Why is Durham trying to ‘decolonise’ maths?

Is maths racist? That’s the question apparently troubling the department of mathematical sciences at Durham University at the moment. As the Telegraph reports, the department has put out a new guide on ‘decolonisation’, urging maths academics to ensure their teaching is ‘more inclusive’ and not dominated by a Eurocentric view on the world.

Of course, exploring the overlooked contribution of non-western thinkers to mathematics would be no bad thing. But this guide goes a fair bit further down the ‘decolonisation’ rabbit hole. It urges academics to introduce more non-white thinkers into their classes, thus presenting their race as more important than their merit or impact. And it urges academics to ‘discuss how maths can be used to aid attempts to secure equality’ – that is, to turn what should be an objective, academic subject into a form of activism.

One idea the guide floats is using non-western analogies when describing mathematical concepts: ‘To give an example from statistics, two common examples of Simpson’s paradox involve survivors of the Titanic, and enrolment in an American University, both examples from the western world.