Oxford college to appoint ‘class liberation officer’ to protect working-class students from insults

A college at Oxford University is to appoint someone whose job will be to protect working-class students from insults.

Students at St Hilda’s College have backed a motion to appoint a “class liberation officer”.

They say some students have been the victims of classism at Oxford.

The liberation officer will keep an ear out for students being subjected to name-calling.

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One student told The Sunday Times: “Insults such as ‘chav’, chav-themed social nights and questions such as ‘why are you wearing Primark?’ can make poor students feel upset and worthless.”

The class liberation officer is expected to run workshops during Freshers’ week next year.

St Hilda’s was founded in 1893 as an all-female college but opened its doors to men in 2007.

The whole motion read: “The position of Class Liberation Officer should be created to represent the interests of students from working-class backgrounds and act in a similar way to the POC (People of Colour) and RE Officer, LGBTQ+ Officer, Women’s Officer and Disabilities Officer to represent students who self-identify as being part of this group.”

A University of Oxford spokesman said: “Oxford cares deeply about the diversity of its student intake and is making encouraging progress in taking more students from under-represented backgrounds.

“We are on track to meet our targets for students from low income and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds as identified in our Access Agreement with the Office for Fair Access.

“More than 34 per cent of accepted UK candidates are from these target categories as compared with 31 per cent in 2010.”