Rally against racism on Leeds University campus

What Ellis says does not mean he cannot 'seek actively to promote equality of opportunity for others and strive to create an environment in which academic goals may be pursued without fear or intimidation'. He says that blacks are less intelligent than whites overall. This would not stop him from giving proper opportunities to his black and white students based on their individual intelligences.

If there is any evidence that Ellis favours his white students over his black ones, for example by giving them more of his time, he should be disciplined, but I understand the University have no complaints regarding the work the taxpayers pay him to do.

Mr Ellis is not the cause of any 'fear and intimidation', he is the victim of them. The 'liberal' types who demand he is sacked are showing their usual contempt for the free speech of anyone who says something they disagree with. The authoritarian liberal message is loud and clear as usual - don't express your opinions if you think we won't like them or else we will bully you.

If students and lecturers want to study and work in a university that only recruits staff with views that are acceptabe to them there is nothing to stop them forming their own private university. A taxpayer funded university like Leeds should recruit the best person for any job regardless of their political or other views. Ellis is paid to teach Russian. He can do that properly so there are no grounds for any action. He should be left alone to pursue his academic goals 'without fear or intimidation' from the usual bunch of self-righteous people who so often want to tell the rest of us how to think and what we are allowed to say.

CF - you're just a moron.

Simon. Tell me, would you want Ellis to teach you if (assuming you're not) you were black? I know I wouldn't.

This free speech crap is just a red herring. It does NOT give anyone the right to be racist, sexist or anything elsist. Seems to me the only people who constantly drone on about their belief in free speech are right-wing loons who just want to use it to attack others with whom they disagree. The perfect example is the BNP. They rave about how they all love free speech and how they believe everyone has the right to say what they like about anything, no matter how offensive that may be, then they demand that nonsense like 'Jerry Springer - the Opera' should be banned. Sorry - it won't wash.

To hell with free speech and to hell with Ellis. The man's a fascist and he should be booted out of his job immediately.

It’s an interesting one. Yes, academics should be allowed to explore ideas and they should be encouraged to come out from their ivory bunkers to take part in the real world on a frequent basis. However, lectures at universities aren’t just academics, they are also teachers. And a teacher who thinks the group a student ‘belongs’ to is less intelligence will subconsciously treat that person as such (unless they peruse a complicated dance of compensation). Equally a student of such a group would be less likely to utilise the resources of that teacher, if their views are well known. So I don’t think there has to be a clear biased (in marking) for Leeds uni to rethink this person’s employment.

I suspect he doesn’t have any ‘black’ students. I suspect that Leeds university, like most UK university has an appallingly small group of ‘black’ students from the UK. I also suspect that Leeds uni has few non-Caucasian lectures. But hay ho, if we buy into it Asian (as if Asian was one ethnic group) are more intelligent as a group than ‘Black’ or ‘Caucasian’.

Going out on a limb here it might be that this should be taken in the wider context of ‘Slavic’ studies in academia

thanks for organising the demo - a reassuring amount of people on it too!
let's hope he goes.

Zorro, I studied maths at Leeds University. I have no idea if my lecturers were members of the BNP or the Communist Party. Their political views meant nothing to me, and wouldn't have done even if I had known what they were. The taxpayers expected them to teach me maths, and they did just that. The taxpayers expect Ellis to teach Russian. If he does that satisfactorily to all of his students, then the taxpayers are getting what they expect from him and the Leeds University authorities have no need to take any action.

Yea sack him,opinions inform actions.

p.s-also sack the individuals in Leeds university who disease,abuse,assault,cut open and kill individual dogs,primates,mice,guinea pigs in their tax payer subsidized fake medical experiments.

Tim, you want Ellis sacked presumably because you fear his opinions will cause other people to act in a racist way. Are you talking from experience? Have Ellis's comments caused you to behave in a racist way? If so I suggest you report to the local police station and tell them of your racist actions. If not, who are you to say what Ellis's comments will do? Or are you one of those clever people who thinks the rest of us should be protected from opinions like those of Ellis, while you don't? What an elitist and authoritarian attitude. You regard yourself as clever enought to spot some danger in what Ellis says, but you think the rest of us are stupid and gullible and in need of protection.

Simon, the taxpayer expects the university to 'seek actively to promote equality of opportunity for others and strive to create an environment in which academic goals may be pursued without fear or intimidation' (as you quote) and staff are paid to do that.

Elis has not. He has failed to dissociate his views from the university and is therefore not doing his job. So your "free speech" business (which is a bunch of arse that as has been quite rightly pointed out is usually a cover for suspicious views anyway) is really just by the by.

The Universities statement is here and for once they seem to be talking some sense:  http://campus.leeds.ac.uk/newsincludes/newsitem3675.htm. The twat speaks out at fucking white supremicist conferences for fuck sake, it's not just him holding his views.

And apparently he's a shit lecturer anyway.

It's a shame that the interesting thoughts on race-based IQ differences Ellis has raised are so badly compromised by his questionnable lifestyle. It's an interesting and important discussion to have, albeit extraordinarily sensitive. I have read that his conclusion to the 'fact' that blacks have lower average IQ's (as measured in one type of IQ test at least) is that we should treat everyone as individuals. That's one conclusion - one could not credibly call Condoleeza Rice below average (politics aside for one moment!) - and it fits neatly with the post-Thatcher, post-modern cult of the individual. Another conclusion might be that we look at the persistent economic failure of sub-Saharan Africa, race-based educational failure in the UK, etc, in a new light. It might actually mean that we have more reasons to help these nations/people, reasons that don't simply abide in beating up on our ancestors and inherited/inevitable economic systems. The danger of not accepting such a truth is that we waste limited resources in the wrong areas - poverty is not history and Africa might never be 'solved' if we don't stop slinging mud long enough to engage our brains.

Back-tracking for one moment, the IQ tests might be culturally skewed, or be measuring the wrong sort of IQ, but that average differences exist would not surprise me. How many blacks win swimming races? How many whites win sprints? Disease rates vary. We are clearly physiologically different far beyond skin colour and as the brain is a physical organ it could quite conceivably mean differences in average IQ.

Some of Ellis's more extreme comments and associations seem to mark him out as a prize idiot, but can anyone engage intellectually with the subject raised by him? I would love to read some believable rejections of his IQ claim, or positive solutions to it if true, or dangers of ignoring possible solutions if the liberal nazis (I remember great bleating flocks of them amongst naieve, cloistered undergraduate activists!) succeed in stifling intelligent enquiry. Whilst passion has its place, I would urge people to march and wave placards a little less and exercise your brains in confronting your intellectual taboos a little more if you truly do care about your fellow man.