Did Dulwich College tolerate pupils' bigotry and racism...?

[exdulwicher]

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/we-must-separate-art-from-artist-in-singing-of-nazi-gas-chamber-songs-says-farage-20251125262249

Surprisingly, one of the more reliable sources of news. Better than the Farage Channel GB News anyway! 😉

[Penguin68]

I'm sorry, isn't that exactly what I've been saying, that he is remembered as saying racist things as a teenager? I meant, very obviously, that it wasn't a topic for argument. 

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

A couple of interesting - albeit anecdotal - letters to the Grauniad today about what I think is more useful question about private schools' conduct and response as institutions, and whether they have changed in the interim.

Excerpt:

the private schools which were built to train young Englishmen for empire-building were deeply racist even in the 1980s. Mine had a quota for the maximum number of Jewish pupils... I say this not to defend Farage, but to point out that he – and many others from a similar background – were schooled in an environment that condoned or even encouraged blatant racism, while also equipping the pupils with the swagger, charm and polish to make others feel inferior and admiring of them. To see him in isolation is to miss the nature of the sorts of institutions that educated him, and the damage they do. I’m sure the schools will say they have changed, and I hope they have, but while they continue to educate their pupils to believe they are better than others, there will be plenty more where Farage came from.

The Dulwich College "rape culture" allegations certainly seem to be consistent with an institutional culture of making its pupils feel better than others - albeit girls and women in those cases rather than Jews and Muslims.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/26/racism-claims-against-nigel-farage-are-no-surprise-to-us

Edited November 27 by Dogkennelhillbilly
Forgot the link

[Sue]

I went to a girls' public day  school in the fifties and sixties.

The first school rule was "courtesy and consideration to others are expected at all times". 

There was quite a high number of Jewish girls, both in the junior and senior school.

I don't recall a single incident of anti-Semitism.

Is this something confined to boys' schools, or was my school unusual?

[Penguin68]

It may be true of 19th Century foundations - which I think is what Dulwich College was, but it certainly doesn't reflect all public schools, and certainly not in the mid to late 20th century. Certainly all schools go through problem times (and not just public schools) - but the generalities being quoted here are misplaced. Dulwich College does appear to have had its own, very specific, problems.

[Sephiroth]

The good thing about the racism remarks from so so long ago is that as leader of the reform party, Nigel can take action against his racist councillors and prove to everyone he isn’t racist in 2025  

because no one would want to vote for a racist PM at next election 

 

right?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/03/reform-council-leader-ian-cooper-accused-racism-alleged-remarks-sadiq-khan?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[Penguin68]

2 hours ago, Sephiroth said:

because no one would want to vote for a racist PM at next election

If only that were true 

[HeadNun]

It’s going to happen 

[Burbage]

On 27/11/2025 at 10:20, Sue said:

I went to a girls' public day  school in the fifties and sixties.

The first school rule was "courtesy and consideration to others are expected at all times". 

There was quite a high number of Jewish girls, both in the junior and senior school.

I don't recall a single incident of anti-Semitism.

Is this something confined to boys' schools, or was my school unusual?

 A

A day-school for girls and a boarding school for boys (even with, by the late '90s, a tiny cadre of girls) are very different places. 

Though there are some similarities. I think all schools, for instance, have similar "rules", much as they all nail up notices about "potential" and "achievement" and keeping to the left on the stairs. The private schools go a little further, banging on about "serving the public", as they have since they were set up (either to supply the colonies with District Commissioners, Brigadiers and Missionaries, or the provinces with railway engineers), so they've got the language and rituals down nicely. Which, i suppose, is what visitors and day-pupils expect, and are expected, to see.

A boarding school, outside the cloistered hours of lesson-times, once the day-pupils and teaching staff have been sent packing, the gates and chapel safely locked and the brochures put away, becomes a much less ambassadorial place. That's largely because they're filled with several hundred bored, tired, self-supervised adolescents condemned to spend the night together in the flickering, dripping bowels of its ancient buildings, most of which were designed only to impress from the outside, the comfort of their occupants being secondary to the glory of whatever piratical benefactor had, in a last-ditch attempt to sway the judgement of their god, chucked a little of their ill-gotten at the alleged improvement of the better class of urchin.

Those adolescents may, to the curious eyes of the outer world, seem privileged but, in that moment, they cannot access any outer world (at least pre-1996 or thereabouts). Their whole existence, for months at a time, takes place in uniformity behind those gates where money, should they have any to hand, cannot purchase better food or warmer clothing. In that peculiar world, there is no difference between the seventh son of a murderous sheikh, the darling child of a ball-bearing magnate, the umpteenth Viscount Smethwick, or the offspring of some hapless Foreign Office drone who's got themselves posted to Minsk. They are egalitarian, in that sense, but that's as far as it goes.

In any place where rank and priviilege mean nothing, other measures will evolve, which is why even the best-intentioned of committees will, from time to time, spawn its cliques and launch heated disputes over archaic matters that, in any other context, would have long been forgotten. The same is true of the boarding school which, over the dismal centuries, has developed a certain culture all its own, with a language indended to pass all understanding and attitiudes and practices to match. This is unsurprising as every new intake will, being young and disoriented, eagerly mimic their seniors, and so also learn those words and attitudes and practices which, miserably or otherwise, will more accurately reflect the weight of history than the Guardian's style-guide and, to contemporary eyes and ears, seem outlandish, beastly and deplorably wicked.

Which, of course, it all is. But however much we might regret it, and urge headteachers to get up on Sundays and preach about how we should all be tolerant, not kill anyone unnecessarily, and take pity on the oiks, it won't make the blindest bit of difference. William Golding may, according to psychologists, have overstated his case but I doubt that many 20th Century boarders would agree with them. Instead, they might look to Shakespeare, who cheerfully exploits differences of sex and race and belief and ability to arm his bullies, murderers, fraudsters and tyrants and remains celebrated to this day, 

Admittedly, this is mostly opinion, borne only of my own regrettable experience and, because I had that experience and heard those words (though, being naive and small-townish, i didn't understand them till much later) and saw and suffered a heap of brutishness*, that might make my opinion both unfair and biased.  If so, then I can only say it's the least that those institutions deserve. Sure, the schools themselves don't willingly foster that culture, which is wholly contrary to everything in the brochures, but there's not much they can do about it without posting staff permanently in corridors and dormitories and washrooms, which would, I'd suggest, create a whole other set of problems, not least financial. So, like any other business, they take care of the money and keep aloof from the rest. That, to my mind, is the problem. They've turned something into a business that really shouldn't be a business. Education is one thing, raising a child is another, and limited-liability corporations, however charitable, tend not to make the best parents.

And so, in retrospect, I'm inclined not to blame the students either (though, for years after, I eagerly read the my Old School magazine, my heart doing a little dance at every black-edged announcement of a yachting tragedy, avalanche or coup). They get chucked into this swamp where they have to learn to fend for themselves and so many, naturally, will behave like predators in an attempt to fit in. Not all, certainly. Some will keep their heads down and hope not to be noticed while others, if they have a particular talent, might find that it protects them. But that leaves more than enough to keep the toxic culture alive, and it is no surprise at all that when they emerge they appear damaged to the outside world. For that's exactly what they are. They might, and sometimes do, improve once returned to the normal stream of life if given time and support, and that's good. But the damage lasts, all the same, and isn't a reason to vote for them.

* Not, if it helps to disappoint any lawyers, at Dulwich, though there's nothing in the allegations that I didn't instantly recognise,