Elite universities aren’t hotbeds of ‘wokery’: our research shows they’re rife with racism and classism

‘A female student told us of her discomfort at suggestions that she was recruited as part of a “quota” of Black students.’ Photograph: Paul Bradbury/Getty Images

It has become common, in some circles, to view elite universities as places of left-leaning “wokery”. A recent Daily Mail article ranked higher education institutions according to their penchant for promoting a range of “politically correct” tropes – and placed Cambridge and Oxford in the top spots.

In talking to students in the UK and the US as part of our research for a new book, we found that this was a deliberate mirage. Beyond the culture wars caricature, universities such as Harvard and Yale, Oxford and Cambridge, remain highly conservative institutions that align with the interests of privileged groups to perpetuate existing power structures.