Letter to St Andrews about the diversity training students have to undergo before they matriculate

We’ve written to Professor Sally Mapstone, the Vice-Chancellor of St Andrews, about the University’s insistence that all incoming students should receive diversity training and then provide the ‘correct’ answers in a ‘quiz’ following the training before they are allowed to proceed with their studies. For instance, they’re asked to agree with the following statement: ‘Acknowledging your personal guilt is a useful start point in overcoming unconscious bias.’ In our letter, we point out that this is almost certainly a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits compelled speech, and might be a breach of the Equality Act 2010 as well as charity law.

Letters

Letter to St Andrews about the diversity training students have to undergo before they matriculate

Summary

We’ve written to Professor Sally Mapstone, the Vice-Chancellor of St Andrews, about the University’s insistence that all incoming students should receive diversity training and then provide the ‘correct’ answers in a ‘quiz’ following the training before they are allowed to proceed with their studies. For instance, they’re asked to agree with the following statement: ‘Acknowledging your personal guilt is a useful start point in overcoming unconscious bias.’ In our letter, we point out that this is almost certainly a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits compelled speech, and might be a breach of the Equality Act 2010 as well as charity law.

Below, you can see our original letter and the reply we received from Professor Sally Mapstone on 3rd November 2021.

UPDATE: We received a reply from Professor Sally Mapstone on 3rd November 2021. You can read the full text of her letter below.