Let me get something off my chest...Scholarship on religion has changed a lot since I started out 20 years ago. One of the most significant changes has been an intensification of the alignment between critical engagement and moral responsibility among academics. Thread...

There were elements of this years ago, especially among those inspired by the Marxist sociology of the 1970s (see Paul Willis and others) and by feminist critique of mainstream scholarship. But the relationship has become more integral, more visible and more commonplace of late.

This was brought to light at a conference a few years ago by my friend & colleague @gordon_lynch who called for the sociology of religion to embrace its responsibility to not just understand religious identities better, but to engage with emergent moral debate as well

In fact, it was @gordon_lynch who brought together a bunch of us - incl @JoiStie20 @LisaROakley @KatieBEdwards @LindaWoodhead @GladysGaniel - earlier this year working on the relationship between religion, abuse, prejudice & violence in different contexts.

Most of this work is focused on understanding better how religious traditions & movements are complicit in the perpetuation & validation of abuse or violence, although it also acknowledges the capacity of religions to challenge such wrongdoing.

I don't see this as a secular turn, seeking to expose the corruption of religious groups as such, but an effort to take seriously how religious factors contribute to the institutional framing of abuse, prejudice & violence that takes place in all kinds of organisations.

My own recent work - with @AScottBaumann @ShuruqNaguib @FirebirdN4 & @Sariya_CC - has tried to explore such issues in the lives of Muslims working & studying within the UK HE sector. How are universities complicit in perpetuating prejudice & stereotyping of religious minorities?

This work has revealed a range of dimensions to university life that have, for me, reinforced a need to subject to moral critique the places where many of us work. A moral reflexivity demands we examine our own practices as well as those of others.

Engaging with work in the sociology of higher education, ethnicity & social class has helped me develop a more critical understanding of universities as institutions, & the work of @bevskeggs @alisonphipps @AcademicDiary has been essential in exposing embedded tendencies that...

...contribute to the perpetuation of racism, classism and other forms of cultural prejudice. The image of centres of enlightened wisdom is a noble one, but it's an aspiration at best, & universities are as susceptible as any other institutions to these problems.

Many staff & students acknowledge this. However, I have increasingly become aware of how universities are - in various ways - often especially ill-equipped to respond adequately to the problems of cultural prejudice and bullying that sometimes infect them as institutions.

Part of this has to do with the neoliberalisation of universities, & how associated financial pressures make universities risk-averse. Challenging bad practice or wrong doing is now considered in light of image management, fear of litigation & the potential risk to income streams

I don't blame university management for this: they are simply accommodating to wider structural changes in the sector introduced by the state and heightened by wider economic forces. Markets don't suit universities, but we can't pretend they aren't instrumental to longevity.

But these changes make the fostering of a values-based culture within universities all the more important. Marketisation valorises a transactional mode of governance, in which things that cannot be quantified & costed become difficult to uphold as institutional priorities.

No university can escape this entirely, and so the promotion of non-market values becomes the responsibility of those staff & students who make up a university's members, i.e. its community. As in the broader economy, if we leave things to the market, we become governed by...

...short-termism, a bland utilitarianism that reduces utility to commercially exploitable knowledge, and a cynical pursuit of self-betterment that includes no element of collective responsibility or sense of the common good.

Those in the UK may be smarting (or celebrating) after a general election. Much is to be learnt from the failure of @UKLabour to win over the public with its ambitious, socialist vision for Britain. Universities were viewed as centres of leftist support, but this was not enough.

Rather than view this as an indicator of how the rest of the UK should catch up with the wisdom of academia, I think this is a bit of a wake up call for us all, for it showed how disengaged both @UKLabour and much of the HE sector are from the general population.

As I argued in a blog following the #brexit vote, 'Brexit sheds light on the cultural boundaries that insulate university life from the communities all around us'. https://www.academia.edu/33464013/What_can_UK_universities_learn_from_Brexit

I'll go further and say that #Brexit brought out the worst in academia, mainly on social media but also, it's fair to assume, within face to face conversations on campus.

Instead of remaining in our echo chambers reassuring one another that we were correct all along, while we bunker down & entertain utopian middle class dreams that feed our egos, we should be making even more effort to listen & understand those beyond the campus.

Marketisation is generally a bad thing for universities, but I've always thought asking academics to account for how their work serves the needs of wider society to be a fair expectation. We're not owed a living because we have letters after our names.

So this is how I get back to ethical responsibility. Universities as communities are happier, more collegial and more humane places when they are structured around shared moral values. Even more so when they values include a responsibility to serve those outside of their number.

I've seen brilliant examples of this through recent research across the UK (especially on university chaplaincy with @drkristinaune & Jeremy Law): https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/chaplains_on_campus_full_report_final_pdf_.pdf

Universities retain - in spite of marketisation - a residual shared sense of a need to be driven by commitments and values irreducible to personal economic advancement. This is manifest in pastoral support for vulnerable groups, civic engagement in the pursuit of social justice,

...an upholding of radical inclusivity, and a persistent tradition of critical thinking that seeks to hold those who have power to account. When universities do best they foster all of these in addition to, and as an outworking of, education.

But these traditions are under threat, not just because of neoliberalisation, but also because the ethical discourse in universities is not robust. So, after all that, some suggestions for what we need to do in order to sustain the true potential of HE as a formational project:

1. Equality, diversity and inclusion issues are in danger of being swallowed by an urge to demonstrate compliance via bureaucratic measures. (thanks to @SaraNAhmed to insights into the dynamics and costs of this). Committees are not enough; we need cultural change.

I'm not saying this is easy; institutional culture change is not. However, it's a challenge that must be embraced if universities are to be become true to the values of equality and inclusion they espouse.

2. We must be less quick to judge and more willing to forgive. Calling out injustice and immorality within universities is crucial, but if this does not permit the possibility of individuals changing for the better, what's the point?

I am concerned about the tone of some current debates about inclusivity, and the quickness with which some are willing to judge and back up others' judgements, especially on social media. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves a second chance...

Moreover, we don't get to jettison the academic value of seeking strong evidence and exposing it to critical scrutiny in favour of calling out someone's purported wrong-doing. Twitter is all too often the court-room of the value police, with judgements passed all too easily.

3. We mustn't lose sight of how privileged we are. Maintaining some perspective is essential if we are to exercise our role with genuine ethical responsibility. Championing the rights and needs of the vulnerable requires us to acknowledge our own circumstances.

During the recent @ucu dispute with universities about pay and conditions, I had a number of really good conversations with friends and colleagues on the picket line. It felt like we were on the same team and shared the same values...

But conditions we endure differ hugely depending on pre-existing inequalities. The circumstances of a highly paid white male professor are miles apart from a part-time black female lecturer on a short-term contract. Our response requires moral discernment as well as commitment.

4. We need to get out more. Universities project an impression of busyness and diversity, as if everything we need for the pursuit of knowledge and fulfilment is safe within the campus precincts. It's really not.

I mean this in physical terms - get off campus, spend time in a different city, get to know non-university people - but also more socially: have a think about the people you spend most time with, the people you follow on twitter, the voices who most populate your minds.

To my shame, it was years after I moved to the north east before I spent time in Fenham in the west end of Newcastle, getting to know members of the vibrant Muslim community there. It transformed my sense of the region and the values motivating its citizens.

Universities will differ significantly on this, as will different students and staff, but I've seen enough ignorance and self-satisfaction among university people on social media to suggest that we could do more. We'd be better off for it.

That's me done. Apologies if it's been a bit ranty. For various reasons I've become especially aware of the flaws in university culture in recent months. These are not localised phenomena, but sector-wide, and for that reason, I think they deserve further public debate.