Scotland
Letter to the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh about Sir Geoff Palmer branding two senior Edinburgh academics “racist”
We have written to Professor Peter Mathieson, the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh, to complain about the University’s inadequate defence of Professor Emeritus Sir Tom Devine and Jonathan Hearn, Professor of Historical Sociology, both of whom have been smeared as “racists” by Sir Geoff Palmer, Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University and Chair of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group. Sir Geoff’s comments were in response to criticisms raised about the work of the Legacy Review Group. You can read about the controversy here.
Below, you can see our original letter and the reply we received from Professor Peter Mathieson on 26th January 2022.
…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.
Below, you can see our original letter and the reply we received from Professor Sally Mapstone on 3rd November 2021.
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