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University of Kent instructs students to "avoid the term 'Christian name' - rather use 'first name, given name, forename or personal name".
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Minor over-reaction, compared with..........."Woke row explodes"
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I wonder which non Christian community they are aiming to appease, scientologists perhaps.
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^ or - The vast majority of the Country - apart from, obviously, the Muslim insurgents - who are no longer Religious
- and far from being 'Woke' ... Just logical realists. Apply your own odds - to which becomes obsolete first. Local Chippies Local Pubs Local Churches |
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Just did a quiz to find out my Arabic name and it's Hana
 . Not sure the Arabs are that progressive. |
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Surely most will just laugh at it and just ignore such stupidity. All this woke stuff is just for fringe weirdos.
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If you have been christened you are entitled to use and declare a "Christian" name.
Are christians to disavow their faith because other faiths feign offence at a cultural tradition. I think not! Next they'll be after the red cross! If you have no religious inclination use any description you want. What do other faiths call their first or forenames? Anyone. |
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Just use your darts name instead
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They complain about costs and staff shortages but they can still find the time and money to issue these idiotic statements.
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The university of California openly require applicant lecturers to describe what they do to encourage equality and diversity before they are even evaluated on their qualifications.
If you arn’t actively pushing the woke agenda your CV goes in the bin. |
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The Economist
Universities New testaments WASHINGTON, DC Mandatory diversity statements are taking hold of academia The university of california, Berkeley is currently advertising for a “director of cell culture, fly food, media prep and on-call glass washing facilitiesâ€. Applicants need an advanced degree and a decade of research experience, and must submit a cv, a cover letter and a research statement. They must also send in a statement on their contributions to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Seemingly everyone (this director, the next head of preservation for the library, anyone who dreams of a tenured professorship) must file a statement outlining their understanding of diversity, their past contributions to increasing it and their plans “for advancing equity and inclusion†if hired. Not long ago, such statements were exotic and of marginal importance. Now they are de rigueur across most of the University of California system for hiring and tenure decisions. Studies claim that as many as one in five faculty jobs across America require them. And government agencies that fund scientific research are starting to make grants to labs conditional upon their diversity metrics and plans. Proponents argue that such things are needed to advance concepts normally invoked by abbreviation: diversity, equity and inclusion (dei), sometimes with “belonging†appended (deib), or “justice†(deij), or else rearranged in a jollier anagram (jedi). Critics—typically those with tenure rather than those seeking it—think mandatory statements constitute political litmus tests, devalue merit, open a back door for affirmative action, violate academic freedom and infringe on First Amendment protections for public universities. “There are a lot of similarities between these diversity statements as they’re being applied now and how loyalty oaths [which once required faculty to attest that they were not communists] worked,†says Keith Whittington, a political scientist at Princeton University. Who is right? Advocates see no conflict between dei and academic excellence. “It’s hard to imagine being a good teacher if you don’t know how to actively engage all students,†says Sharon Inkelas, an associate vice-provost at Berkeley. Nor is it a matter of political belief. These statements “are descriptions of things that people have done that have enabled them to be successful in the classroom,†says Professor Inkelas. A referendum has already outlawed affirmative action in California, so state institutions cannot give preferential treatment on the basis of race or sex. A separate law bans employers from “controlling or directing†the political activities of their employees. “There is no litmus test attached to diversity statements. All that it’s asking is, ‘What are you going to be able to add to our campus? How are you going to deal with the diverse student body and faculty?’†says Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley’s law school and a well-known First Amendment scholar. “The absence of lawsuits so far, despite threats, is an indication that the diversity statements are legal. They don’t violate the First Amendment.†It is hard to know whether dei statements merely meet their goals or stray into political filtering. Davidson College, in North Carolina, asked prospective computer-science staff to write about their “potential to contribute to our commitment to equity and anti-racismâ€â€”a cause fervently embraced by the left and despised by the right. Berkeley has distributed guidance on how search committees ought to evaluate diversity statements. They say that any candidate who does not discuss gender or race must be awarded low marks. The same goes for any earnest classical liberal who “explicitly states the intention to ignore the varying backgrounds of their students and ‘treat everyone the same’.†In 2018 Berkeley launched a “cluster search†for five faculty to teach biological sciences. From 894 applications, it created a longlist based on diversity statements alone, eliminating 680 candidates without examining their research or other credentials. This “yielded significant increases in urm [underrepresented minority] candidates advanced to shortlist considerationâ€, a university memo reported. The dark side Whether such a process privileges candidates of certain ethnic backgrounds over others is a sensitive question with legal implications. “It doesn’t appear that there’s any kind of correlation between particular identities and the quality of statements,†says Karie Frasch, the director of Berkeley’s Office of Faculty Equity and Welfare. When asked to clarify whether that meant scores did not differ by race, Dr Frasch says, “I’m not saying that. We don’t have that information. I shouldn’t have said the word ‘correlation’. I apologise.†Berkeley is an important case study, not necessarily because it is the most extreme but because it is the most transparent. The University of California, Los Angeles has embraced diversity statements in hiring and tenure decisions even more fervently, but does not feel the need to explain its policies. A spokesperson said that Anna Spain Bradley, a law professor who serves as vice-chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, was unavailable for comment. Critics worry about the proliferation of diversity criteria in science. Beginning this fiscal year, the Department of Energy, which funds research on nuclear and plasma physics among other things, will require all grant applications to submit plans on “promoting inclusive and equitable researchâ€. Since 2021 the brain Initiative at the National Institutes of Health has required prospective grantees to file a “plan for enhancing diverse perspectivesâ€. Teams with investigators from diverse backgrounds receive precedence. “People are unwilling to push back because they are afraid to lose their funding, and no one wants to become a martyr for defending reason,†says Anna Krylov, a professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California. Professor Krylov studied in the former Soviet Union and sees parallels that are “a little too closeâ€. Rather than Marxism-Leninism, “you really have to pledge your commitment to critical social justice.†If race-based affirmative action for college admissions is struck down by the Supreme Court, as most expect it will be this year, universities will surely resort to creative means of maintaining diversity that can survive judicial scrutiny. Diversity statements may prove useful. The subtlety can vary. The Harvard Law Review strongly encourages prospective editors to submit, alongside their application, a 200-word statement “to identify and describe aspects of your identity…including, but not limited to, racial or ethnic identity, socioeconomic background, disability (physical, intellectual, cognitive/neurological, psychiatric, sensory, developmental, or other), gender identity…†(the list goes on). In many Republican-led states legislators are trying to forcibly eradicate this strain of thinking—sometimes in ways that seek to limit freedom of thought in the name of protecting it. Last year Republicans in Florida passed the Stop woke Act, which prohibits instruction at universities on ideas like systemic racism unless provided in “an objective manner without endorsementâ€. In 2021 those in Idaho passed a law banning the teaching of critical race theory in all schools, including public universities. Last month the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank, released a piece of model legislation for states to emulate that would do less violence to the First Amendment, by dismantling dei offices in universities and banning consideration of diversity statements in hiring. Others are more sanguine. “I think it’s a fad,†says Janet Halley, a professor of law at Harvard. Bureaucratising ideology saps sincerity. “People will utter the hocus-pocus. They know that they’re being required to put on an act. And that’s going to create cynicism about the very values that the people who put these requirements into place care about,†she says. If those contradictions don’t sink the project, the courts might. Professor Halley believes these innovations are “forced speech and viewpoint discrimination in the First Amendment context†and will lead dei dissidents to file lawsuits. “With the increasing conservatism of the federal bench, I think they’re likely to win.†|
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It's absolute madness and not only in UK
 Online article below, not my words Germany is a world leader in wokeness, German elites are in thrall to gender ideology and BLM-syle identity politics. The University of Cambridge came under fire this week for its decision to teach its students to use a new gender-neutral form of the German language. Making the German language gender-neutral is easier said than done. For instance, all nouns describing people or professions in German are either male or female, even in the plural. New word forms are therefore having to be invented to accommodate these demands. Unsurprisingly, some linguists have slammed Cambridge for promoting these crimes against grammar. Oliver Baer, a member of the German Language Association, said that ‘if a non-native speaker came and tried to use gender-neutral German while on holiday here I think they would stand a good chance of making a fool of themselves’. Certainly, ordinary Germans would find this gender-neutral language perplexing. But it is not as if gender-neutral German has simply been cooked up by a few woke academics in the UK. Quite the opposite. So-called Gendersprache (gender language) has been zealously promoted by many public institutions in Germany for a while now. Federal and state governments, as well the media and big corporations, are all trying to push this new ‘inclusive’ way of speaking. Take the city of Hanover, for example. Gender-neutral language has been used for all official communications since 2019, with many other local governments following suit. Or take the first female chief of the Berlin police, Barbara Slowik. In 2019, she announced that she would no longer be referred to as the ‘police chief’ (der Polizeipräsident), as the term is masculine. But instead of opting for the feminine form of the same title (die Polizeipräsidentin), she decided on the gender-neutral ‘Polizei Berlin’ – meaning literally ‘the Berlin police’. Which is as nonsensical as it sounds. German businesses are also subject to the imperatives of Gendersprache. Companies looking for new hires must show they are open to all genders of applicant in their listings by including the letters, W, M, D – weiblich (female), männlich (male) and divers (a new addition equivalent to ‘other’). Failure to include these letters on a job advert could leave them open to lawsuits. Make no mistake, Germany’s political, cultural and business elites really are some of the wokest in Europe. It’s very different to France, where there is considerable resistance to what is sometimes called le wokeisme, partly as this is seen as an American imposition. Indeed, the Académie Française and other public institutions fiercely defend the purity of the French language against what they see as Anglo-American infiltration. The German public is clearly less keen on wokeness than Germany’s rulers – especially when it comes to Gendersprache. According to polling, 65 per cent of Germans either partially or totally object to the use of Gendersprache in the media and in official communications. But public resistance to gender ideology has done little to discourage those determined to impose their identitarian worldview on the populace. Indeed, Germany’s coalition government is planning to allow gender self-identification from the age of just 14. This move is wildly unpopular. A YouGov survey found that 48 per cent of Germans are opposed to it while just 39 per cent are in favour. And yet the government carries on regardless. Partly this is because there are few avenues for opposition within the political system. Even some of the more conservative parties have largely kept out of the debate. The right-wing Alternative für Deutschland is opposed to gender ideology and other forms of wokeness. But it remains electorally weak and is beset by infighting. Meanwhile, the centre-right Christian Democrats, now the second largest party in parliament, offer virtually no resistance to the woke agenda. This is largely because the CDU, under the leadership of Angela Merkel, led the march towards many of these woke policies over the past 16 years. Germany has not only succumbed to gender insanity – influential sections of society also seem intent on importing American-style racial politics. Indeed, over the summer of 2020, Germany was host to some of the biggest Black Lives Matter protests in Europe. Between the end of May and the end of July 2020, around 200,000 demonstrators gathered at 80 rallies across Germany to protest the death of George Floyd and stand up against institutional racism. It was all a little perplexing, not least as race relations in Germany bear very little resemblance to those in the US. Germany’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade was limited, its empire was short in duration and small in size (albeit brutal) and its current black population is tiny – it is estimated that just one per cent of Germany’s population is black or has ‘African roots’. Anti-black racism simply doesn’t have the same significance in Germany that it has in America. Yet German identitarian activists still seem to have embraced BLM and all of its woke trappings. The truth is that Germany is not having wokeness imposed on it from abroad – neither by right-on academics in the UK, nor by American racial identitarians. On the contrary, its own elites are willingly embracing and promoting it. And in the case of trans lunacy, Germany is arguably leading the way. It is fast becoming the wokest country in Europe. |
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Reminds me of when I tried to get tickets for Big Brother in it's heyday. I said I was a black Scissor Sisters' fan, implying I was loud, black and gay. Job done. I never went though, as I never really wanted them in the first place. But, I suggested it to someone else on here. They had clearly never heard the Scissor Sisters, as they put down they were a fan of the Black Scissor Sisters, not a black, Scissor Sisters' fan
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academia is at the root of this offensive garbage
they live and think in the abstract and theory, its never tested or challenged, including by those of all parties are too timid bamboozled or lazy to demand empirical evidence to support their divisive demands. inclusion and diversity are 2 of their fave buzzwords but diversity of opinion is verboten and the majority are not included as they 'just dont get' as these learned academics do. after all, they spend their life studying such subjects, so they must know and we must submit how to justify their existence? by coming up with all sorts of problems that arent there, and then demanding solutions devised by themselves. tragically, these wanchors, whove never had a real job, help guide and shape govt. policy. i encounter them quite regular, and always give them large portions. they are unused to being challenged and any dissent is easily dimissed-you are a fascist/racist/tory. thats enough to shut down any discourse. surprised to see the economist quoted on here-wouldve taken 1.02 i was the only reader on here |
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^' just dont get it'
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so the majority of the forum think it's right to ask a Chinese or Indian person, whose nations have the biggest populations of the world and are not Christians, what their Christian names are,
the forum has spoken, well done to all you educated scholars. p.s. I am an Atheist and couldn't give a fk about the whole thing save for the undertone racism lurking in the comments, now start getting uppity all together about how you are not racist but deep down, you know you are |
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you are an atheist and an idiot. nobody is saying what you put in their gob, according to your prejudice. theres no racism lurking or outward facing. you and the demented self-hating academics seek and identify problems that do not exist. has there been an outcry of indian or chinese people so offended? we should be told.
the point you miss is that its not offensive. if you ask a chinese person for their christian name(very unlikely unless you are as ignorant as you seem to be) it is unlikely they will be offended by it, imo. where any asked? doubt it. incidentally, christians are locked up and persecuted in china, there are quite a few of them and they live in fear of the ccp. do you think it racist to use a commonly used term if the hearer might not be of that faith? bollox. im going to ask my next door neighbour(pakistani) and test his reaction. there wont be one. you deem it racist. you are a fool the fact is this is an attempt to erase western euro-centric(as they see it) thought and tradition. and has been going on for decades. |
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what an idiotic post you just made and you call me an idiot
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As studies have shown, the UK is one of the least racist countries in the world (by far). The joke is that the University deemed it worthy or relevant to mention it. 99.9% of people will simply ask what your name is and the 0.1% who don't, so what. It's the implication that white British are racist and need to be educated that stinks.
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Great thread - I think the top-weight has a good chance at the prices.
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fattist
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I am white and have lived the pub life and seen it first hand all my life, I don't need surveys telling me about how "little" racism is in this country, even the likes of Tony Robinson will swear blind that they are not racist !
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Tony Robinson is just your average Joe in Mumbai, Doha or Hong Kong
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If you are born in Tehran and call your son George you'll likely be locked up
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I see that Cheltenham College has done an extensive study into "equine transgenderism" and has concluded that gelded horses should be housed in separate stables from the fillies, so that the fillies feel they still have a "safe space".
Obviously I have just made that up - but I probably could have got it printed if I had e-mailed the Daily Express with it!  |
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When you ask for a persons Christian name it has nothing to do with religion unless you want it to be.It simply means what is your first name.
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so the majority of the forum think it's right to ask a Chinese or Indian person, whose nations have the biggest populations of the world and are not Christians, what their Christian names are,
........................ If I was visiting India or China the situation/phrase would most likely never arise. We are talking about our own country, and our own traditions. |
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it was not implied asking them in their countries, I said if it was right to ask an Indian or a Chinese person what their Christian name was, times have changed but traditions must never change eh, let's put that statue back up in Bristol !
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We should change our traditions because Indian and Chinese people visit? I rather doubt this is anything to do with visitors.
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I quit, you win.
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Well done, you know you are wrong.
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yup, I am wrong and you are right.
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Lord prayer next
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Saddo we shouldn't change our traditions. I am sure other countries don't. When people come here I want them to see our country and our traditions just as I go to France or Greece or Japan I want to see their traditions. The traditions and history of a country is what makes it different and worth visiting.
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Wokies consistently looking to find things that just might offend someone from somewhere, when they do we are all
expected to change. Not here, they can fro. |
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Agreed. fro here too. How's the blackbirds?
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so the majority of the forum think it's right to ask a Chinese or Indian person, whose nations have the biggest populations of the world and are not Christians, what their Christian names are,
When in Rome and all that .... |
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Christmas next ?? .... For christs sake.!
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