Students shall not pass unless they accept Lord of the Rings is offensive
University course suggests Tolkien’s treatment of evil characters follows a tradition of ‘anti-African antipathy’
By: Craig Simpson
Published: Oct 16, 2025
A university is teaching students that JRR Tolkien demonises “people of colour” in the Lord of the Rings books.
A history module called Decolonising Tolkien et al, taught at the University of Nottingham, uses a text that says orcs and other dark-skinned characters in the trilogy are the victims of “ethnic chauvinism”.
Dr Onyeka Nubia, a historian and writer who leads the module, argues that eastern races in the fictional realm of Middle Earth are depicted as evil while fairer-skinned peoples of the west are shown as virtuous.
In academia, “decolonising” usually means re-examining or moving away from white, western viewpoints.
In the module’s core text, Dr Onyeka writes that maligned peoples include Easterlings, Southrons and men from Harad. The trilogy also features the dark-skinned orcs, evil creatures that do the bidding of Sauron, known as the “Dark Lord”.
[ One of Tolkien’s evil orcs, as portrayed in the 2002 film adaptation of The Two Towers ]
It adds that Tolkien’s treatment of the fictional races shares in a tradition of “anti-African antipathy”, in which people from Africa are painted as “the natural enemy of the white man”.
The module also examines racial issues in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Calormen in CS Lewis’s fantasy novel have long been seen by some as exhibiting oriental stereotypes. They are described as “cruel” people with “long beards” and “orange-coloured turbans”.
Students of the course in Nottingham will also learn to “repopulate” the canon of British myth and legend.
Dr Nubia, an occasional contributor to the BBC, provided articles saying medieval England “had diverse populations and Africans lived there”, but “ethnic chauvinism” was evident in literature, including Milton’s Paradise Lost, and that the tradition persisted in the works of Tolkien and Lewis.
[ A scene from the 2005 film based on CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia stories, which are said to feature ‘oriental stereotypes’ ]
He claims in the core module text that Shakespeare’s work helped to promote a vision of a “fictional, mono-ethnic English past”. His plays are said to be problematic for “missing direct references to Africans living in England”, creating the “illusion” of racial homogeneity in England.
In 2021, academics taking part in an Anti-Racist Shakespeare programme at The Globe Theatre in London argued that the Bard’s work consistently links whiteness to beauty, while “dark is unattractive”.
Contributor Prof Vanessa Corredera said at the time: “If you put the play in context with other Shakespearean plays, and even the sonnets, this language is all over the place, this language of dark and light... There are these racialising elements.”
A number of the sonnets are addressed to the physically contrasted “Fair Youth” and the “Dark Lady”.
The Telegraph previously revealed that Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, was set to be “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust set out plans to “create a more inclusive museum experience” at the site. This process included exploring “the continued impact of Empire” on the collection, the “impact of colonialism” on world history, and how “Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this”.
The Telegraph has approached the University of Nottingham and Dr Onyeka for comment.
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This is literally cultural appropriation. This isn't history, it's full-on fantasy. They're rewriting English history to insert themselves into it.
Lord of the Rings is British lore. Tolkien wrote it as a mythology for Britain. Coming along and saying, this needs more black people - which is really just to say, I need to be injected into this story - is itself colonization of British culture.
If you learned nothing else from Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility, it should be that these weirdos and freaks are the raging racists they accuse everyone else of being, since they always tell on themselves. "When I see orcs, I think of black people" reflects on you, and you don't get to project that onto everyone else.
