One of the top universities in Australia has gone viral after running a controversial workshop in which the students discussed options on how to suppress white male privileges and suggested banning white males from speaking to encourage women and transgender people to participate in important debates.
The ‘How Privilege Manifests in Tutorials’ seminar was held by the Student Union at the University of Melbourne last week.
During the workshop, attendees talked about ways to make lectures more inclusive, especially for transgender people, homosexuals, and women.
One of the most radical proposals that upset the Liberal Club’s members and the general public included a suggestion to ban all “white, male students” as well as “students resembling Liberal voters” from speaking.
While the idea was supported by plenty of students, others suggested that introducing such a ban would be racist and against the constitution.
“There’s generally this sort of idea that Liberals are all racist, rich, white kids,” 21-year-old Thomas Carlyle-James said in an interview with The Australian.
“I know plenty of Liberals and none of them are racists and they aren’t as wealthy as people think and are also from all different nationalities.”
The unusual workshop was a part of the Radical Education Week, an annual event organized by the Student Union. Other seminars presented throughout the event included Burn the Prisons Down & Tear Apart the Walls, Feminist History of Capitalism, and Climate vs Capitalism: Eco-socialism as an Alternative.
Defending the sensitive workshop, Molly Willmott, the president of the Student Union, said:
“This is not about stopping people from speaking. We’re a university that encourages free speech.
“It’s about giving space to people who don’t feel included on university campuses because of things like gender, language (and) queerness.”
After the ideas discussed at the seminar went viral, the spokeswoman for the University of Melbourne said: “This is a workshop run by UMSU. What is discussed is not university policy.”
The event followed days after Daily Mail Australia spoke out about how The University of Western Australia students’ were handed a “male privilege checklist” during an orientation week focusing on diversity.
The thorough checklist presented alleged advantages that males have over females when it comes to career, personal safety, clothing, and so on.
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