Despite having regularly been criticised for its record on free speech and academic freedom, King’s College London seems incapable of staying out of trouble. In the latest controversy, KCL is alleged to have engaged in a significant overhaul of its assessment framework, which includes requirements to “decolonise the curriculum”, “validate diverse knowledge systems”, and “embrace linguistic diversity”.
According a senior member of the Russell Group institution, KCL is “enforcing a major overhaul of assessment frameworks across all programmes”. Key parts of the revamp were detailed in a recent presentation given to certain members of the University. While much of the content was inoffensive (at least as far as free speech is concerned), one section included several changes that represented “the imposition of ideological constraints”.
The particular segment of the presentation was (unsurprisingly) called “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion” and advocated four areas of improvement for a new assessment framework. Two of these subsections were mainly focused on strengthening feedback mechanisms and allowing students a “choice in assessment formats”. However, the two subsequent parts were more concerning. Respectively titled “Culturally Responsive Assessment” and “Inclusive Marking Practices”, these sections advanced ideas that could fundamentally transform how students are taught and assessed in KCL.
The former would require module assessments to “Decolonise the curriculum”, “Validate diverse knowledge systems and lived experiences”, and “Reward the use of culture, language and identity”. While these concepts are not clearly defined inthe presentation material, it is not hard to see their potential to limit freedom of expression.
“Decolonisation of the curriculum” has often been used as an excuse to exclude certain viewpoints and authors in favour of others. This practice is explicitly barred by the Office for Student’s Regulatory Advice 24, which states that decisions about the curriculum must “Safeguard the autonomy of individual academics to teach and communicate lawful ideas that may be controversial or unpopular or that some (or many) find offensive”.
Furthermore, a requirement to “validate diverse knowledge systems and lived experiences” risks prohibiting assessors from penalising students for unwarranted generalisations, poor argumentation and invalid conclusions, as long as these masquerade as ‘other ways of knowing’ or are grounded in personal anecdotes baselessly assumed to be representative of a marginalised group.
Indeed, the third prompt to reward the use of “culture, language and identity” would presumably encourage students to rely on arguments based, at least in part, on their “lived experience”. Even if one thinks that such arguments can be valid or even better than objective, dispassionate ones, it should be up to each module convenor to decide whether they have a place in the assessments of any particular programme.
As for the “Inclusive Marking Practices” section, it advises that assessments “Focus on ideas, not grammar” and “Embrace linguistic diversity”. This seems to suggest that academics should stop worrying about the quality of the writing in an assessment and only put weight on the ideas expressed. However, the two are not so easily separable.
Being able to clearly articulate one’s thoughts in writing is a key part of developing and communicating ideas. Conversely, unclear writing tends to be a sign of unclear thinking. KCL will be doing its students a great disservice if it ceases to teach and incentivise good writing. Besides, telling university-level examiners to ignore errors in grammar comes close to a declaration of linguistic bankruptcy.
Of course, things would be quite different if the story concerned an individual lecturer, who decided to include these ideas in his or her assessment framework. We might still question the validity of the ideas, but there would be no issue of restricting academic freedom. The truly troubling point of the KCL initiative is that it was introduced to academics as something they must all aspire to incorporate in their respective programmes. As the KCL member told CAF, this part of the presentation felt like an “imposition of ideological constraints which ought to have no place in university assessments”.