Cambridge University Is Forced To 'Decolonize' Its English Literature Course And Put Less Emphasis On White Authors After Student Demands

Lola Olufemi makes her case for Women's Officer Image credit: Lucas Chebib

●Professors will need to 'ensure the presence' of BME writers on their courses ●Move follows open letter from students' union women's officer Lola Olufemi ●She said lack of minority authors on syllabus 'perpetuated institutional racism' ●Some students voiced concern there are too many white writers on syllabus

Cambridge University English academics will be forced to replace white authors with black writers after agreeing to 'decolonize' the curriculum for students.

English Literature professors at Cambridge will be required to 'ensure the presence' of Black and Minority Ethnic writers (BME) in their courses. Pictured: King's College

Daily Mail UK report continues:

English Literature professors will now be required to 'ensure the presence' of Black and Minority Ethnic writers (BME) in their courses.

It came after Lola Olufemi, Cambridge University Student Union's women's officer, penned an open letter titled 'Decolonising the English Faculty'.

The letter, signed by around 150 university students, read: 'For too long, teaching English at Cambridge has encouraged a 'traditional' and 'canonical' approach that elevates white male authors at the expense of all others.

'What we can no longer ignore, however, is the fact that the curriculum, taken as a whole, risks perpetuating institutional racism.'

It also hinted at several of changes, including ensuring that all exam papers included 'two or more postcolonial and BME authors'.

Students at the university study a range of 'period papers' ranging from 1350 to the present day - including the works of Shakespeare.

But campaigners have argued that the English courses focus too much on white men and exclude female authors and those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

They have also claimed that it offers a perspective too shaped by colonial ideologies.

Minutes from the Teaching Forum's meeting earlier this month, seen by The Telegraph, showed what actions have been discussed by academics to address the students' concerns.

They included several practical proposals, such as an introductory lecture that would 'offer perspectives on the global contexts and history of English literature'.

Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a teaching fellow at Churchill College and member of the Teaching Forum, said the motion was a step forward.

'They are a good start and I'm glad to see the Faculty responding with attention and interest to a student-driven demand for change,' she wrote in an email.

'I think it is important, however, to view the 'inclusion' of postcolonial and BME texts not as an endpoint but the beginning of a discussion about what 'English literature' is and what exclusions it has always relied on.

'The curriculum first needs to make empire, race, identity more central than it has been – something students HAVE to engage with rather than are 'allowed' to engage with.

'Given British history, empire is central to understanding both texts and contexts. It's a 'white' issue as much as it is a 'BME' issue. That understanding must drive changes.'

But Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said the approach created some 'major problems'.

She told The Telegraph: 'It goes with the calls to stop teaching predominantly Western or European history as well as literature.

'If you distort the content of history and literature syllabuses to insert a statistically diverse or equal proportion of material from cultures taken globally you surely lose sight of the historical truth that the West explored the world from the sixteenth century and took control - colonially or otherwise - of a very large part of it.

'It is false to pretend that never happened.'

The move follows criticism of both Oxford and Cambridge for their low levels of admittance of students from ethnic minorities.

Oxford colleges were branded 'fiefdoms of entrenched privilege' after figures showed almost a third failed to admit a single black British A-level student in a year.

Meanwhile six Cambridge colleges failed to admit any black British A-level students in 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, only 1 per cent of offers were made to black students at Cambridge, and on average a quarter of colleges failed each year to make such offers.

But Ms Olufemi told the university's newspaper Varsity that she believed the outcome was 'a promising step forward that the letter is being taken seriously by the faculty.'

'There needs to be a complete shift in the way the department treats western literature in comparison to that of the global south and non-white authors must be centred in the same way Shakespeare, Eliot, Swift and Pope are; their stories, thoughts and accounts should be given serious intellectual and moral weight,' the English graduate from North London added.