus, this was class betrayal – comfortable, older academics selling out the young workers whom these reforms will hit hardest. This is almost certainly unfair. Both sides of the ballot had clear flaws. But if, as many speculate, the universities possessed the foresight to push for a ballot in order to divide their striking staff, then their strategy looks to be paying off.

Wider divides within the higher education section, and in particular between management and rank-and-file academics, have also become apparent. In Oxford, both the University and six of its colleges pushed for changes to the pension pot, without proper consultation of the staff it would affect. Here, and across the country, it has taken months to expose the details of how an agenda for change was pushed through under the radar by closed committees, hand-picked working groups, and flawed surveys. By this stage, despite the theatric efforts of our Congregation members, much of the damage had already been done.

And, of course, there is the student-staff divide. While picket lines were well-attended by student activists, anyone who actually goes here knows that they are an oft-derided minority. Far more have reacted to the strikes with annoyance at the inconvenience ladened on them. More still have met them only with apathy. It is these divides, and this apathy, which threatens the power of a union in modern society – especially at a time when the government is making it far harder to unionise effectively in the first place.

This isn’t just bad news for our striking lecturers. Even if, like me, you don’t plan to go into academia, the conclusions of this dispute will have far wider impacts. The Universities Superannuation Scheme is the largest private pension pot in the UK. It is just one of a number of large British pension schemes that has undergone, is undergoing, or will almost certainly undergo holistic reforms aimed at ensuring ‘less risk’.

All of this is happening at the same time as the shift towards hyper-competitive workplaces, where co-workers are compared and chastised by highly questionable ‘quality metrics’. At same time as the normalisation of toxic work cultures, which sacrifice any semblance of a work-life balance for round-the-clock stress and a box flat in Hackney. And, of course, all of this at the same time as the swift march towards automation, and with it – if not managed appropriately – the accompanying decimation of people’s working lives.

In short, the results that will come out of this dispute are part of a wider narrative. Yes, it’s about universities, and of course it’s about pensions. But it’s also about the future of work – a burden our generation will have to carry. 

Not that I should need to appeal to enlightened self-interest to compel continued support for our lecturers. Frankly, if university staff – whom we talk to, work alongside, and brush shoulders with on a daily basis – feel that their livelihood is being put at stake, then plain human decency should be enough to provoke empathy. But sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that, even if we’re not on the chopping block ourselves, the chances are we will be sooner or later. And who will stand with us then?

Exclusive: Oxford Union release Trinity term card

Cherwell News
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Exclusive: Oxford Union release Trinity term card

Lindsay Lohan, Jordan Peterson, and Peyton Manning are among the speakers of an Oxford Union Trinity term card which features an array of world leaders, sportspeople, and entertainers.

Cherwell can exclusively reveal the Oxford Union’s speaker events and debate speakers for the term ahead.

The term card features the highest-ever number of BME speakers, and over 60% of guests are international.

Union President Gui Cavalcanti told Cherwell: “Since this society was founded by a group of students in 1823, the world has become substantially more interconnected, closing the gaps between us at an unprecedented rate.

“It is therefore vital for the Union, as a global platform, to capture the zeitgeist of our time, empowering its members to engage with stories and voices from every corner of the globe. These voices enable us to reflect on the progress and development achieved thus far, but also encourage us to embrace the many challenges that lie ahead.

“Beyond defending the principles of free speech, the Union has become a place where systematically oppressed voices can engage with a global audience, advocate important causes, and spark movements.

“From women’s rights in India, to Venezuela’s oppressive regime, to Uganda’s rigged elections, our Committee has worked tirelessly to ensure that the [Trinity termcard] reflect[s] upon contemporary issues of importance, and our underlying ethos of interrogating the present for a better future for all.”

The Union will host seven Thursday-night debates, which will run from weeks one to seven.

Topics range from the benefits of genetic engineering to the decline of the US as a superpower.

The final debate of term will also feature the Union’s first ever Presidential Iftar – it falls during Ramadan, and the former Crown Prince of Jordan, HRH Prince Hamzah bin Hussein OSJ, is among the speakers.

26th April

“This House Believes Oxbridge is Failing Britain”

Proposition:
Natalie Perera
Russell Hobby

Opposition:
Chris Blackhurst
Bill Rammell

3rd May

“This House Believes Genetic Engineering Undermines the Nature of Humanity”

Proposition:
Professor Joyce Harper
Kathryn Lasky

Opposition:
Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou
Dr. Carol Lynn Curchoe
Professor Donna Dickenson

10th May

“This House Believes Art is the Best Means to a Peaceful Revolution”

Proposition:
Christine Burns MBE
Deepa Mehta OC

Opposition:
Professor Stephen Duncombe
Julian Spalding
Nadia Rose

17th May

“This House Believes Britain should be Ashamed of Churchill”

Proposition:
Professor John Charmley
Sonia Purnell

Opposition:
Sir Nicholas Soames MP
Gisela Stuart

24th May

“This House Fears the Decline of the US as the Global Superpower”

Proposition:
Radoslaw Sikorski
Dr. Gideon Rose

Opposition:
Jane Harman
Matthew Barzun

31st May

“This House Believes That Austerity has been Europe’s Worst Policy of the Century”

Proposition:
Dr. Iona Petrescu
Bill Emmott

Opposition:
Maria Luis Albuquerque
Ruiari Quinn
Joaquin Alumnia

7th June

“This House Believes the Western model of Democracy is Unsuitable for the Middle East”

Proposition:
HRH Prince Hamzah bin Hussein OSJ
Deborah Jones
Sir John Jenkins KCMG LVO

Opposition:
Alberto Gonzales
Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG QC
Vehiel Bar

NB. this debate will feature the first ever Presidential Iftar in the Oxford Union’s history

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The Union’s speaker events feature a range of high-profile names, ranging from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie to New York rapper P Diddy.

Nigerian economist Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala joins fashion designer Vera Wang as two of the biggest names in business set to speak this term.

Meanwhile, on the sporting front, American football legend Peyton Manning will speak in eighth week, and joins Welsh rugby union referee Nigel Owens on the term card.

Other highlights include human rights activist Bianca Jagger, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, and former Kenyan Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Raila Odinga.

The term card also features five events that are open to all Bod card holders, as part of the society’s ‘summer open period’.

These include speaker events in first week with Dame Inga Beale (Tuesday, 5.00pm), Lord Norman Fowler (Tuesday, 8pm), and Ben Miller (Wednesday, 8pm), and Thursday night’s Oxbridge debate.

The final event open to non-members is the homelessness panel at 5.00pm on 25th May, which features Labour MP Ben Coyle, who is a national policy and campaigns advisor on social care and tackling poverty, the chief executive of Emmaus UK, Simon Grainge, and the chief executive at Oxford Homeless Pathways, Claire Dowan.

French economist Thomas Piketty will speak in first week

Academics:

Thomas Piketty (25th April, 1.15pm)
Jordan Peterson (16th May, 8.00pm)

World Leaders:

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah (9th May, time TBC)
President Viktor Yushchenko (1st June, 8.00pm)
The Rt Hon Raila Odinga (18th May, time TBC)

 

Paul Giamatti will speak at the start of May

Entertainment:

Paul Giamatti (3rd May, 5.00pm)
Lindsay Lohan (Date TBC)
Taron Egerton (5th week, TBC)
P Diddy (Date TBC)

Business:

Vera Wang (23rd May, 8.00pm)
Dame Inga Beale (24th April, 5.00pm)
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (8th June, 5.00pm)

Referee Nigel Owens is among the biggest sporting names in the term card

Sport:

Peyton Manning (15th June, time TBC)
Nigel Owens (5th week, TBC)
Kim Clijsters (2nd May, 5.00pm)

Activists:

Christopher Wylie (End of term – TBC)
Bianca Jagger (8th May, 8.00pm)
Reverend Al Sharpton (28th May, 8.00pm)
Manasi Pradham (6th June, 5.00pm)
Eva Schloss (11th June, 8.00pm)

 

Government announces student loan interest rate rises

Greg Ritchie
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Government announces student loan interest rate rises

Students in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will face interest rates on their loans of up to 6.3%, up from the current 6.1% for anyone who started studying after 2012.

The change is a consequence of the increase in the retail price index (RPI) for last month to 3.3%, compared to 3.1% for the same month in 2017. The government links the interest rate on student loans to the RPI reading for March each year, plus 3%.

However, the hike has seen renewed criticism for the methodology behind calculating the interest rates, and the student loan system more generally.

Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, attacked the government’s use of the RPI on Twitter.

Oxford SU told Cherwell: “Oxford SU is concerned about the effect that the rising interest rates will have our current, future and past students. Rising interest rates are particularly unmeritocratic as they penalise those who fail to pay off their student loans quickly, and will increase the number of graduates who cannot pay off their debt before the 30 years.

“The rising interest rates are especially damaging to our current students, who will pay the higher rate of interest on their student loan whilst they study. Punitive interest rates are yet another consequence of the marketization of HE, and act as a reminder of the need to reverse the current government’s policy.”

The National Union of Students (NUS) says that while the rise is small, it adds psychologically to the burden of debt for young people.

NUS vice-president Amatey Doku said: “Interest rates at 6.3% represent an increase of 0.2 [percentage points], which, although a seemingly small degree, adds to the huge psychological burden that debt has on many students and graduates.

“Absurdly high interest rates are only a small part of student debt problem – which already leaves students from disadvantaged backgrounds with up to £50,000 of debt, most of which is never paid off.

“The current funding model continues to represent a poor deal for students, their families, and the taxpayer.”

The government initiated a review of post-18 education earlier this year, which is due to conclude early next year. Ministers say the role of interest rates will be considered in the review.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “This change in interest rate will make no impact on a borrowers’ monthly repayments and very few people are likely to be affected by the increase.

“Once the loans are in repayment, only borrowers earning over £45,000 are charged the maximum rate. This ensures that they make a fair contribution to the system.”

 

Oxford Chancellor Patten votes against government Brexit bill

Ryan Gould
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Oxford Chancellor Patten votes against government Brexit bill

The government suffered defeat in the Lords yesterday on the issue of staying in a UK-EU customs union after Brexit.

Peers, including Oxford Chancellor and ex-EU Commissioner Lord Patten, voted by 348 to 225 in favour of a plan that would require ministers to report on steps to negotiate a continued union.

Defying the Conservative party whip, Lord Patten said the UK would be worse off outside the EU unless current arrangements continued.

“There are times in one’s political career where what is alleged to be party loyalty comes way behind trying to stand up for the national interest,” he argued.

A total of 24 Conservative peers voted against the government on the customs union amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Remaining in the customs union would prevent the UK from signing third-party trade agreements with other countries, Downing Street says.

Lord Patten was criticised by former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson, who said that Patten was putting forward “a political argument dressed up as a trade argument”, amounting to a “wrecking amendment”.

To remain in a customs union while leaving the European Union would leave the UK in a “quasi-colonial” status, he argued.

Will Dry, Oxford undergraduate and co-founder of anti-Brexit campaign group Our Future; Our Choice, said: “Oxford should be proud it has a Chancellor willing to put his country before the party he was once part of.

“Lord Patten is taking a courageous and bold stance, as is, as a matter of fact, Layla Moran. Perhaps the pair could offer Anneliese Dodds some lessons in boldness in the coming weeks.”

Conservative MP and Remain supporter Anna Soubry said in a tweet that the Lords had “put their country first.”

Oxford University and Lord Patten have been contacted for comment.

Oxford to confront colonial past in £20,000 project

Ryan Gould
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Oxford to confront colonial past in £20,000 project

Oxford is to tackle its colonial legacy amid fears that its global reputation is being damaged by criticism that it admits too few black students.

The University is developing a strategy to challenge its colonial history, which will include the creation of a website setting out its contentious past, the return of treasures seized during the time of the British Empire, and the study of more black and Asian thinkers on degree courses.

The project, which was launched by academics and students following the Rhodes Must Fall protests that called for the toppling of Oriel College’s statue of Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes, has been awarded £20,000 by the University in order to “kick-start” its action, The Sunday Times reported.

It is understood that vice chancellor Louise Richardson has been involved in the discussions.

Vice chancellor, Louise Richardson, has been involved in discussions

Prominent diversity campaigner and broadcaster, June Sarpong, is set to launch the website as the project’s first stage later this year to show that Oxford is “dealing with problems linked to racism, classism, and colonialism.”

Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Philosophy, has been invited to join the working group, despite being criticised by other dons last year after launching a five-year study to celebrate “what is good in empire as well as what is bad.”

The University could not confirm The Sunday Times’s claim that members of the working group, chaired by Kalypso Nicolaidis, director of the Centre of International Studies, and Laura van Broekhoven, director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, have discussed the possibility of creating a replica of the Cecil Rhodes statue and inviting students to write graffiti, “including swear words”, across it.

Other ideas include the erection of statues to campaigners like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, as well as to some of Oxford’s first students from the commonwealth such as Eric Williams, who led Trinidad and Tobago to independence.

Dr Eric Williams served as the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1962.

Pro-vice chancellor Rebecca Surender said workshops would be held this year to “consider the opportunities and challenges and practical steps in relation to diversifying the curriculum.”

The working group reportedly raised the idea of creating a new “canon” to replace the study of some “pale stale white men” with black, Asian, female, and gay figures.

The University has agreed to fund the project, Surender says, because it is “exciting, innovative, and very relevant to our current goals . . . We are very happy that this is happening.

“We are going as fast as we can in terms of turning the dial on issues including the number of BME (black and minority ethnic) students at the University,” Surender added.

“We want to signal that we are open for business for everyone: that includes BME and British white working-class students. We want to say, ‘Please apply – we want you to feel comfortable here.’”

In February, data released by Oxford revealed that only two black students were awarded first class degrees in last year’s final examinations. The figures also revealed that 37 per cent of men received first class degrees last summer compared to 29 per cent of women.

Is Oxford doing enough to address its colonial past? 

Write for Cherwell and have your say – send a 150-word pitch to our comment editors.

A University spokesperson told Cherwell at the time “it will take time to fully understand the reasons that underlie differences in performance between individuals.”

Earlier this month, figures from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) revealed that Oxford is among the worst British universities for equal access.

According to the report, Oxford accepted fewer applications from poor neighbourhoods in the 2017-18 academic year than any other mainstream institution, with just 2.8 per cent of its intake being from areas classified as the most difficult to engage in higher education.

According to Surender, the proportion of British BME students (including those from China, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean) rose to 17.9 per cent in 2017 intake.

Nigel Biggar has been involved in an ongoing Twitter spat with Cambridge don Priyamvada Gopal since November 2017, after Gopal criticised Biggar’s description of the British Empire as “morally mixed”. Biggar responded in an article for The Times by calling Gopal’s tweets against his views as “incontinent abuse”.

“Shame on @UniofOxford for hosting a disgraceful bunch of colonialist scholars producing lousy apologetics. This is Oxbridge racism at its finest – the pretence that this supremacist crap can be up for ‘debate’. This version of Oxford Must Fall,” Gopal tweeted in December.

Gopal, who is a Reader in Anglophone and Related Literature at Churchill College, Cambridge and a well-known critic of racism, sexism, and academic eurocentrism, was subject to a virulent Daily Mail smear campaign last week, in which journalist Guy Adams criticised her for writing “posts laced with bile” and deeming her a “prolific internet troll”.

Nicolaidis, chair of the group, has said that Oxford should reexamine its history of slavery in the same way that many American institutions have.

“Oxford too needs to revisit its history. This is about engagement with the student agenda on the relationship between history and the present,” she said.

“I want to see the University I love signal to all students from around the world this is the place they will feel at home.”

Van Broekhoven, Pitts Rivers Museum director, said: “We need to discuss the problems with colonisation – that millions of people were enslaved and exploited to build up wealth in the UK. That was a contentious history we should never forget.”

Oxford grads crack ‘impossible’ code over dinner

Jeremiah O'Mahony
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Oxford grads crack ‘impossible’ code over dinner

Two Oxford graduate students solved a so-called “impossible” puzzle – while enjoying their dinner at a popular Oxford eatery.

Freshly refurbished Japanese chain-restaurant Wagamama challenged customers to solve a complicated cipher written on its window, in honour of Albert Einstein’s birthday last month.

Oxford students Klaudia Krawiecka and Vojtech Havlicek solved it in one night over some teriyaki chicken.

The puzzle required the students to decode a sequence of numbers into letters of the alphabet, then into three words related to Wagamama.

Krawiecka, a first-year graduate studying cybersecurity at Keble, told the Oxford Mail: “We were having dinner at Wagamama when we found out about the competition.

“We had some spare time while waiting for the food and decided to give it a shot as we both enjoy solving puzzles.”

Kraweicka and Havlicek, who is pursuing a DPhil in quantum computing at Keble, were undaunted, with Havlicek saying that solving puzzles is the pair’s “daily bread.”

“We solve riddles on a daily basis in both personal and professional lives.”

First, they employed frequency analysis, an information security technique involving analyzing how often certain letters or numbers crop up in a cipher.

Krawiecka told Cherwell they “initially assumed that the most popular numbers in the sequence would denote the most common letters in the English alphabet.”

This led to a dead end, however, as the sequence was too short to apply the technique.

However, they then decided to break down the numbers into their constituent prime numbers. After that move, they noticed that each of the numbers in the puzzle was made up of a distinct set of prime numbers, prompting them to translate them into binary.

From there, they went to the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) table, a standardized table for encoding information, and checked which binary numbers corresponded to which letters.

The puzzle’s answer was ‘Wagamama Ramen Teppanyaki’.

Wagamama rewarded the pair’s efforts with a £500 voucher to its restaurants. Havlicek said: “We will be well fed for a while!”

Oxford sweet potato study unearths new discoveries

Isabel Morris
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Oxford sweet potato study unearths new discoveries

An extensive study of sweet potato DNA led by Oxford scientists controversially suggests that sweet potato tuber evolved before humans.

The results support that the sweet potato, a plant of American origin, likely arrived in Polynesia due to the natural dispersal of its seeds – challenging the long-standing view that the widely-used tuber was transported by humans in pre-European times.

Pablo Muñoz-Rodríguez, a DPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of Plant Sciences, was a member of the sweet potato research team, which conducted the biggest survey of sweet potato DNA yet.

Muñoz-Rodríguez told Cherwell: “This finding calls into question the alleged contacts between Polynesians and Americans in pre-European times, because sweet potato was the only remaining biological evidence of these contacts.

“This finding is likely to be controversial because it contradicts predominant theories that suggest ancient contacts between both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

“However, the molecular results we present are robust and have been thoroughly tested; we are confident they are accurate and therefore there is strong evidence against human-mediated transport of the sweet potato to Polynesia in ancient times.”

Muñoz-Rodríguez says he and his team plan to continue their sweet potato research.

“There is one other question pertaining to the origin of the sweet potato that remains unresolved, and that will be the focus of our research now: what was the evolutionary path that led from the wild species to the sweet potato?”

Men who fail to equal parents’ academic achievements ‘suffer mental distress’

Eve Webster
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Men who fail to equal parents’ academic achievements ‘suffer mental distress’

Not living up to their parents’ educational achievements can be as distressing to men as having a divorce, according to a study by Oxford’s Department of Social policy and Intervention.

The study found failing to meet parents’ academic achievements had “no observed effect” on women’s mental health.

Findings presented at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference last week showed that men failing to reach or exceed their parents’ academic achievements have higher chances of being subject to “psychological distress”.

Researchers considered factors such as loneliness, insomnia, and dissatisfaction with life when ranking participants by psychological distress.

Dr. Alexi Gugushvili, research fellow at Oxford and head of the study, told the BBC: “For men, parents’ educational achievement and inter-generational mobility retain an important influence on their psychological health.

“Getting a higher educational achievement than one’s parents is associated with a reduced level of psychological distress, even after the direct effect of individuals’ and their parents’ education and other conventional explanations of distress are accounted for.

“On the contrary, falling short of one’s parents’ education tends to raise the distress level, and a big disparity is especially harmful for men’s psychological health status.’
Participants and their parents were ranked into three groups based on their levels of education.”

The study found that men in the lowest group with parents in the top were over twice as likely to be in the top 10% of psychologically distressed participants.

Similarly, men with middling educational achievement whose parents were top achievers were 75% more likely to be psychologically distressed than those whose level was the same as their parents.

Meanwhile, men in the highest group with parents in the lowest were half as likely to be distressed psychologically.

The researchers speculated that the disparity between men’s and women’s levels of distress may be due to different ways of measuring success.

Gugushvili told the BBC: “The reason for this could be that men are more likely than women to attribute success and failure by pointing to their own merits, abilities and effort, rather than factors they have no control over.”

This finding is based on data collated from individuals from 27 European countries with 50,000 participants from the UK.

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