Black British students ‘psychologically damaged by white curriculum’, says NUS president
BLACK students can find university "psychologically destructive" because of a "white curriculum", according to a controversial student leader.
NUS President Malia Bouattia
Outspoken National Union of Students (NUS) president Malia Bouattia said undergraduates with a non-white or non-European heritage found it difficult to relate to their subjects.
In an interview with The Guardian, Ms Bouattia - who last year ran a campaign titled 'Why is my curriculum white?' - complained universities were entrenching racial divides.
She said: "Even if people have accessed higher education, they've accumulated vast amounts of debt."
NUS President Malia Bouattia is no stranger to controversy
have they had a positive experience, being forced to engage with content that doesn't relate to them, and perhaps is psychologically destructive?
She continued: "And have they had a positive experience, being forced to engage with content that doesn't relate to them, and perhaps is psychologically destructive?
"When we look at the incredibly Eurocentric curriculum, where people don't see themselves in what they're studying, and can't relate to it, and feel that their European counterparts hit the ground running, they can't see themselves advancing in the subjects."
Social Market think tank director Emran Mian said: "About 14 per cent of academic staff in UK universities identify as being from a black or minority ethnic background and almost 17 per cent of students.
"While senior academic ranks may still be insufficiently diverse, the representation of minority perspectives in UK higher education should be improving."
Students celebrating their graduations
Ms Bouattia was born in Algeria but grew up in Birmingham and became the first female black Muslim to be elected president of the NUS.
The white curriculum row is the latest in a line of controversies for the 28-year-old.
She previously caused controversy for blocking an NUS motion condemning ISIS on the grounds it was "Islamophobic" and received an official warning while she was NUS black students' officer for describing her own university, Birmingham, as a "Zionist outpost".
Malia Bouattia addresses NUS membes
She was in charge of the NUS black students conference when it passed a resolution calling for prisons to be abolished because they were "sexist and racist" and she also urged an end to the government's counter-extremism Prevent strategy.
Newcastle, Hull and Lincoln universities all voted to cut ties with the NUS after Ms Bouattia's outbursts.