Academia’s shameful role in minimising the grooming gangs

In 2009, I completed my PhD thesis – an intense, five-year-long piece of research into the experiences and treatment of working-class women. The research was carried out on a council estate in Nottingham, which had also been my home for over 20 years. The women’s story was also my story. I explored how they had been devalued and demeaned from school onwards – by the media, politicians, charities and those on the other side of the desk in housing offices and welfare services.

On the day of my viva (an oral test in which PhD students defend their thesis), my examiner drew attention to one story they were particularly affected by. It was the women’s account of the constant sexual harassment that they and their children were subjected to by a group of Iraqi asylum seekers. The refugees had been moved on to the estate and then abandoned by the authorities. The women talked not just about the disrespect shown to them by the asylum seekers, but also about the silence and inaction of the state when they expressed their concerns and fears.

In 2015, this story formed the basis of an article I wrote for the Guardian about working-class fears and concerns over refugees being accommodated in their midst – concerns that had been ignored by those in power. As soon as it was published, the backlash began. My fellow academics accused me of racism and likened me to Enoch Powell. They ridiculed me in private email exchanges and publicly denounced me, including in the Guardian itself. Blogs and academic peer-reviewed articles characterised me as a far-right extremist.

This is why it does not surprise me that many academics have long refused to acknowledge the horrific reality of the grooming-gangs scandal. They are blinded by their class prejudices.

Academia has played a key role in downplaying the rape and abuse of young, working-class girls by criminal fraternities of predominantly Pakistani men. These men were able to operate with virtual impunity for many years because their victims were deemed worthless. And those in positions of authority turned a blind eye to it all, on the grounds that protecting ‘racial sensitivities’ was more important than protecting children from sexual abuse.

Many of the young victims are women now. Others never had the chance to grow up thanks to the toll taken by the abuse. Today, the grooming-gangs scandal remains an open and seeping wound. This is due to the inaction of the authorities, the obfuscation of the justice system and perhaps, above all, the refusal to have the uncomfortable conversations needed about class, race and sex in the UK. Instead, we have had to endure middle-class liberals, telling us over and over that diversity is our strength without ever confronting the real issues.

Academia has played a central role in delegitimising the experiences and stories of working-class women and girls. Academic research holds a lot of power in legitimising the plight of the powerless. It is cited by policymakers, by public inquiries, and the media and politicians look to it for guidance. Yet if you try to find academic research on ‘grooming gangs’, you will only find articles trying to dismiss the rape and abuse of mostly white working-class children and teenagers by groups of mainly Pakistani men. It is described as a ‘moral panic’, whipped up by right-wing media outlets in bad faith. Some of the academics who have written these peer-reviewed articles identify themselves as ‘experts’ in sexual abuse and child sexual abuse – and yet they have perpetuated the narrative that the perpetrators of heinous and monstrous abuse are somehow also the victims.

Why does the grooming-gangs scandal refuse to go away? Why is it a constant running sore in public life? Because our political elites have dismissed those who drew attention to the horrors committed in our midst as far-right reactionaries.

The experts’ attempt to explain away the serious sexual abuse of white, working-class girls, and the class prejudice that underpins this dismissal, goes beyond one or two high-profile academics. It’s the product of an academic system dominated by often private-schooled, middle-class ‘liberals’ who have no connection to the poor, the vulnerable and the working class. It is a system that produces research sanctioned and peer reviewed by the same people with the same worldview.

Through their self-righteousness and moral squeamishness, these academics and ‘experts’ have done tremendous harm to the thousands of victims of grooming gangs. They’re convinced they’re on ‘the right side of history’. They don’t realise how wrong they are.

Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic.