"Bad Education: why our universities are broken and how we can fix them" by Matt Goodwin

I am going to have to be careful and precise in reviewing this book because in it, on several occasions, Matt Goodwin (a very successful public intellectual and former politics professor) suggests that people who work in universities and are on the centre and right politically are in denial when they disagree with his central thesis.

So I need to start by putting all my cards out in front of me on the table. I am a university teacher with over thirty academic years behind me. I now work as an Associate Professor in the Business School at Exeter University, having previously taught for many years at two other UK universities, and thus write from a position of experience and intimate inside knowledge of the system that Matt critiques in his book.

My politics on most issues are centre-right. I voted for Brexit and generally support the Conservative Party at general and local elections. I am also an admirer of Matt Goodwin. I have read all his books and, like over 70,000 others, pay to subscribe to his Substack blog. I do not by any means always agree with him, but would very strongly argue that he has every right to express his views on and off campus, and deplore any attempt to silence or ‘cancel’ him – or anyone else. First and foremost I adhere to classical liberal values and beliefs.

I found this book to be thought-provoking and concerning, although there was not much that was new to me in the arguments he presents. I have read most of the other books Matt cites here and am very familiar with the broad narrative focused on the ‘woke’ path that British universities are supposedly taking presently and to which this book adds strength and lustre.

However, the book was also, like so many of the newspaper articles that I read continually in the conservative press very frustrating to read, simply because my own experience simply does not accord with this core narrative and never has.

Of course there is nothing in here at all which is untrue. Yes, it is very much the case that university academics tend on the whole to be left-leaning. It is also true that I, like many others who were delighted when the UK voted to leave the EU, found it wise to say nothing in the immediate aftermath of the vote because the preponderance of colleagues and the university establishment were seriously unhappy and angry about it. Trying not to look too happy was a challenge sometimes for a few months, but it soon ceased to be such a big issue for most people.

When Matt discusses the damage wrought by the growth of university bureaucracies and the pay packages awarded to senior managers in universities (many of whom are extraordinarily unimpressive men and women) he is spot on. He is also totally right to criticise the way that those who actively promote diversity and inclusion initiatives in universities with the loudest voices also appear to have no interest whatever in ideological diversity. He is right too to call out those who show deep concern about social injustice born of inequality, but who little or nothing to say about inequality (structural or otherwise) in countries outside North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and – of course – Israel. He also here provides a very useful summary account of several high-profile and appalling cases of conservative-minded academics, as well as those on the left who hold gender-critical views, who have been bullied out of their jobs on account of their politics. About all these points he is eloquent and, at least to my mind, persuasive. I know from my friends, that such incidents have indeed had a worryingly chilling impact on morale and freedom of expression in those institutions.

Matt’s central argument, however, while drawing on all this compelling material, remains hugely overstated. And I really am not in denial about it. In all honesty it simply does not reflect my experience working in three very different UK universities over precisely the same period that this book assesses.

Put simply, Matt’s argument is that ‘a new ideology’ characterised by radical belief in social injustice and underpinned by an extreme form of identity politics has effectively taken over universities, and now dominates to such an effect that those who disagree with it ‘self-censor’ for fear of losing their jobs or not being promoted if they disagree with its core tenets:

“For twenty years I’ve watched these activists and administrators move to hard-wire the new ideology into every facet of university life – reading lists for students, official guidance for academics, applications for research jobs and grants, admissions policies, and compulsory training.”

“Increasingly (ie: the ideology) views universities as vehicles that can be used to pursue and promote political goals, such as redistributing power and resources from majorities to minorities, prioritizing equal outcomes over equality of opportunity, incubating students in anti-Western ‘revisionist’ ideas and upholding unscientific beliefs, treating staff unequally on the basis of their racial, sexual or gender identities, and imposing restrictions on speech and language in the name of protecting people from emotional harm.”

“Instead of viewing campuses as politically neutral environments, many instead see them as a microcosm of how they would eventually like the West to look – a place where free enterprise, free markets, free speech, individual rights and equal treatment of groups are replaced by something else entirely.”

I read these kinds of accusations in the media all the time, but am always left thinking afterwards how my own experience bears almost no resemblance to this narrative whatsoever.

I have never been asked about my politics at a job interview in a university and have sat on dozens of interview panels over the years and these matters have never ever been raised or discussed. I have never had to write any statement setting out my position on diversity and have never been asked to explain what I have done to promote it. I have never been told what I can and cannot include on a module or programme reading list and have never been required to state my pronouns in an email signature or do anything at all that I am uncomfortable with politically.

No one has ever accused me of ‘microaggression’ or being an oppressor, and no one has ever asked me to reflect anything in the marks I award other than academic merit. I read material that is infused with ‘anti-Western views’ from time to time, but not generally in connection with my university work and am wracking my brains to think of any occasion in the last thirty years when anyone has expressed such views to me on a university campus. Certainly no colleague has. The odd student may have done, but it is just as common to hear or read comments of a more conservative or authoritarian nature that I disagree with from a liberal perspective.

My policy when teaching and writing is always to articulate different sides of an argument and allow the students themselves to make up their own minds about issues. No one has ever complained about me trying my hardest to be fair and balanced in this regard. I adhere completely to the traditions of liberal higher education and have never been asked not to.

Occasionally one hears colleagues using expressions such as ‘declonise the curriculum’ but all they mean by this is including some more diverse examples and references from a wider range of countries. There is no underlying radical agenda at play. No anti-western politics. Just a rather sloppy use of language married to a genuine concern for the needs of overseas students.

Of course, it may be that things are very different in humanities and social science departments than is the case in business schools. And I suspect that universities based in London and its environs probably adhere more to fashionable, metropolitan conceptions of ‘right-thinking’ in the political field than we tend to in more provincial settings. But no such nuance is acknowledged in Matt Goodwin’s book. He makes a general case about universities everywhere being increasingly illiberal places. This is just not true.

Sure some students take a radical position – on climate change as much as identity – but the majority really do not in my experience. Uk students lean mildly leftwards on most issues as younger people tend to do, but not generally in a strident or intolerant way. And what is wrong anyway with being anti-racist or pro the rights of sexual minorities? What is wrong with supporting the notion of social justice? What is wrong, as Matt appears to think there is, with lecturers caring about ‘student satisfaction’ when managing courses that they are paying for?

So I really enjoyed this book, but found its conclusions to be too generalised. Radical identity politics are on the march and their influence can be seen in all manner of institutions. But there is also a big and powerful counter-reaction in train too. There are awful examples of cancellation and attempts to silence people who hold right-leaning views. But that is true in reverse too as, for example, Jeremy Corbyn is now finding to his cost.

It is inaccurate to argue, as this book does, that radical identity politics have now attained a position of dominance across the university sector. Simply not the case.