Edinburgh University has damaged its global reputation by caving in to a campaign that branded one of the world’s great philosophers a racist before establishing the facts, two experts have claimed.
David Ashton and Professor Peter Hutton said university authorities had been wrong to capitulate to a student petition in 2020 that alleged David Hume was guilty of making racist remarks and that he “championed white supremacy”.
The petition followed an article by Felix Waldmann, a fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and the author of Further Letters of David Hume, which branded Hume “an unashamed racist, who was directly involved in the slave trade”.
Soon afterwards the university announced that it would be renaming David Hume Tower, its humanities building, as 40
