THE Oxbridge admissions process discriminates against candidates from public schools in favour of state-educated applicants, according to Dr Anthony Seldon, Headmaster of the prestigious Wellington College.

Dr Seldon has described the “hostility” against students from schools such as his as “the hatred that dare not speak its name”.

The Oxford University Press Office told Cherwell, “Dr Seldon is quoted as  saying that this year he had 62 pupils clever enough to get an interview at
Oxbridge, but he expected ‘only 20’ to be offered places – that’s a success  rate of over 30 per cent. Compare that to the overall success rates for all applicants (below 20 per cent) and independent school applicants (under 25 per cent).”

Dr Seldon’s accusations came in the same week as the release of new data on university admissions, which showed that applicants from independent schools to Russell Group universities are achieving a success rate of over 75 per cent.

For Oxford, the rate of entry was three in ten for privately educated candidates, higher than the overall acceptance rate. In total the figures show that 42.5 per cent of UK university offers went to independently schooled candidates.

Such figures support comments made last Saturday in an open letter by Sir Peter Lampl, Chair of the Sutton Trust. He argued, “Despite improvements in access for state school students over the last 15 years, over four in ten Oxbridge students still come from schools attended by just seven per cent of the population”. 

One second-year PPEist commented, “When you consider that private school applicants overwhelmingly secure A and A* grades – a requisite condition for Oxbridge entry – the dominance of public school types begins to make more sense. The injustice lies not in Oxbridge selection procedure, but in the state education system’s failure to meet private sector standards.”

Common room representatives, assembled as the Council of the Student Union, have passed a motion to write to the Vice-Chancellor expressing dissatisfaction with OUSU’s funding.

Currently, OUSU and the Common Rooms jointly receive around £50 per student, which is provided by the University in the form of an annual block grant. Of this, OUSU itself is allocated £17.50. In comparison, the average student union in the Russell Group, with a similarly sized student body, receives around £80 per head.

The motion, which passed unanimously last week, states, “Underfunding of OUSU prevents it from doing the job that its members and constituent common rooms expect of it, especially with respect to the implementation of electoral promises and the communication of its current activities and services to its 22,000-strong membership.”

OUSU Council therefore resolved to “express its complete dissatisfaction with the current level of block grant, relative both to OUSU’s own institutional needs and other Russell Group student unions” and to “express its deep concern over the unsustainability of OUSU’s current activities and services under a budget suffering a real-terms cut.”

In Trinity 2012, OUSU called on the University to remedy the situation and increase funding. Early indications, however, appear to suggest that the OUSU budget will instead face a real-terms cut for 2013-4.

St Hilda’s JCR has passed a motion in support of OUSU, which aimed to  address OUSU’s lack of recognition. 

OUSU President David J. Townsend said, “There is no good reason why OUSU is underfunded compared to other major UK universities. There was genuine concern amongst Common Room Presidents that a cut to OUSU’s budget next year would diminish OUSU’s ability to achieve things in the future. It’s great to see that St Hilda’s JCR has passed a motion in support: anything that can be done to get the message to the level of the individual student is important. What we’re talking about is proper financial resources for OUSU to do what Oxford students legitimately demand of it.”

Alex Bartram, Balliol JCR President, stated, “The University has a responsibility to provide the resources to make its student union viable and at the moment it doesn’t. This is demonstrated in the lacklustre support for OUSU amongst students, despite the hard work done by its officers and frequent lobbying successes.”

Michael Young, a second-year at Brasenose, expressed opposition to the motion: “Using the Russell Group as a comparison is silly, given that because of the student Common Rooms in Oxford, OUSU does not do as much as other Student Unions. Furthermore, rather than ask for more money, OUSU should look at where it spends existing funds and perhaps consider cutting the generous salaries paid to its officers.”

A University spokesperson said, “Given constraints on resources, the size of the grant allocated to OUSU has to be considered in line with funding levels elsewhere in the University. The University continues to look for ways to address these long-standing issues with OUSU.

We welcome the strides OUSU has made since becoming an independent charity and we look forward to continuing our close and productive
working relationship with them in future.”

After five successive sold-out performances at the Keble O’Reilly theatre the team behind A Theory of Justice: The Musical are setting their sights beyond Oxford.

Ramin Sabi, one of the writers and producers of the show, which advertised itself as “an all-singing, all-dancing romp through 2,500 years of political philosophy”, claimed that “this was the fastest selling show in Oxford theatre history.” Sabi is the founder and director of DEM Productions, which produced ATOJTM.

Academic groups have raised concern about plans to make research freely available online.

The government announced plans to make all publically funded research available online free of charge from 2014, following recommendations from the Finch report, released in 2012.

The report, undertaken by Dame Janet Finch, a sociologist, reported that opening up access, “will mean that more people and organisations in the UK have access to more of the published findings of research than ever before. More research will be accessible immediately upon publication, and free at the point of use”.

Research papers will be made available to universities, companies and individuals from anywhere in the world. Previously readers had to pay to access research papers but under the new scheme, the cost would fall on universities, who will have to make a fee every time they wanted to publish work from their researchers. 

Chris Grey, OUSU Graduate Officer, told Cherwell, “There are some strong arguments in support of the principle of Open Access. It does, after all, seem a bit perverse that the taxpayer funds thousands of researchers only to have to pay high journal subscription fees to read the results. However the pace at which the Government is attempting to implement these changes, and the lack of consultation with the academic world, is troubling.

“There are a lot of unintended consequences that need to be considered very carefully, and it looks like the current plans will actually end up costing Universities a lot of money, money that could be spent on teaching and funding for students. Our priority right now though is to make sure that any extra charges incurred by graduate students and young researchers who are trying to publish will be covered by the University.”

A number of academic groups and societies, such as the Royal Historical Society, the Political Studies Association and the Council for the Defence of British Universities, have spoken out about the changes the Government are planning to implement.

Howard Hotson, a fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford who sits on the steering council for the Council for the Defence of British Universities told Cherwell, “Open access is an attractive goal in principle, but the transition to it needs to be handled with patience and care.  Scholarly communication has been based largely on the printed word for over 500 years, and on printed scholarly journals for over 300.

“Relative to print, open access scholarly publication on the internet only began to look feasible the day before yesterday, so it is unsurprising that, despite its attractions, serious difficulties with its implementation remain for many disciplines. A one-size-fits-all solution, driven forward by the artificial timetable of the Research Excellence Framework, to be imposed nationally virtually overnight after minimal consultation, will have massive undesirable unintended consequences. What is needed is patient, prudent, incremental change, not more ill-considered radicalism.”

Under the scheme, universities may have more control over selecting what research will be published.

A spokesperson for Oxford University said, “Funders in many areas are already working towards open access policies and models, and we will continue to work with them to find the best way forward. We look forward to a wider discussion across the collegiate University about the potential impact different open access models may have in the many and varied research fields supported at Oxford and are keen to ensure that any changes are sustainable and are not at the expense of ensuring that our research outputs are of the highest quality.

“We are committed to ensuring that the fruits of our research are widely accessible, and the University is already very active in disseminating research for the benefit of the international research community and society.”

Some Oxford Students were also concerned about the effect on reviewing research. Rebecca Fynn, a student at Balliol College, told Cherwell, “I think it’s a great idea to try and make academic history more accessible but I would be worried about bias in the system. I think there should still be independent assessment or else it could be really unfair towards minority interests or controversial opinions.”

Queen’s College JCR voted unanimously in favour of a motion supporting marriage equality in light of the second reading of the same-sex marriage bill that was passed with a majority of 225 in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

The motion, proposed by Jane Cahill, Queen’s College JCR President, and
seconded by Ashley Francis-Roy, the college’s LGBTQ rep, mandated Francis-Roy to write to Andrew Smith, Labour MP for Oxford East.

The JCR urged him to vote in favour of the marriage (same-sex couples) bill, which was subject to a free vote by MPs. There were no speeches in  opposition to the motion at the JCR meeting on Sunday and it was thus
passed unanimously.

The motion claimed, “Andrew Smith MP has been ambivalent recently about how he will vote on marriage equality, as he is concerned about religious freedom.” Smith’s constituency encompasses 29 Oxford colleges, including Balliol, Merton and St Catherine’s, which also petitioned Smith to support the
proposals on equal marriage. A letter from Merton gathered 90 signatures and a petition from 150 St Catz students was also sent.

However, in a statement, Smith commented, “My view is that in all but name Britain already has gay marriage through the institution of civil partnerships, which I thought was a very important and civilised step forward, and which confers very largely the same rights and responsibilities. I don’t see any  strong case for denying the opportunity to call this a marriage.”

The same-sex marriage bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday and saw MPs including Mr Smith vote in favour of the same-sex marriage bill by 400 votes to 175. The bill was subject to a free vote, although over half of Conservative MPs voted against the government.

Jane Cahill told Cherwell, “I’m very proud that we voted to defend the rights of our LGBTQ community. It’s important we express a view because these members are an important part of our community, and we want Mr Smith to know that his constituents, far from being against the bill, or even ambivalent about it, are strongly supportive of a ‘yes’ vote from our MP.”

OUSU Vice-President for Welfare and Equal Opportunities Katie Colliver commented, “Questions of equality affect everyone, whether or not you are a student. I think it is absolutely right that Queen’s JCR has taken a stand on equal marriage and I hope that other JCRs will follow their lead.”

Elizabeth Sherlock, a second-year classicist at Queen’s, told Cherwell, “Queen’s JCR’s decision to support and stand by its LGBT members made me incredibly proud to be a member of Queen’s! Any statement a college can make in favour of equality is valuable.” However, OUSU’s LGBTQ campaign had concerns about the bill, commenting, “We feel that equal marriage is a significant and necessary step forward, bringing us closer to equality and providing more religious freedom for LGBT and pro-LGBT people of faith.

“We feel that although aspects of the bill are inadequate, for example it forces transgender people to annul civil partnerships in order to transition, the bill must be passed to facilitate further progress.”

Smith resolved to continue considering the implications of the bill, stating, “I shall look to see how [the bill’s] inequalities and inconsistencies can best be
addressed. I will reflect further on all the issues raised in the light of the views constituents are putting to me, and the wider public debate.”

A group of intrepid third-years at Hertford College this term completed what they dubbed the ‘Chicken Challenge’, to establish whether they would be able to eat a chicken a day for a whole week.

The boys were confident in their ability to complete the challenge, with Japanologist Lawson Lancaster stating, “I occasionally eat the ready cooked whole chicken from Tesco after going to the gym some days so I didn’t think it would be that difficult.”

However, third-year medic Patrick Burke noted that only three of the original four participants made it to the end of the challenge, saying, “It was a shame that Jamie Beacom [an original member of the team] lost his head and chickened out. But the rest of us were – unlike our gastronomic exploits –game, and we got to the other side of the metaphorical road.”

Burke fully embraced the spirit of the challenge, telling Cherwell, “When people heard of our ideas to begin with, there was a resounding cry of ‘what the cluck?’. Maybe it wasn’t the breast idea. But with no poultry effort, and with the help of our friends egging us on, the idea really took (barbecue) wings.”

In order to complete the challenge, the boys consumed roast chicken in a variety of ways, incorporating curries, houmous, sandwiches, oranges and barbecue sauce.

Mathematician Dave Cheek noted, “Patrick was one of the more flamboyant challengers, putting a variety of fruit up each chickens’ arse.”

Despite the excess of chicken, Lancaster proclaimed his continued love of the meat. “I love chicken, we have a special romance. The chicken challenge was like going away with your partner on a holiday where you spend every waking moment with them, and you have a few arguments but once you get home you want to see them again the next day.”

Indeed, he ate chicken for dinner the day after the challenge was complete.

However, Burke also sounded a note of caution. Though he dubbed the challenge “memorable” and “entertaining,” he pointed out the negative effects of subsisting on whole chickens for a week: “I think the challenge was a bit of a silly thing to do really. It was quite expensive, time consuming and definitely bad for our health.

“A constant smell of chicken surrounded me and I was quite ill and drained for most of the week. Cooking, preparing and eating chicken takes all day long. You don’t get very much done on a chicken day.”

The challenge also offered the opportunity for philosophical reflection. In his video diary, Burke opines, “I can’t help but think about life. Isn’t life just like the chicken challenge? Some people might say, ‘Isn’t what you’re doing pointless? Why are you doing that?’ And to them I say, that may be true. But I’m going to do it anyway.”