{"id":28226,"date":"2026-03-04T10:12:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T10:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28226"},"modified":"2026-03-04T10:17:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T10:17:38","slug":"statement-from-the-open-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/uncategorised\/statement-from-the-open-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Palestine &#8211; Statement from The Open University"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">There have been\u00a0suggestions\u00a0that\u00a0The\u00a0Open\u00a0University\u00a0has decided to stop\u00a0using the term \u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019 in\u00a0all\u00a0its\u00a0teaching materials. This is not the case.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Academic colleagues\u00a0remain\u00a0free to use the term\u00a0\u2018Ancient\u00a0Palestine\u2019.\u00a0Decisions about\u00a0the use of\u00a0terminology\u00a0are\u00a0matters of academic judgement, made by individual academics and teaching teams\u00a0in line with disciplinary conventions and their professional\u00a0expertise.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">That position has been clearly communicated across the University.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Previous\u00a0correspondence with an external organisation\u00a0related\u00a0wholly\u00a0to\u00a0a\u00a0specific inquiry about\u00a0one\u00a0case study\u00a0framed\u00a0within a\u00a0particular\u00a0module. That module\u00a0is scheduled for replacement as part of normal curriculum renewal.\u00a0The response\u00a0clearly\u00a0defended the use of the term\u00a0\u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019\u00a0in our teaching materials and confirmed that\u00a0it\u00a0would continue to\u00a0be\u00a0used\u00a0within the current module.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">With respect to this case study, it\u00a0was decided that\u00a0additional\u00a0contextual material\u00a0would be added\u00a0to support students\u2019\u00a0learning within what is an introductory\u00a0Arts\u00a0module.\u00a0Such decisions form\u00a0part of routine academic practice and reflect our commitment to helping students engage critically with differing\u00a0historical interpretations.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Whilst our defence of the academic right to use the term\u00a0\u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019\u00a0has been clear throughout, we recognise that aspects of the earlier correspondence relating to future changes to that one\u00a0module may have caused confusion when read outside their immediate context. That response\u00a0sought\u00a0to be transparent about\u00a0anticipated\u00a0changes\u00a0as part of routine module refresh,\u00a0which would remove the unit\u00a0containing\u00a0that\u00a0case study.\u00a0It was not intended to suggest any wider\u00a0institutional\u00a0shift,\u00a0nor\u00a0any\u00a0change\u00a0in response to concerns raised about the use of the term.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">There has been no institutional discussion about prohibiting or removing the term\u00a0\u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019.\u00a0The use of terminology in all our curriculum\u00a0remains\u00a0a matter for academic judgement, consistent with our commitment to academic freedom and scholarly independence.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There have been\u00a0suggestions\u00a0that\u00a0The\u00a0Open\u00a0University\u00a0has decided to stop\u00a0using the term \u2018Ancient Palestine\u2019 in\u00a0all\u00a0its\u00a0teaching materials. This is not the case.\u00a0 Academic colleagues\u00a0remain\u00a0free to use the term\u00a0\u2018Ancient\u00a0Palestine\u2019.\u00a0Decisions about\u00a0the use of\u00a0terminology\u00a0are\u00a0matters of academic judgement, made by individual academics and teaching teams\u00a0in line with disciplinary conventions and their professional\u00a0expertise.\u00a0\u00a0 That position has been clearly communicated across the University.\u00a0\u00a0 Previous\u00a0correspondence with an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28228,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28226\/revisions\/28228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}