Cillian McGrattan: ​The two universities cancelled unionism in their celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the 1998 Belfast Agreement

It might seem churlish to object to such hagiography by pointing out the discrepancy with how unionists have viewed her interventions on the protocol debate. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, for instance, highlighted the threatening undertone to Pelosi’s assertion that the UK must ignore unionist concerns if it wants to maintain the special relationship with the US. ‘If Nancy Pelosi wants to see the agreement protected’, Donaldson stated, ‘then she needs to recognise that it is the protocol that is harming and undermining the agreement’.

Failing to acknowledge the concerns of the unionist community might be written off as simply a case of ivory tower academics being tone-deaf to the lives of real people – and (some of) the parties they vote for. Arguably, that position is untenable once we look at the deployment of academics in the events.

Ulster has kept its staff (many of whom in social sciences specialise in various aspects of Northern Irish politics) off stage. Instead, it has focused on the cultural aspects of the peace process. Queen’s, on the other hand, have foregrounded their academics. While QUB did have some unionist politicians at its three-day celebrations, on Wednesday it had two telling seminars, one on Rights and Social Justice and one on Legacy.

Of the eight panellists, one of them has been outspoken in favour of a united Ireland, yet I am not aware of any of the others advocating positions that unionists would say are sympathetic to their concerns. Several of the academics on the panels tend to be linked to the self-styled Model Bill Team (MBT), which promotes a return to the Stormont House Agreement on legacy issues. Both the MBT and Ian Jeffers, the former Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, who is also speaking at the university, have consistently ignored the fact that both the main unionist parties do not subscribe to that pathway – ‘an important fact within the entire legacy debate’, according to the Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie.

Many of the academics involved in the Queen’s celebrations have served on the board of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a self-proclaimed human rights advocacy group. That group has tended to promote an anti-state understanding of the conflict where the historical reality of terror is effaced in favour of what Professor Liam Kennedy has described as a ‘Nelsonian blind eye to the most pervasive human rights abuses in this society’. The Northern Ireland Office described the CAJ as a ‘left of centre group with mainly nationalist support’. The CAJ states that it ‘takes no position on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland’. Its 2021 annual report contains zero references to paramilitary violence.

Of course, academics are free to engage in whatever political opinions they espouse – freedom of speech is not the issue here; it is the promotion of certain types of speech by the universities and the silencing of others. Queen’s and Ulster’s dismissal of these ‘important’ political facts does little to substantiate their claims to be engaging positively in the community. By silencing the concerns of the unionist constituency and facilitating specific policies on and ideas about the past, the two universities are taking political stances.

Unionist leaders tend to miss this chipping away of memory and identity in the public sphere – but the shameful and baleful attempt to do this under the auspices of academic freedom ought to be called out for what it is. At least unionists now know what to expect despite promises of ‘equality and social justice’. As Orwell said, ‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others’.

• Cillian McGrattan is a politics lecturer at University of Ulster