A male science professor at the University of Oxford is facing criticism from fellow academics for reportedly wearing large “plastic breasts” while teaching.
Matt Rattley, a <a href="https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/people/matt-rattley">lecturer</a> in biochemistry at Oxford’s St. Hilda’s College, went viral this week after a video was <a href="https://x.com/IsntWorkingPod/status/2048503195521909058">posted</a> on X with him talking about imposter syndrome. Rattley, who lists “they/them” pronouns on LinkedIn, has a long, wispy beard and appears to wear prosthetic breasts.
Oxford professor Michael Biggs <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why-is-oxford-indulging-a-lecturer-who-wears-his-plastic-breasts-at-work/">told</a> the British magazine Spiked that there is “a strong case that Mr Rattley is creating a degrading and offensive environment, especially for female students, which would constitute sexual harassment.”
Biggs added that adults should not bring “their sexual interests” to work, but that they should be free to do what they want in private.
Rattley has been a non-stipendiary lecturer at St. Hilda&#8217;s since October 2023, according to the college. St. Hilda’s was initially founded as an all women’s college back in 1893. The college did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a video pulled from his LinkedIn that has been viewed over 2.5 million times, Rattley discussed creating a website and the problem of “imposter syndrome.”
“The problem I&#8217;m running up against is some imposter syndrome — classic. Basically, what does it mean to be an expert in something?  Because it&#8217;s really not obvious to me at what point I could describe myself as an expert in something. I have expertise in things,” he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been teaching plenty.  My chemistry is pretty solid, but I think I still have this feeling that declaring myself an expert in something is a little bit uncomfortable.” 
Photos from his social platforms show Rattley frequently wearing dresses and with painted nails.
<div id="attachment_1086991" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1086991" class="size-full wp-image-1086991" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-scaled.png" alt="" width="2560" height="1300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-scaled.png 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-300x152.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-1024x520.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-768x390.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-1536x780.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-7.40.34-AM-2048x1040.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />LinkedIn.</div>
Journalist Jo Bartosch <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why-is-oxford-indulging-a-lecturer-who-wears-his-plastic-breasts-at-work/">wrote</a> in an article published Wednesday that no one in Rattley’s department has publicly addressed the controversy.
“No one in his male-dominated department has publicly criticised his sexist sartorial choices, and he has been pictured and filmed at professional events looking as though he has wandered in from a stag do,” she wrote.
Bartosch added that the university will not tell Rattley to dress appropriately to work, but will go after critics of transgender ideology. She added that it was insulting to female students and teachers that the university allowed Rattley to wear his fake breasts while teaching.
“Ultimately, a university is not a stage, nor a fetish club,” she wrote. “It is a place of learning, where young people ought to be able to study without being forced to navigate someone else’s exhibitionism.”

MixCollage-30-Apr-2026-07-53-AM-317

He’s Bald, Bearded, And Has Fake Breasts. He’s Also Teaching Kids At A Prestigious University.

Education

LGBTQ

Oxford University

Social Issues

Transgender

World

It was quite possibly the most remarkable literary friendship of the 20th century. 
As young men, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both endured the utter devastation of trench warfare during World War I. Then, as unrivaled evil once again ravaged the European continent during the 1930s and ‘40s, these two Oxford professors produced epic works of fiction, masterpieces imbued with moral purpose and beauty.
Like many lovers of the classics, Joseph Loconte shares a lifelong fascination with Lewis and Tolkien. As a professor and scholar, Loconte marvels at how the writers produced their most beloved works in the dark crucible of World War II. So, why are their novels — and the films they inspired — still considered among the greatest of all time?
Glad you asked. This excerpt from Loconte’s new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XOB86YWCWn1uj4Zfk3oqTB9WG9MQQbLwBASgkqr15NWkKfOSXC-5RpcIzhcqguAh6u2mAEA__rlmNbTJXc-q7fuDoUvDpYw_bftz3i-JMZz-OT115AAqgAplDhdZqNRi4ew80IZaX6eRtLnMMl14zg.GtxJWFQj59jzOCdkAcMWFPD19R7M4lvbo1EeMK8gFDA&amp;qid=1763159058&amp;sr=1-3">The War for Middle-Earth</a>,” may help light the way. — Joel Kneedler
* * *
<h3>Minds Lit by Fire</h3>
Halfway through the Great War, on November 30, 1916, a small group of European leaders managed to attend the funeral of Franz Joseph, ruler over the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In a ceremony scripted by the emperor before his death, the Grand Cortege carrying his coffin halted outside the Capuchin Monastery in Vienna, where all the Hapsburg emperors were laid to rest.
What transpired was a whisper from an earlier era, a nod to the transcendence of God and the frailty of men. The herald, on behalf of the emperor, knocked on the monastery door.
“Who is knocking?” shouted the abbot inside.
“I am Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria, king of Hungary.”
“I don’t know you.”
Again the herald shouted: “I am Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Dalmatia, Grand Duke of Transylvania, Duke of—”
“We still don’t know who you are,” interrupted the abbot.
At this moment the herald fell on his knees and in front of all assembled declared, “I am Franz Joseph, a poor sinner, humbly begging God’s mercy.”
“Enter then,” the abbot said. And the gates opened.
The funeral of the Austro-Hungarian emperor symbolized an outlook already in an advanced stage of decay. Settled beliefs about the religious dimension to human life were becoming unsettled. Assumptions about the moral life, about the existence of good and evil, seemed to have vanished into the killing fields of the 1914–18 war. By the end of the war, the emotional and spiritual lives of millions of ordinary Europeans were caught up in a no-man’s-land of doubt and disillusionment.
Two of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, were soldiers in the Great War. They fought in the trenches in France, what one contemporary called “the long grave already dug.” They emerged from the mechanized slaughter of that conflict physically intact—just barely.
No man could pass through the fires of the Somme and Arras and remain unchanged. For Tolkien, his war experience created an enduring sense of sadness. Yet he found that his imaginative cast of mind, his early taste for fantasy, was “quickened to full life by war.” For Lewis, the conflict deepened his youthful atheism: the growing conviction that if God existed, he was a sadist. Paradoxically, the war years launched Lewis on a spiritual quest, a desire for “Joy,” which ultimately led him on a remarkable journey of faith.
<div id="attachment_1000277" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XOB86YWCWn1uj4Zfk3oqTB9WG9MQQbLwBASgkqr15NWkKfOSXC-5RpcIzhcqguAh6u2mAEA__rlmNbTJXc-q7fuDoUvDpYw_bftz3i-JMZz-OT115AAqgAplDhdZqNRi4ew80IZaX6eRtLnMMl14zg.GtxJWFQj59jzOCdkAcMWFPD19R7M4lvbo1EeMK8gFDA&amp;qid=1763159058&amp;sr=1-3"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1000277" class="size-large wp-image-1000277" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover Design: Thomas Nelson" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte.jpg 1365w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover Design: Thomas Nelson</div>
The lives of these two men intersected after the war as they were launching their academic careers at Oxford University. They soon formed a bond of friendship that, given the reach and influence of their novels, must rank as one of the most consequential friendships of modern times.
There was nothing inevitable about it. Tolkien was a devout Catholic; Lewis an Ulster Protestant and lapsed Anglican. At their first English faculty meeting, they circled each other like tigers in the wild. Yet they soon discovered that they loved many of the same things: ancient myths, epic poetry, medieval stories of honor, chivalry, sacrifice, and war.
The theme of war would become a defining feature of their professional and literary lives. Their personal lives would be upended by two global conflicts. Barely twenty years after surviving what was the most devastating conflict in history, Tolkien and Lewis would watch in anguish as new forces of aggression gathered and dominated the geopolitical landscape of Europe.
In 1938, a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, author H. G. Wells terrified millions with a radio broadcast based on his novel The War of the Worlds, in which an imaginary Martian invasion devastates the earth. Art would imitate life. As British historian Niall Ferguson observes, “men proved that it was quite possible to wreak comparable havoc without the need for alien intervention. All they had to do was to identify this or that group of their fellow men as the aliens, and then kill them.” This was the terrible pattern in the aftermath of the First World War. Communism, fascism, Nazism: all produced political systems that drew their strength from their hatreds.
The totalitarian states of Europe and Asia, despite their differences, shared another unifying characteristic: a contempt for the democratic and religious ideals of the West. Their ambitions made another global conflict almost inevitable.
“If the first great war was the seminal catastrophe,” argues historian Sir Ian Kershaw, “the second was the culmination of this catastrophe—the complete collapse of European civilization.” Living and working in Oxford, England, Tolkien and Lewis found themselves at the storm front of this tragedy. Like no other conflict in Britain’s long history, the Second World War created an existential crisis. For many months the political survival of their island nation was an open question.
It was in the crucible of this experience that Tolkien and Lewis sought each other out. The horror of the First World War instigated a cultural backlash, setting loose forces that tore at the moral and spiritual foundations of Western civilization. Both men were determined to fight back. They formed the nucleus of a group of like-minded writers, all resolved to establish a beachhead of resistance in the war of ideas that was raging around them.
The onset of the Second World War created a profound sense of urgency. Tolkien and Lewis came to believe that the soul of their neighbor, as well as the soul of their civilization, hung in the balance. In ways not fully appreciated, the 1939–45 war utterly transformed their lives and literary imaginations. Their most beloved works — including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and The Chronicles of Narnia — were conceived in the shadow of this conflict.
“Talent alone cannot make a writer,” observed Ralph Waldo Emerson. “There must be a man behind the book.” Behind the extraordinary works of Tolkien and Lewis stood a cloud of witnesses: individuals whose contributions to the literary canon of Western civilization provided the inspiration for their epic novels. Both authors instinctively looked to this inheritance and were nourished by it in wartime.
As a result, they acquired something that our modern era has mostly abandoned: perspective. By being rooted in the great books of the Western tradition, they knew where to look for wisdom, virtue, courage, and faith. Intimate knowledge of the past braced them for the crisis years of 1933–45. In this, they reinforced each other’s best instincts. “My entire philosophy of history,” Lewis once told Tolkien, “hangs upon a single sentence of your own.”
Could an entire philosophy of history be summed up in a single sentence? What sentence? It is from a passage in The Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf the Wizard explains to Frodo Baggins something of the ancient struggle for Middle-earth. “There was sorrow then, too, and gathering dark, but great valor, and great deeds that were not wholly vain.” Here is an approach to history — to the terrible history of the twentieth century — that invites reflection.
The lives of Tolkien and Lewis, after all, were embedded in this story when another disastrous war unleashed upon the earth a storm of human misery unsurpassed in the catalogue of world catastrophes. “Middle-earth, I suspect, looks so engagingly familiar to us, and speaks to us so eloquently,” writes biographer John Garth, “because it was born with the modern world and marked by the same terrible birth pangs.” We cannot fully appreciate the achievement of these two remarkable authors until we try to see the world as they experienced it. They possessed a deep awareness of life’s sorrows.
Yet this is only part of their story. Their experience of suffering was held in check by something stronger: gratitude. The Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero called this quality “not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Like no other authors of their age, they used their imagination to reclaim—for their generation and ours—those deeds of valor and sacrifice and love that have always kept a lamp burning even in the deepest darkness.
* * *
Adapted from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934">THE WAR FOR MIDDLE-EARTH: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945</a>,&#8221; by Joseph Loconte. Copyright 2025 by Joseph Loconte. Published by Thomas Nelson. Available wherever books are sold on November 18, 2025.
* * *
Joseph Loconte, PhD, is an author, historian, and filmmaker. He serves as Director of The Rivendell Center in New York City. He is a Presidential Scholar at New College of Florida and a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute. Mr. Loconte’s commentary appears in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, The New Criterion, National Geographic, Law and Liberty, The National Interest, and National Review. For ten years Mr. Loconte served as a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he divides his time between Washington, DC, and New York City.
* * *
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The War for Middle-Earth Book Trailer" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hAv3WNVeJIQ?start=5&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Tolkien Lewis II

Tolkien, Lewis, And The Battle To Save Western Civilization

Books

C.S. Lewis

Christianity

J.R.R. Tolkien

World War I

In a display of grotesque moral bankruptcy, Oxford Union’s incoming president George Abaraonye appeared to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/11/oxford-union-president-george-abaraonye-charlie-kirk-murder/">celebrate</a> the murder of Charlie Kirk — just months after debating him on stage.
Following Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University — where he was shot in the neck while calmly fielding questions — Abaraonye allegedly posted in a student WhatsApp group, “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f***ing go,” and later followed it up with, “Charlie Kirk got shot loool,” indicating laughter, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/11/oxford-union-president-george-abaraonye-charlie-kirk-murder/">The Telegraph</a> reported.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Meet the new president of <a href="https://twitter.com/OxfordUnion?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OxfordUnion</a> — the world’s foremost debating society and last bastion of free speech, apparently.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CharlieKirk?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CharlieKirk</a> <a href="https://t.co/KlWY9w4dif">pic.twitter.com/KlWY9w4dif</a>
&mdash; Peter Lloyd (@Suffragent_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Suffragent_/status/1966215495742533821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Now I&#39;ve seen the actual message George Abaraonye posted, complete with praying hands, as if thanking God for Charlie Kirk&#39;s death, he is absolutely not a fit and proper person to become President of the <a href="https://twitter.com/OxfordUnion?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OxfordUnion</a> in Hilary Term 2026. I hope the other Officers will consider… <a href="https://t.co/V2Ph8UapVn">pic.twitter.com/V2Ph8UapVn</a>
&mdash; Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adrian_Hilton/status/1966179830006976633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
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This from a man tapped to lead the Oxford Union, a society historically revered for its commitment to civil discourse and open debate.
Kirk, 31, a father of two and the founder of Turning Point USA, had become a lightning rod for the MAGA youth movement. He was in the middle of his “American Comeback Tour” when he was gunned down. His message — calling on students to challenge him face-to-face — was a hallmark of his commitment to real dialogue in a culture increasingly allergic to dissent.
Abaraonye had previously debated Kirk at the Oxford Union in May. Kirk, ever the civil opponent, reportedly told him afterward to &#8220;think about&#8221; their exchange.
In response to the explosive revelations, the Oxford Union scrambled into damage control. In a public statement, the institution wrote:
<blockquote>The Oxford Union would like to unequivocally condemn the reported words and sentiments expressed by the President-Elect, George Abaraonye, with regards to the passing of Charlie Kirk. His reported views do not represent the Oxford Union&#8217;s current leadership or committee&#8217;s view. The current administration has, under President Moosa Harraj, no association with, and is entirely independent from, Mr Abaraonye&#8217;s administration.
In alignment with the statement published by our Society earlier today, we reaffirm our stance that the Oxford Union firmly opposes all forms of political violence and strongly stands by our commitment to free speech and considerate debate. We would like to reiterate that our condolences lie with Charlie Kirk&#8217;s family, especially his wife and young children, who are enduring such terrible grief.
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://t.co/zlagxKTC74">pic.twitter.com/zlagxKTC74</a>
— Oxford Union (@OxfordUnion) <a href="https://twitter.com/OxfordUnion/status/1966205678617600031?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
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George Abaraonye has yet to respond publicly.
Charlie Kirk’s wife and young children now mourn the loss of a husband and father — while a would-be intellectual elite in Oxford jokes about his death.
This is where we are.

Oxford Union debating society

Oxford Union Prez-Elect Cheers Charlie Kirk’s Murder: ‘Let’s F***ing Go’

assassination

Charlie Kirk

General

Multiple people called for the destruction of the state of Israel during an open debate with Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro at the Oxford Union in the U.K. on Monday.
Shapiro visited the University of Oxford earlier this week to face questions from students about a wide range of topics, but the discussion principally focused on the war between Israel and Hamas. During Shapiro’s bouts with different students, several called for the abolition of the state of Israel, a position that Shapiro responded was “genocidal.”
The first student called for the destruction of Israel at the end of her questioning of Shapiro when the Daily Wire host asked her what part of Israel she considered “occupied,” or illegitimate.
“All of Israel,” she responded.
“There we go. So, what you’re calling for is the obliteration of the state of Israel, and all of this is just a cover for that. I appreciate your time,” Shapiro responded.
Less than 10 minutes later, another student at the podium took the same position after Shapiro asked the same question.
“The entirety of Palestine,” she said, adding “but I’m not calling for the destruction of Jews.”
“Thank you, once again,” Shapiro said. “I appreciate you expressing your full genocidal intent for the Jewish people living between the river and the sea.”
The student argued: “Why is it genocidal to call for a state that is not apartheid? You can have a state where all citizens have equal rights, Jews and Muslims. That’s not genocidal.”
Shapiro responded: “I’m sure that is going to go amazingly under the same people who are governing the Gaza Strip where currently zero Jews live.”
The last student to call for Israel’s destruction volunteered his position at the start of his time debating Shapiro on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Ben, it’s an absolute displeasure,” the student opened, “I will get to my question, however.”
Shapiro responded: “Thank you for coming anyway.”
“My displeasure,” the student said. “Now, I&#8217;ll repeat the question that I sought to ask you. You have recently been discussing a lot about the history of the occupation of Palestine. I will call it that. I know you will oppose that, but I will call it that. The occupation of Palestine.”
After Shapiro asked what he meant by Palestine, the student clarified he meant “the entirety of Palestine.”
 “You may accuse me of genocide if you wish. That is not my position,” the student said.
“Sure, and I will, but go ahead,” Shapiro responded.
The full Q-and-A with the audience can be viewed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1NFirxhXWE&amp;t=942s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

Ben Shapiro at Oxford

Ben Shapiro To Oxford Union Members’ Calls For Israel’s Destruction: ‘Full Genocidal Intent For The Jewish People’

Ben Shapiro

Hamas

Israel

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro called on the West to “wake up” to the terrorist threat it faces from Hamas and its allies, writing that the existence of the Western world depends on it.
Shapiro appeared at Oxford University earlier this week for a Q&amp;A and asked to give an address at the start of his appearance, but after a back-and-forth battle with the organizers, he was told he could not. So Shapiro turned his prepared remarks into an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/01/the-west-must-wake-up-monsters-exist-and-evil-is-real/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed for The Telegraph</a>, which was published Wednesday. 
In the piece, the Daily Wire co-founder warned that the West is lying to itself about the evil Hamas openly parades. Shapiro condemned an academic union of faculty and lecturers at Oxford that proposed a motion earlier this week labeling Hamas’ attack on Israel a “consequence of decades of violent oppression” and calling for “a mass uprising” of Palestinians in the Middle East.
“This motion is Jew-hatred, pure and simple. Any moral equivalence drawn between Israel and Hamas is simple Jew-hatred,” wrote Shapiro. “When you support Hamas and its agenda, you are supporting the barbaric murder of babies in their cribs; you are supporting women being kidnapped, raped, and murdered.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I appeared at Oxford Union this week and asked to give a brief address at the start of the appearance. I was told I could not. Here&#39;s the text as prepared.<a href="https://t.co/z5q77NsIAu">https://t.co/z5q77NsIAu</a>
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1719781908136247380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 1, 2023</a></blockquote>
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While Shapiro couldn’t use his prepared address, he gave an extemporaneous speech at Oxford anyway, and a clip of his remarks went viral after he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/anti-israel-activist-parrots-hamas-propaganda-at-oxford-ben-shapiro-shreds-her-arguments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shredded</a> the anti-Israel rhetoric of an activist at the university. The Daily Wire host said on Tuesday that he was told Oxford would release footage of the whole event within 48 hours. The university finally released the full tape of Shapiro’s remarks Wednesday evening.
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We have been told that Oxford Union will release the tape of the full hour-long event within 48 hours. <a href="https://t.co/5vBAAkiJW9">https://t.co/5vBAAkiJW9</a>
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1719275320769909211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
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In Shapiro’s op-ed, he asked how anti-Semitic messages and mass demonstrations in “support for Hamas terrorists” could gain support “in the heart of the country that bore parliamentary democracy and classical liberalism.”
“The answer is simple: the West is embarrassed of its own values,” Shapiro added. “And this embarrassment has led it down the road of blindness. The West has decided that in order to avoid accusations of ethnocentricity, it must make a core assumption: everyone thinks like us.”
Many on the far-Left in Congress and the legacy media have attempted to add “context” to Hamas’ murderous campaign against Israel on October 7, arguing that Hamas’ brutal actions only came after facing years of “oppression.” But Israel and the Western world are not facing an enemy that holds to the same values or simply wants to negotiate peace, Shapiro wrote. 
“Now, it is patently obvious that everyone does not think like us,” he continued. “People who kill babies for the crime of being Jews are not like us. People who paraglide into electronic dance music festivals and gleefully rape women, murder 260 people, and drag innocents back to their hellholes in Gaza are not like us.”
The Daily Wire host added that the fight against Hamas isn’t only about Israel defending itself against terrorists, but about the West defending itself — its values and way of life — against monsters. 
“Today, the existence of the State of Israel means that Jews need not wait for anyone else to come to the realization that monsters exist and evil is real. But the West must too come to that realization,” Shapiro wrote. “Not for the Jews. Not for Israel. But because if the West does not defend itself, it will cease to exist. And the monsters will win.”

Ben Shapiro Calls On The West To ‘Wake Up’ And Fight The ‘Monsters’ Seeking Its Demise

Rallies that condemn <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Israel</a>’s war on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hamas</a> and equivocate the October 7 terror attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians are symptoms that the West is losing its values, according to Daily Wire Editor Emeritus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ben Shapiro</a>.
Shapiro appeared at the University of Oxford on Monday to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. At the top of a question-and-answer session, Shapiro explained that activists demonstrating against his visit to Oxford are part of an unfortunate and larger trend across liberal democratic countries. 
“You’re hearing people outside chanting genocidal slogans like ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,’” Shapiro said. “The real question is why is that such a common sentiment in The West? Why has this become such a common thing to see 100k people marching in the streets of London in a pro-Hamas rally?”
The answer, according to Shapiro, is that the West has become “ashamed of the superiority of its own values.”
“The West has become shy about its own principles. The West has become humiliated by its own principles. Instead, it has decided to substitute the idiotic notion that everybody thinks the same way, and it’s not true,” Shapiro said.
“Hamas openly says their goal is to exterminate all Jews. But we can’t believe them because we’re so paternalistic – we believe that nobody believes that, it must be economic discontent, it must be a land dispute,” Shapiro said. “Or maybe it turns out that people who burn babies in their cribs, who rape mothers in front of their children and murder both of them, maybe they don’t think like you.”
The Daily Wire host said that the answer to the rot within the West is for Westerners to reembrace the West’s values and defend them. Otherwise, the West will empower its enemies, such as Hamas. 
“Back in 1933, [the Oxford Union] voted in humiliating fashion for the so-called Oxford Oath, that it would not defend King and Country. And that was used by people like Hitler, like Mussolini to lead when the West was weak. Any civilization that will not defend its own values, any civilization that creates an equation between its own values and the values of groups like Hamas is weak. And that’s not something The West can afford,” Shapiro said.
The heart of the dilemma facing the West is not about Israel, Shapiro said, but about what the West will choose to believe about itself and its values when faced with evils like the terrorism of Hamas.
“What it is about is whether the West is going to defend values that actually matter. It’s about if the West is going to recognize, once and for all, that its values are not the same as those of groups like Hamas, and not everything can be talked out in negotiations in a room,” Shapiro said.
“The people who would do the sorts of things we saw on October 7, they’re not morally equivalent to people who try to target those terrorists, who are trying to kill those terrorists while the terrorists themselves are bragging about putting civilians atop their rockets,” he continued. “Any moral equivalence that’s drawn in this conflict by people who are chanting outside should be treated as evidence of anti-Semitism because there has never been a clearer moral contrast than what you’re seeing right now.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MUST WATCH: <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BenShapiro</a> torches Hamas supporters in Oxford Union as protesters who want to kill Jews yell in the background. Chilling. <a href="https://t.co/plXgVyYqgB">pic.twitter.com/plXgVyYqgB</a>
&mdash; Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1719496175668097125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Ben Shapiro: Jew-Hatred Is Spreading Because The West Is ‘Humiliated By Its Own Principles’

On Monday night, I visited Oxford University in Great Britain.
My wife was somewhat hesitant about me visiting the U.K. at all, given safety concerns; after all, on Saturday, some 100,000 people marched in support of Hamas. Anti-Semitic hate crime is up 1,350% in London over the last few weeks. Imams have been shouting in Nottingham, “Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.”
But we felt it was important to go to Oxford, particularly at a time when the West seems unsure of its moral qualifications to condemn absolute evil in the form of Hamas. After all, Oxford is a thousand-year-old institution, one of the chief intellectual lights of the West. If we lose Oxford, it’s a good indicator that the West is in trouble.
Well, I’m here to report that the West is in trouble.
The university itself is gorgeous, a monument to the greatness of mankind. The architecture is magnificent; the history speaks from the walls, from Churchill to C.S. Lewis, from 1096 to 1945. 
But the institution itself has been honeycombed with people who are in full support of Islamic terrorism.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1840-what-i-learned-at-oxford-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
My opening remarks focused on the West’s shyness about its own values — its failure to recognize that not everyone thinks like Westerners do, and its consequent importation of people who believe that the West is deeply evil.
Those remarks were borne out in the actual event, when student after student approached the microphone to offer a bevy of morally obfuscatory arguments in support of Hamas. The most common was the clearly specious argument that Hamas burning babies alive in their cribs, raping mothers and then shooting them, and torturing fathers was somehow morally equivalent to the Israeli Defense Forces targeting terrorists while attempting to minimize civilian casualties.
When pressed, however, student after student admitted the <a href="https://twitter.com/ChayaRaichik10/status/1719164630788976932" target="_blank" rel="noopener">real goal</a>: the destruction of the State of Israel entirely. The rest was hot air. 
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Epic exchange between <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> and an anti-Israel activist at Oxford University today. This “highly educated” student doesn’t know basic history <a href="https://t.co/vbpfDnetgu">pic.twitter.com/vbpfDnetgu</a>
&mdash; Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChayaRaichik10/status/1719164630788976932?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
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To put it mildly, the experience was discomfiting. It’s not all that easy emotionally to stand across from student after student who call for the extermination of Jews “between the river and the sea,” Jews who are my literal friends and family. At modern universities, it’s considered erasure to mention men and women are different, but perfectly acceptable to openly justify and excuse the murder of innocent Jewish men, women, and children.
Radicalized Muslim students at the most important Western institutions feel no qualms whatsoever about calling for the obliteration of the Jewish State. Anti-Semitism runs rife in these halls. 
And what’s even more disturbing is the tolerance with which it is met. 
There is little or no pushback. There is certainly no feeling that such Jew-hatred is out of bounds.
This is why the West is in trouble. As I said last night, in 1933, the Oxford Union Society infamously voted 275 to 153 for the proposition, “This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” That pathetic statement, the so-called Oxford Oath, gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the West; it reportedly led both Hitler and Mussolini to the conclusion that the British were internally weak, and thus prey for aggression.
The modern version of that is what we see today in the West: the belief that the values of King and country aren’t worth defending in the face of a muscular form of Islam that seeks the total destruction of its enemies.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is following suit.
Amidst Israel’s attempts to root out Hamas from the Gaza Strip, Hamas is now receiving a helping hand from the international community and the legacy media. While Hamas sits on vast stockpiles of water, food, and medicine, the international community and legacy media have placed responsibility for Gaza’s civilian population … on Israel.
According to no less an anti-Israel authority than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/world/middleeast/palestine-gazans-hamas-food.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the New York Times</a> this weekend:
<blockquote>As supplies of virtually every basic human necessity dwindle in Gaza, one group in the besieged enclave remains well-stocked: Hamas. … Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine, the officials said. A senior Lebanese official said Hamas, which is estimated to number between 35,000 and 40,000, had enough stocked away to keep fighting for three to four months without resupply. … The supply situation speaks to the relative sophistication of Hamas as a fighting force — an axiom among military professionals is that while amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics. Yet with Gazans facing a humanitarian catastrophe, Hamas’s stockpiles raise questions about what responsibility, if any, it has to the civilian population. </blockquote>
There it is, that fabled New York Times objectivity: Hamas stealing billions of dollars from its citizens to fund its war machine “raises questions about what responsibility, if any, it has to the civilian population.”
Imagine that sentence in any other context.
Is there any question that the United States government has a responsibility for its civilian population? Or Israel’s government? 

But being a genocidal Jew-hating terrorist means you don’t have to take responsibility for the civilians you supposedly govern. You might not have any responsibility for those citizens. In fact, Gaza hospitals are right now complaining about a lack of fuel — but Hamas currently has 260,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel on hand.
But no matter. Hamas has no responsibility.
Which is why Hamas’ friends are able to lament the plight of civilians in Gaza after having funded their impoverishment — and the current conflict, created by Hamas.
Aid dollars deployed to Gaza over the past 20 years have been embezzled by Hamas and used for its murderous plans. 
But now the international community and legacy media say that it’s up to Israel to make humanitarian provision for Gaza’s civilians.
This, of course, is disingenuous.
None of the countries that voted in favor of a U.N. resolution pushing a ceasefire have offered to take in any Gazan civilians. None have called for Hamas to surrender to Israel, which would end the conflict immediately.
No, they say, Israel must stop its attempts to destroy Hamas.
The innocents are suffering.
This is the height of cynicism. It’s on par with the old saw about the man who kills his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. Hamas started this conflict. Hamas is the governing body in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has chief responsibility for the health and welfare of Gazan Palestinian civilians.
And they don’t give two whits about those citizens.
In fact, they want those citizens to die. They say so openly. They say that their civilians are the responsibility of … the people they just murdered en masse. Yesterday, Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk was <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1718973338486260097">asked</a> why Hamas built tunnels instead of bomb shelters where civilians could hide. He answered, “We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. Those tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels.” He said of Gazan civilians, “It is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. … it is the responsibility of the occupation (Israel) to provide them with all the services…”
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Hamas Official Mousa Abu Marzouk: The Tunnels in Gaza Were Built to Protect Hamas Fighters, Not Civilians; Protecting Gaza Civilians Is the Responsibility of the U.N. and Israel <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hamas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hamas</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gaza?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Gaza</a> <a href="https://t.co/LlIVcQX6dt">pic.twitter.com/LlIVcQX6dt</a>
&mdash; MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1718973338486260097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2023</a></blockquote>
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So here’s the math, apparently: If a population elects terrorist leadership, that terrorist leadership consolidates its control by wiping out its political rivals, that terrorist leadership steals billions of dollars in aid and impoverishes its own citizens in the process, and then that terrorist leadership murders 1,500 Jews and kidnaps another 233 people, then so long as that terrorist leadership hides in tunnels, the terrorists must be left alone.
This is insanity.
It is insanity no other country would be expected to weather. Not the United States, not the U.K., not France, not Germany.
No one.
There cannot be a ceasefire until Hamas surrenders.
Anyone in the world who is not calling on Hamas to do just that — in fact, those who are calling for a lengthening of the conflict by shipping in more resources for Hamas to steal — cannot pretend to care about human life, either Israeli or Palestinian.
There is a reason both Hamas and the UN are calling for a ceasefire.
And it has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with stopping Israel from protecting its own citizens, the mass murder of whom created this conflict in the first place.
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Screenshot 2023-10-31 at 3.35.47 PM copy

What I Learned At Oxford

Anti-Semitism

Great Britain

Readers Pass

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ben Shapiro</a> shredded the anti-Israel rhetoric of an activist at the University of Oxford on Monday regarding morality in the war between <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Israel</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hamas</a>.
The student accused Israel of waging an unjust war against Hamas and of killing Palestinians needlessly and at will. Shapiro pointed out that Hamas is ultimately responsible for Palestinian deaths because the terror group hides military targets in civilian areas. His remarks quickly went viral on social media. 
“Civilian casualties are a cost of war. That is just a reality of life. During World War II, there were 70,000 Brits who died during The Blitz bombing, and there were two million Germans who died – civilians – who died during World War II,” Shapiro said.
But on the difference between Israel and Hamas, the host of “The Ben Shapiro Show” said “there’s a vast difference in moral scope between deliberately going into a civilian area and murdering everyone you can find, and trying to kill a terrorist who is deliberately hiding beneath a civilian area.”
The student said “Israel is effectively doing the same because Gaza is the most densely populated region in the world.” She went on to claim that Israel has “killed 3,500 children” in Gaza since the start of the war. The figure <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/31/1209646548/israel-military-central-gaza-fighting-hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comes</a> from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the U.S. and Israeli governments have said is an unreliable source of information.
When pressed on whether using civilians to shield military operations gives Hamas immunity from retaliation, the student responded: “Where are the children left to go?” Shapiro pointed out that using civilians as cover violated the Geneva Conventions on just war.
The student went on to claim that the inequality of deaths on the Hamas side versus the Israeli side shows Israel is waging an unjust war.
“Since 2005, 23 out of every 24 conflict deaths have been Palestinian,” the student said. “I don’t see any moral equivalency there. It’s clearly unjust what the IDF has been doing to the Palestinians because there is a vast disparity in the number of Palestinians being killed than the number of Israelis being killed.”
Shapiro responded: “If, based off the numbers, more Germans died than Brits in World War II, did that mean that the British were wrong in World War II? Because they did. Many more Germans died than Britons.”
The student then elicited a strong reaction from the crowd as she claimed that “Britain wasn’t bombing civilians.” The allies, including Britain, targeted population centers in aerial bombing runs toward the end of World War II in an effort to flood Germany with refugees.
After being rebuked by the crowd, the student fell back and asserted that Israel’s war on Hamas was “not a just war” and “Israel has been killing civilians for the past 75 years.”
Shapiro responded by citing the toll from Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel: roughly 1,500 dead, mostly civilians, and more than 200 more captured and taken back to Gaza.
“Israel does not purposely kill civilians, Palestinian terrorists do. If Israel put down its guns tomorrow, there would be a second Holocaust. If the Palestinians put down their guns tomorrow, there would be a Palestinian state. That is the reality,” Shapiro said.
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Shapiro ended the engagement with a final question to the student: “Which part of Palestine is occupied?”
“The entirety of Palestine,” she responded.
Shapiro said: “There it is once again. I appreciate you expressing your full genocidal intent for the Jewish people living between the river and the sea.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Epic exchange between <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> and an anti-Israel activist at Oxford University today. This “highly educated” student doesn’t know basic history <a href="https://t.co/vbpfDnetgu">pic.twitter.com/vbpfDnetgu</a>
&mdash; Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChayaRaichik10/status/1719164630788976932?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Anti-Israel Activist Parrots Hamas Propaganda At Oxford. Ben Shapiro Shreds Her Arguments.

England

The Daily Wire

A union for academics at the University of Oxford will hold a vote on declaring solidarity with the “Palestinian people” and calling for “intifada until victory.”
The University and College Union (UCU) scheduled a general meeting of its members for Thursday to vote on a motion related to the Israel-Hamas war, which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 people. Multiple members have pushed the union to issue a statement blaming Israel for the attack, according to the U.K. outlet <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/22/university-college-union-solidarity-motion-israel-hamas-war/">The Telegraph</a>.
A draft motion shared with UCU members calls the ongoing war “a direct consequence of decades of violent oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state,” according to The Telegraph.
“[O]nly a mass uprising on both sides of the green line and across the Middle East can free the Palestinian people,” the motion says. “[I]t is the duty of the international movement of workers and youth to support this struggle,” it continues, calling for “a Socialist Federation of the Middle East” and “intifada until victory.”
The UCU informed its members about Thursday&#8217;s vote on the motion in an email. “The Branch Committee has decided to call this meeting in response to requests from multiple members to discuss and debate solidarity motions relating to the ongoing war in Israel and Palestine,” the email said.
Oxford University condemned the Hamas assault in a statement last week issued after the university faced backlash over its initial response to the terror attack that left out any explicit denunciation of Hamas.
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“The impact of the appalling attacks by Hamas, and the deep concerns for the civilian Palestinian population and hostages in Gaza itself are understandably being felt by communities across the world, including in our own. Our thoughts are with all those suffering and we stress that there is no place for antisemitism, Islamophobia or hate for any faith at Oxford,” the University’s new <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/university-response-israel-gaza-middle-east">statement</a> says.
The Israel-Hamas war has driven massive protests in nearby London. On Saturday, police estimated that “up to 100,000” pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the city for roughly three hours demonstrating against Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
Israel has pummeled Hamas military installations in Gaza since the October 7 attack. The locations are almost always in civilian areas because Hamas uses civilian deaths as propaganda against Israeli retaliation.
An Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip is expected to begin soon to clear out an extensive network of tunnels Hamas has built throughout Gaza. The terror group uses the tunnel network to avoid Israeli air strikes and smuggle and store weaponry.

Balliol College, Oxford

Oxford Academics Call For ‘Intifada Until Victory,’ Blame Israel For Hamas Terrorism: Report

United Kingdom

A prestigious college at the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/oxford-university" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Oxford</a> announced Thursday that violating its new transgender harassment policy, including using the wrong pronouns, could lead to expulsion.
Regent’s Park College released a <a href="https://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/trans-inclusion-statement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trans Inclusion Statement</a>, which outlines in detail what the college considers “transphobic harassment” and threatens offenders with severe penalties, including expulsion.
The statement declares, “Any unlawful discriminatory behaviour, including transphobic harassment or bullying of by individuals or groups, will be regarded extremely seriously and could be grounds for disciplinary action, which may include expulsion or dismissal.”
The college’s statement goes on to define “transphobia” broadly, including acts like “denying or disputing the validity and/or existence of a trans person’s identity,” “refusal to treat a person in accordance with their affirmed identity,” and “misgendering” by using “the wrong name or pronoun.”
The college further admits that “it is not possible to have a comprehensive definition of transphobia.” The college interprets the United Kingdom’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Equality Act of 2010</a> to forbid discrimination based on gender identity, even though the law uses the medical term “gender reassignment” rather than “gender identity” in its anti-discrimination language.
The Trans Inclusion Statement came out in the wake of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/30/trans-activists-disrupt-kathleen-stock-speech-at-oxford-union" target="_blank" rel="noopener">controversial talk</a> the college hosted given by “gender-critical feminist” <a href="https://twitter.com/Docstockk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kathleen Stock</a>, a former professor at the University of Sussex. Stock’s talk was heavily protested and even interrupted by a trans activist who glued her hands to the floor of the stage.
Stock promoted her book “Material Girls,” stating that she wants “trans people protected from violence and discrimination,” but that it was “not fair on females” to share spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms with biological men. She called for “third spaces” as a compromise.
At the end of its statement, the college briefly mentions how the Equality Act protects religious belief and states that it respects the right of “those holding gender-critical beliefs” with the qualification that their speech “does not constitute harassment as not respecting the rights and freedoms of others.”
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Despite the college’s ode to free speech and religious liberty, the language banning “denying or disputing the validity and/or existence of a trans person’s identity” was similar to the charges protesters threw at Stock a few days earlier.
One sign read, “Our existence is not a debate,” and protest leader Amaid Haran Diman said, “[Stock] wants to be the polite voice of a trans-exclusionary movement, but I don’t believe in her good faith. I don’t think she wants to have a civil conversation. If you look at her behaviour online it is very hostile. I think it is hateful and intolerant.”
The new policy at the University of Oxford college comes in the midst of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/court-rules-against-free-speech-group-upholds-virginia-tech-bias-policy">legal challenges</a> to colleges’ bias and harassment policies in the United States, highlighting the conflict between such policies and free speech principles.

Woman with hand over mouth

Oxford College Can Now Expel Students For Using The Wrong Pronouns

Free Speech

Gender Pronouns

Professors at Oxford University are reportedly considering removing &#8220;colonialist&#8221; Western musical notation from the curriculum in an attempt to purge &#8220;white hegemony&#8221; from the oldest English-speaking university in the world.
&#8220;Academics are deconstructing the university&#8217;s music offering after facing pressure to &#8216;decolonise&#8217; the curriculum following the Black Lives Matter protests,&#8221; according internal documents obtained by <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/27/musical-notations-branded-colonialist-oxford-professors-hoping/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Telegraph</a>. Black Lives Matter protests spread to the United Kingdom after engulfing the United States following the death of George Floyd last May.
Professors reportedly claimed that the classical repertoire Oxford teaches, encompassing works from composers such as Mozart and Beethoven, is overly focused on &#8220;white European music from the slave period.&#8221;
The development of Western music predates the Atlantic slave trade.
“Teaching notation which has not ‘shaken off its connection to its colonial past’ would be a ‘slap in the face’ for some students, documents state, and music-writing studies have been earmarked for rebranding to be more inclusive,” the Telegraph further reported regarding the professors&#8217; discussions.
The academics reportedly further argued that learning musical skills, which has formed a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">key part</a> of a well-rounded liberal arts education since the Middle Ages, should no longer be compulsory because it &#8220;structurally centres white European music,&#8221; which causes &#8220;students of colour great distress,&#8221; the Telegraph said.
A spokesperson for Oxford maintained in a statement to the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/oxford-might-scrap-sheet-music-amid-pressure-address-white-hegemony-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Washington Examiner</a>, however, that &#8220;there is no truth in the &#8216;sheet music&#8217; claim&#8221; and that such reports emerged from the musings of just one professor:
<blockquote>While retaining (and in no way diminishing) our traditional excellence in the critical analysis, history and performance of the broad range of western art music, we are exploring ways to enhance our students&#8217; opportunities to study a wider range of non-western and popular music from across the world than is currently on offer, as well as music composition, the psychology and sociology of music, music education, conducting, and much more. We look forward to sharing our curriculum in the coming months.</blockquote>
British author Douglas Murray, who attended Oxford&#8217;s Magdalen College, recently <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-nation-tucker-carlson-today-douglas-murray-woke-culture-oppression.amp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spoke</a> to Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his new show &#8220;Tucker Carlson Today&#8221; regarding the politicization of everything.
&#8220;The whole sense of what is important in our society has changed radically and in an ugly direction,&#8221; said Murray. &#8220;It makes everything political. It wants to politicize everything. It wants to politicize art. It wants to politicize poetry. All of the things that were meaningful in our lives have been picked up and spun through this cycle of politics.&#8221;
&#8220;And it’s boring, it’s ugly, and I think it’s the job of any sensible person to say, ‘I refute this. I refuse to join in this game. I refuse to have this vision of life. I have a better vision of life and how it should be lived.’ And we should assert that,” he added.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rapper-lil-nas-x-rolls-out-line-of-bloody-satan-shoes-to-coincide-with-new-song-about-demonic-sex" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rapper Lil Nas X Rolls Out Line Of Bloody ‘Satan Shoes’ To Coincide With New Song About Demonic Sex</a>

The score of a piano piece by Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) was found in a poetry notebook belonging to the German composer’s sister

Oxford University Might Scrap ‘Colonialist’ Musical Notation From Curriculum: Report

Cancel Culture

This year, we witnessed a truly unprecedented demonstration of medical and scientific prowess as multiple pharmaceutical companies developed effective COVID-19 vaccines in an unbelievable time span of just 10 months. However, not all vaccines are created equal. While the development of these vaccines exemplifies the scientific abilities of our civilization, the reaction towards the different vaccines also exemplifies the fundamental differences between free market and socialist medical systems.
United States: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Expensive, but 95% effective.
Two COVID-19 vaccines were produced by American pharmaceutical companies. Both have been approved by American authorities, with distribution efforts currently ongoing. The first was produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, and the second was produced by Moderna.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/19/a-side-by-side-comparison-of-the-pfizer-biontech-and-moderna-vaccines/">showed</a> efficacy of 95% at preventing symptomatic Covid infection,” and the Moderna vaccine is “94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19.”
Both require two doses, and both require “an elaborate cold chain.” The Pfizer vaccine “must be shipped and stored at -94 Fahrenheit,” while Moderna’s “must be shipped at -4 Fahrenheit,” the temperature of a standard refrigerator freezer. Pfizer’s vaccine must be used within five days of thawing, while Moderna’s can be stored at fridge temperature for 30 days or at room temperature for 12 hours.
According to the <a href="https://observer.com/2020/11/covid19-vaccine-price-pfizer-moderna-astrazeneca-oxford/">Observer</a>, Pfizer’s vaccine costs an estimated $20 per dose, and Moderna’s vaccine between $10 to $50 per dose. Shipping and storage requirements add further financial restraints.
United Kingdom: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. 62% effective, but cheap!
On December 30th, the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZenenca — a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, England — was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55280671">approved</a> for use in the United Kingdom, with the first doses due to be given in early January.
Compared to the stunning 95% efficacy rate of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine “showed 62% effectiveness.” However, the Oxford vaccine is easier and therefore cheaper to store and distribute, as it can be “kept at normal fridge temperature.”
According to the Observer, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will cost under $4 per dose.
The difference between free market and socialized medicine.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, celebrated the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as “a triumph” for British science. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock declared, “This is a significant moment,” and said that the vaccine’s approval was “a huge British success story.”
The fact that what appears at the moment to be a vastly inferior vaccine is being described as a “triumph” says everything you need to know.
In the COVID-19 vaccine market, customers have three options. Two are more expensive and logistically complicated vaccines which provide a stunning efficacy rate of approximately 95%. The other option is a cheaper vaccine which will provide less of a logistical challenge, of which more than 1 in 3 will be ineffective.
Many on the Left want to emulate the British medical system — the golden calf of the National Health Service (NHS) — by “providing” American citizens with “free healthcare.” Those who support this notion should compare the systems of the United States and the United Kingdom — and how they are approaching vaccination against COVID-19 — and think again.
In the United States, under a (largely) free market system where quality is ensured through competition and private enterprise, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are being distributed. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they’re complicated. But yes, they work — very well.
In the United Kingdom, under a government controlled medical system devoid of choice, competition, or quality control, which vaccine is being distributed? Not the expensive vaccines which work 95% of the time! No, the British government have embraced the “easier” option which works 62% of the time. In other words, the cheap vaccine which doesn’t work 38% of the time. 
Health Secretary Matt Hancock even boasted about the affordability of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in Parliament.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The <a href="https://twitter.com/UniofOxford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UniofOxford</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/AstraZeneca?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AstraZeneca</a> vaccine is affordable, can be stored at normal fridge temperature &amp; offers hope for the whole world.
Like so much else in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> pandemic response, it’s been a big team effort. <a href="https://t.co/zqamVHixLs">pic.twitter.com/zqamVHixLs</a>
&mdash; Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1344324823573528576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You couldn’t find simpler or more definitive evidence of why the attitudes which underpin the American medical system far surpass those of the United Kingdom — or indeed any other socialist (or socialist-esque) systems. 
For the United States, and other free market medical systems, the primary concern is the quality of care. In this context, a vaccine with a 95% efficacy rate is a triumph, while a 62% efficacy rate is a failure.
For the United Kingdom, and other socialist medical systems, the primary concern is keeping costs down. In this context, an expensive and effective vaccine is an extravagance, while a cheap and comparatively ineffective vaccine is a &#8220;triumph.&#8221;
If you support Medicare for All but would choose either of the American vaccines over the British vaccine, then you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Ian Haworth is host of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPxdVsNp7k&amp;list=PLhi-aq-5DfuTQRVv1IOVMnA735vEYO0f5">The Ian Haworth Show</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05t2L69Sks&amp;list=PLhi-aq-5DfuRHu5r0IV5qr4h2rBAV9oBd">The Truth in 60 Seconds</a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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