Top Schools Reject Scholarship Funding for Poor White Boys

Two top colleges have rejected an offer to fund the education of poor white boys, for fear of violating anti-discrimination laws.

Winchester and Dulwich colleges turned down an offer from Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites, to donate £1 million towards the education of impoverished white boys.

The 96-year-old philanthropist professor had planned to leave the money to the schools in his will. Sir Bryan had attended both schools on scholarships as his parents could not afford the tuition fees for him and his brother.

Sir Bryan said that he wanted to donate the money because white boys from underprivileged areas are falling behind boys from other ethnicities.

“It’s an extremely important issue of interpretation of the law. I have done a lot for both schools over the years and have been closely involved in them. All the more, therefore, do I feel that both schools have made a strategic mistake in their interpretation of legislation”, Sir Bryan told The Times.

Winchester College said in response: “The trustees are clear, having consulted widely, that acceptance of a bequest of this nature would neither be in the interests of the school as a charity nor the specific interests of those it aims to support through its work . . . the school does not see how discrimination on grounds of a boy’s colour could ever be compatible with its values.”

Joe Spence, the master of Dulwich college said that he is “resistant to awards made with any ethnic or religious criteria. Bursaries are an engine of social mobility and they should be available to all who pass our entrance examinations, irrespective of their background.”

Former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips denounced the schools’ decision to reject Sir Bryan’s donation, writing in Standpoint Magazine that: “They have become so confused in these “woke” times that a lethal cocktail of inverted snobbery, racial victimhood, and liberal guilt ends up rewarding schools for favouring the black and brown rich whilst neglecting the white poor.”