Durham professor at stake in the latest university witch hunt

The college principal at the heart of the Durham witch hunt, Professor Tim Luckhurst, could quite easily defend himself if given a chance.

As a former BBC man, newspaper journalist and Labour spin doctor, as well as a senior academic, he will not be backwards in coming forward, except that his university bosses have silenced him while they investigate claims by students that his actions made them feel “unsafe”.

Now, Luckhurst may be outspoken on certain issues and he may sometimes be robust in defending his views, but unsafe?

Some years ago, I worked with the professor when he was a humble hack on The Scotsman. He was opinionated but not dogged and, even back then, quite donnish.

He was renowned, in news conferences, for always being slightly annoyingly one step ahead, having got up earlier than anybody else, in time not just to listen to the Today programme from the beginning but to Farming Today beforehand.

It was on Radio 4 that he would have met Rod Liddle, a former Today editor, and the catalyst for Luckhurst’s current predicament.

After building up his academic career in Kent, Luckhurst must have thought he had done well when he crowned his achievements with a move to Durham.

In his exalted position as head of South College, he had the freedom, or so he thought, to introduce high profile and controversial speakers to stir up debate among his students.

Enter Liddle, famous for his big mouth and trenchant take on sensitive topics. He may not be to everyone’s taste but he hardly needs a health warning; what you’ve read in his many newspaper columns and heard in his shock jock radio appearances is what you get.

This makes one wonder why those students who turned up to a formal dinner were so offended by his comments – on gender, on class, on race – that they felt they had to walk out. What were they expecting? 

That both Luckhurst and his wife Dorothy, a former Conservative Party candidate and mother of four, tried to remonstrate with the fleeing kids is to their credit, even though they probably shouldn’t have shouted “pathetic” (him) and “arse” (her) at the crowd (they have both since apologised).

Apparently, the couple attempted to explain to the dumbfounded youngsters that universities were supposed to be bastions of free speech.

Luckhurst, with his campus experience, must have known he was on a hiding to nothing but he could not have guessed, even in these days of Stasi-like suppression at our most esteemed seats of learning, that he would be hounded from his job.

He is currently banned from public duties, has had to withdraw from a planned trip to the States, and has been immediately ostracised in the most craven manner by Durham’s acting vice chancellor, Anthony Long, a geographer.

Instead of brushing aside the students’ juvenile antics and standing by his colleague, Long agreed that the night in question had “caused considerable distress” and applauded the way “our community is responding”.

The students’ union, meanwhile, has demanded Luckhurst’s resignation for “abusing” them (if “pathetic” is now abuse we’re all done for), “attacking” them, and “promoting a culture of harm”. 

To say that this episode has been stretched out of all proportion doesn’t come close to describing the hysteria that has gripped a once fine institution and made it, in the eyes of most ordinary people, a laughing stock.

We can perhaps imagine how a bunch of students on hyper-alert for their triggers (Liddle must have been given the full list before his fruity talk) were easy to wind up.

Having been a student and on the receiving end of outrage, I even have some sympathy for the Durham audience. The difference in my day was that when we protested – it was against Thatcher’s education reforms, I recall – our vice chancellor was most certainly not on our side. 

Durham students have now demanded “content warnings” ahead of future speeches so they won’t be in danger of hearing anything that does not chime with their own beliefs.

But not all Durham undergraduates are so fragile. One, final year student Imogen Marchant, wrote on the Spectator website that she was “fed up” with the ongoing saga, and particularly with university chiefs.

“The university has released more communication about Rod-gate in the last three days than I have received all term about what is going to happen with my exams,” she said. “My college, my department and the university governing body have all sent me emails telling me about the appropriate welfare resources to turn to if I have been unduly affected by hearing about comments that I might disagree with.”

“The university has been quick to affirm that it “categorically does not agree with views expressed by the external speaker at this occasion”. This is precisely my worry: since when has inviting someone to speak been a sign that you agree with everything they’ve ever said?”

Unfortunately, such common sense is in sharply decreasing supply at universities, where student activists are as student activists ever were, but where the leadership has gone native. 

I fear there is little hope of Luckhurst resuming his position when the noise dies down because, as other decent but harassed academics have discovered, once the mob has it in for you, you are finished.