This is a welcome move to address this misunderstanding, provide open and accountable justice, and improve confidence in the process:

2/2
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

As I often remind my students, 1930s Berlin was one of the most gay friendly places on the planet at that time… And we all know how that ended.

2/2

I am incredibly proud to work at a university which attracts brilliant, intelligent, kind and passionate students who don’t yet know just how exceptional they are.

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And I tell them stories of truly inspirational people who came to us feeling like an imposter, who excelled with us at university, and who have gone on to do amazing things in the service of children, young people and their families.

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I tell them what my lecturer told me all those years ago. I tell them that a university education is meant to challenge them, but that they are more than capable of meeting that challenge. I tell them that they have been lied to, and I explain why.

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The lie that you have to think and write in some elaborate code, the lie that certain knowledge is inherently more valuable, and the lie that because they haven’t been raised in this “exclusive club,” they are somehow inadequate.

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I suspect that the students I talked to yesterday are carrying those same lies:

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I had this fear because throughout my life to that point, I had been sold the lie that people like me didn’t go to university; higher education was for posh kids with well-educated parents. I had been prepared for a different path. Looking back, I’m so glad I listened to that lecturer!

3/8

I remember having the same conversation with one of my lecturers when I was a first-year student myself. I felt like an imposter, gripped by fear that the university would soon realise they’d made a mistake by admitting me.

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