By Sidonie Sundar, First Year, Law
There is a particular kind of silence that falls over a lecture theatre the moment a topic gets too close to the news. It's easy to understand why. It can appear that politics acts as the breeding ground of social and economic instability. The instinct is to leave one space untouched by the chaos - somewhere neutral and fact based. Education, in this fantasy, is the antidote to politics’ raging warpath.
The problem is that this fantasy never really existed. There is an inherent need to maintain political discussions in daily life, particularly through educators. Scrubbing opinion from education does not create neutrality but makes politics harder to digest. By dismissing political voices from university education, we stop teaching students to think about real-world political complexities. Therefore, the apolitical classroom: great in theory, never found in practice.
Education becomes strikingly significant in this sphere. University is not a vacuum from outside perspectives, it is a space where ideas about society, power and belonging are actively shaped alongside mere academia. Thus, to expect this platform to be politically neutral is to misunderstand what education fundamentally does.
'Bias stems from what type of education is promoted, what students are taught and how they are exposed to it.'
The expectation for lecturers to remain politically oblivious is, unfortunately for those firm believers in ‘professional professionalism’, ultimately undoable. The preconception that professionalism is to be placid, obedient and non-confrontational. Higher education constantly raises questions and probes new insights - something students appreciate. This however raises the next question of what is professional for an educator. Other than what it says on the tin - to educate, lecturers should impart knowledge onto students with the intention of sharing a new perspective.
However, the concern is the knowledge and vulnerability gap this creates, subjecting students to potential susceptibility and acknowledgment of political biases. Is this not the byproduct of a democratic society? Politically mobile students - able to make political decisions and voluntarily shift allegiances - are privy to varying opinions and critically form individual resolutions about them. Education allows this, placing additional context to real life reflections of political agendas. Various scholars have argued that without notable levels of political knowledge, democracy is unsustainable. Through lecturers, students consider their role in a functioning democratic society by integrating the political dimensions of their subjects with academia.
Bias stems from what type of education is promoted, what students are taught and how they are exposed to it. Therefore, to sit in a lecture presuming an individual’s degree is blissfully politically partisan becomes naive as well as blind to the political narrative that comes through every time knowledge is imparted. Both western and eastern, polarising cultures built on differing core values, university education imparts political culture in university curricula. Chinese academia involves ideological and political education to promote societal integration. Likewise, Western nations combine political or social science programmes to engage students in democracy. This illustrates the collective need to engage in political education, no matter the stance behind the action.
If relevancy is a concern, students should know that politics must have space in the mundane - the daily routine and school’s repetition. Ultimately, education takes up the socio-political stage by which university institutions are created to transmit culture, skills and knowledge of a community. Partisan views are communicated through this. That transmission is never politically neutral.
The intrinsic political education that prefaces all education and learning systems cannot and should not be eradicated. These intricacies prove that education will always be political. To navigate a balance, generalisations about political beliefs and when expressing opinions can be avoided by lecturers. Such generalisations create a taboo on the expression of political beliefs - blanket statements, hateful comments disguised as educational opinion and unchallenged partisan framing create a misguided view on the intersection of politics and education. Apolitical lecturers are not the goal. A lecturer without political awareness is not neutral but incomplete - making them unable to place knowledge within the social and historical forces that shaped it. The ambition is something more nuanced, where lecturers can be politically conscious without being politically coercive.
'It is a lecturer’s duty to teach politically as this is the only way to fully reflect the cultural makeup of our society'
Consider for a moment a fairly ordinary seminar. A fellow law student described to me an instance where a seminar tutor spent some time airing political opinions unprompted. The room, understandably, felt they could not say otherwise - silenced by the power hierarchy created. This is not political education but political monologue. This is precisely what happens when lectures are given excessive political licence instead of awareness.
Responsibility chosen over silence. Because silence is not neutral. Silence is ignorance. Most university students pursue higher education to gain deeper and more nuanced understandings about their subjects. To truly achieve this, it is a lecturer’s duty to teach politically as this is the only way to fully reflect the cultural makeup of our society. Students in STEM and humanities may feel detached from political perspectives but ultimately when they go on to practice in their areas, the innate humanity of working life and working for other people will reflect the political decisions we made. Since Brexit, Sir John Curtice has expressed concern that politics has become ‘culture wars’. For university students, this means that politics goes beyond their vocational bubble. Family, friendship and working life is impacted by political opinion. And we want to stop the conversation? Damming idea.
Sian Williams
A lecturer who models critical, considered political thinking does not threaten academic integrity but embodies it. The conversation does not have to end here, students may benefit from formalised spaces like seminar debates where they can challenge a lecturer’s political position without the fear of academic sanctions. Politics, in this sense, does not have to exist as a one-directional influence and promotes genuine engagement.
Ultimately, should universities respond to a polarised community by sanitising politics from their teaching, they risk compounding the issue. Political apathy grows not from too much exposure to ideas, but from feeling politics is irrelevant or inaccessible. Refusing to challenge critical thinking or defending a position is not neutrality - it is a civic failure. The question was never whether lectures should be apolitical but whether we are honest enough to admit they cannot be, and bold enough to build our learning around that truth.
Featured image: Epigram / Tim Harris
What is your experience with lecturers and impariality?
