'Exactly three years ago, I wrote in a newspaper that extreme sensitivity towards students was threatening the integrity and freedom of academic life across the Anglo-American world.
My article was prompted by the growing fashion for universities to introduce so-called ‘safe spaces’ and ‘trigger warnings’ in a misguided effort to protect students from any challenging material or experiences.
One prime example was the decision by University College, London telling those on its ‘archaeology of modern conflict’ course that they would be allowed to leave class if they found the discussion of historical events ‘disturbing’ or ‘traumatising’.
I expressed the concern that such policies, far from reassuring students, were helping to fuel a mood of institutionalised anxiety.
Censorship, meanwhile, was eroding the scope for study.
At the time, I was told I was exaggerating the phenomenon. It was said trigger warnings were just a passing fad, there was nothing to worry about.
But this complacency was misplaced. The habit of treating students as fragile ‘snowflakes’ has accelerated, reaching into every part of the university sector.
A new nadir was reached last week with reports that Oxford University Students Union is to replace clapping with ‘jazz hands’, where participants signal approval by silently waving both hands at the sides of their bodies, palms facing outwards.
The purported justification for this is to avoid offending those who are upset by loud noise.
In the words of the student union’s welfare and equal opportunities officer: ‘The policy was proposed to encourage the use of British Sign Language clapping to make events more accessible and inclusive for all, including people who suffer from anxiety.’
Oxford is not the first students’ union to indulge in this kind of grotesque gesture politics. A ban on clapping was imposed by the National Union of Students at its conference in 2017, while last year Manchester University’s union adopted the same approach at its meetings.'
Read more: Ban applause? What utter claptrap! Professor lashes out as Oxford becomes latest university to insist on 'jazz hands' at student events three years after he warned it was a threat to academic freedom
