Issue 1419 Monday 13th Dec 2021
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thecourieronline.co.uk
Chronicling Christmas past: Fenwick window highlights
Holiday gaming traditions
Elizabeth Meade & Emily Kelso weigh in Gaming | page 28
Tom Wrath shares a retrospective tour of a festive tourism staple
Veggie festive food
Arts | page 30
Food & Drink | page 21
Jasmine Shaw shares unconventional dishes to fill the dinner table
Durham Uni principal hosts racist, transphobic speaker at winter formal Becca Alexander - News sub-editor
Student anger is rising after polarising journalist Rod Liddle attended formal unannounced
O
n Friday 3rd December, South, a college of Durham University, hosted its first Christmas formal since its establishment in 2020. According to tradition, the college Principal, here being Tim Luckhurst, has final say over who can sit at the formal’s High Table – in this instance extending invitation to friend, and journalist, Rod Liddle. During the formal, Liddle was permitted to speak for several minutes. His speech included highly offensive rhetoric, in which he denied the trans community the right to exist and stated that the educational underachievement of ethnic minorities has nothing to with institutional or structural racism.
will be in attendance”. This has fuelled student anger as it acts as proof that his attendance was clearly planned in advance, yet was not communicated to college members. His well-known reputation, combined with his behaviour at the formal, has led staff and students at Durham to question why he was ever invited at all. Some students at the formal responded to Liddle’s speech by walking out, to which they were met by shouts of ‘pathetic!’ from their college Principal. Videos have since emerged of students engaged in heated discussions with Luckhurst after the speech, as they make it clear Liddle is unwelcome and declare the Principal should resign
from his role. One video, uploaded by a Twitter user, also shows Luckhurst’s wife, Dorothy Luckhurst, jeeringly calling students “arses” and asks, “what are you so frightened of, you silly people?”. Another shows the Principal defend Liddle as a “humourist”, whilst continuing to tell a student, who was offended by the content of Liddle’s speech, that their reactions mean they “should not be at university”. On Sunday, the Principal, via email, admitted to calling the student walkout ‘pathetic’ and ‘apologised unreservedly for doing so’. His wife, however, tweeted on Friday evening that the students who walked out were ‘a bunch of inadequates…scared of what the
speaker said’. A combination of university societies, including the Intersectional Feminist Society and the LGBT+ Association, have since joined to create an open letter addressed to the university ProVice Chancellor, asking for not only an apology but a more transparent process in electing guest speakers. The letter includes testimonies from attendees who describe themselves as ‘furious’, ‘saddened’ and ‘disgusted’, adding that the event has made them feel ‘unwelcome and ostracised’ from the university. People have defended Liddle’s invitation, arguing attendees should have used the tactic of debate, verbally
Liddle infamously wrote an article titled ‘Should it really be a crime to look at child pornography?’ Liddle’s past is littered with examples of sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia and classism. He, infamously, produced an article in 2003 that was titled ‘Should it really be a crime to look at child pornography?’. Just last month, in an article for The Spectator, Liddle slated Durham’s sexworker welfare programme, going on to say he was attending a dinner at the university next month and hoped “some of the ambitious young ladies
Image: Twitter (@RDuskedd)
dissembling Liddle’s views, instead of opting to walk-out. In rebuttal to this, however, others point out that not only was Liddle’s attendance completely unanticipated by guests – who were therefore given no time for any preparation or planning – the event was also a college Christmas formal, not an organised debate, making it an inappropriate occasion for such discussions. The student Junior Common Room President of South College, who it is claimed was not even themselves aware of Liddle’s invitation, concurred this latter point in a Facebook post, where they agree that ‘students came for a Christmas formal…they did not come to listen to culture war speeches’. In their official statement, released two days after the event, Durham University emphasise that whilst they uphold freedom of speech within the law, which they specific includes ‘the expression of views which may shock, disturb, or offend others’, the university ‘categorically does not agree with the comments from a reported speech given by an external speaker at this occasion’. They add that the behaviours reported ‘falls short of those that we expect’ and are conducting an urgent investigation into the circumstances that took place. On Monday the 6th, Durham’s Student Union officers released a stronglyworded statement that called Liddle’s invitation an abuse of power from Luckhurst. They believe that the claims to free speech are disingenuous and calculated, making clear the support of the SU lies fully with the students who “exercised their freedom of speech rights to leave this sorry excuse for an ‘education’”. The SU went further to point out that this is not an isolated incident but provides further evidence that “Durham’s problematic culture is epidemic”. They conclude by showing their understanding toward the fact that the university’s institutional procedures may not be transparent nor swift, but make clear they will judge them on their response and their ability to show that the Luckhursts are not untouchable.