University bosses have come under fire after they stopped using students’ names for their emails and usernames because it is not ‘inclusive’.

The practice has been scrapped for reasons that include people changing gender part way through their course, the University of York said.

Other students were adopting western names or had difficult family relationships and didn’t want to be associated with their surname, it added.

But Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, labelled the change a ‘crackpot’ idea.

‘This seems like a parody of political correctness gone mad,’ he raged.

‘It’s the sort of thing you’d see in a Netflix satire of the ideological capture of universities by woke cultists.’

Before the change – announced on its website this month – the university used the first letters of the student’s first name and surname to create their official username.

But it said: ‘Unfortunately [this] means that some people ask for their username to be changed when they believe that it no longer reflects their identity.’ From now on it will use randomly generated letters.

A spokesperson added this will be aimed at ‘avoiding any issues individuals may have on the inclusion of their current or future initials’.

The uni – ranked 24th in the UK – had income of £414million in 2020-21, with vice chancellor Charlie Jeffery earning £289,275. Earlier this month, it announced a £6million package to help students through the cost of living crisis.

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