Academic Who Criticised Teaching ‘White Privilege’ in Schools No-Platformed From Conference Because Other Speakers Felt “Unsafe”
An academic who has criticised the teaching of “white privilege” in schools has been no-platformed from an education conference over claims she would make other speakers feel “unsafe”. The Telegraph has the story.
Dr. Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, 62, was told her panel discussion at the Rethinking Education conference on Saturday had been cancelled because of complaints from speakers and delegates about her attendance.
Dr. Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, a campaign group which challenges the idea that Britain is systemically racist, had been invited to speak on a panel about “indoctrination within education” and “how we can avoid it”.
However, in an email from a conference organiser on Friday, she was told that the company had been contacted by seven speakers and delegates who said “they would not feel safe to appear at the conference alongside a representative of Don’t Divide Us”.
The organiser said: “In seeking to re-imagine an education system where all young people and adults can flourish and thrive, I strongly believe that we need to have difficult conversations and that people should be prepared to subject their ideas to scrutiny and challenge.
“However, psychological safety is a precursor to free and open debate and the need to subject ideas to scrutiny.”
Confirming the decision to cancel the panel discussion, he added: “I appreciate that the late notice of this decision is not ideal for any parties concerned but once the matter was brought to our attention, safety considerations needed to be our primary focus.”
Responding to the decision, Dr. Cuthbert said: “The only person on a panel of three to be disinvited is myself – a woman of colour.” She said it “seems like my belief in colour-blind meritocratic approaches to race upset a few people who don’t have the courage to make their case publicly”.
Worth reading in full.
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I look forward to a time when grown adults going to some talking shop don’t feel comfortable moaning about “psychological safety” and feel ashamed even for thinking such a pathetic, narcissistic thought. I am pretty sure none of the people complaining have ever felt truly unsafe in their entire coddled lives- I know haven’t.
““However, psychological safety is a precursor to free and open debate and the need to subject ideas to scrutiny.” Which really means they don’t have the intellectual capacity to defend their ideas from a robust challenge. The latter being the bedrock of a democracy.
I consider the term “psychological safety” a bloody insult. Ooh, how progressive – psychological safety. A wholly fabricated Orwellianisation of words to provide a veneer of ‘science.’ Those throwing this term about are quite simply intellectual pigmies not far removed from nursery school children who cannot have their own way in the toy box.
As BB has pointed out, if they genuinely believed they had legitimate concerns they would have positioned themselves front, centre and loud and inviting debate.
The real solution here would have been to cancel the invitations to these fairies – with apologies to fairies.
The correct response is, of course, “If you don’t feel safe, perhaps you would better not attending”.
Psychological safety in this context = intellectually inadequate cowards.
a bunch of wimps why is everything about safety safety safety, really annoying times.
what happened to keep calm and carry on.
If people don’t feel safe when their views are challenged or discussed they need to keep their views to themselves and leave adults able to have respectful differences of opinion.
In other words, someone disagrees with you, grow up and get over it.
I listened to a talk by Baroness Hale last week. Her opinion is that upsetting people is not a crime…
What, pray is psychological safety? Is it a euphemism for contrary opinion?
The organiser needed to grow a pair. 7 wimps who don’t feel safe? They’re hardly the ‘Magnificent Seven’ are they?
These people need to go and live in a dictatorship or a war zone to learn what the concept of being “unsafe” actually means.
I see a dislike tick in every comment. Wonder if that person feels unsafe reading this article? LOL.
These people are simply lying. They ‘feel’ powerful enough to squash dissenting opinions. And hence, they’re doing that. They just need to add the right kind of Babble™ to have something which can pass as a thin justification for that. I appreciate that the late notice of this decision is not ideal for any parties concerned obviously means We’ve postponed telling you about our decision until the very last moment to ensure that you cannot take measures against it anymore.
Some sort of public protest against this kind of conference in Edinburgh would be highly appropriate.
Woketards make me feel unsafe and I don’t want them anywhere near my children; why does no-platforming only work in one direction?
So some felt ‘unsafe’ because someone had a different opinion than their opinion?
The wretched wokeville centre , if they had any intelligence, should have cancelled the other 7 & just invited Dr Cuthbert. The problem are the damned others