INTERVIEW

Oxford vice-chancellor: ‘Students must hear views they find distasteful’

The university’s new chief, Irene Tracey, is determined to present different perspectives

Irene Tracey is insistent that a talk by Kathleen Stock will go ahead despite calls from the university’s LGBTQ+ society for it to be cancelled. “We’ll make sure that people can go there safely,” she says
Irene Tracey is insistent that a talk by Kathleen Stock will go ahead despite calls from the university’s LGBTQ+ society for it to be cancelled. “We’ll make sure that people can go there safely,” she says
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
The Times

A baseball cap on a side table in the corner of Irene Tracey’s office bears the slogan: “Pain is good.” It was a joke gift from a former student. The University of Oxford’s vice-chancellor is a professor of anaesthetic neuroscience and an expert on how we perceive pain.

When Tracey took over in January one of the problems in her in-tray was how to deal with the contaminated Sackler name, which was attached both to the OxyContin opioid scandal and buildings in Oxford that had benefited from the family’s donations.

Since then her “to do” list has grown, encompassing a bitter row over attempts to cancel Kathleen Stock, a dispute between the student union and the Oxford Union, a government request to advise