Is Edinburgh University Scotland’s latest disgrace?
Imagine if Durham University were to decide that for courses heavily over-subscribed with qualified applicants it would reserve a small percentage of places for would-be students hailing from within 50 miles* of the university. Would anyone raise an eyebrow? I doubt it. Yet when Edinburgh University adopts precisely this approach – for some of the humanities and, I suspect, medicine – suddenly there are hysterical cries of “racism” and “xenophobia”. Tom Harris MP** [see update] says this is “shameful” and goes so far as to label the university “an embarrassment to Scotland”. What piffle. It’s not the university that is obsessing about politics or the border here, it’s the likes
