I grew up in the British education system and am now a grad student at a program here in the States, and my field is colonial South Asia with a broader focus on British imperialism, so I may be able to offer some insight. I apologize if this response is not up this subs usual standards. However this is a very abstract question (I don't mean that in a negative way btw, it is also a very interesting one) that is difficult to quantify. It's kind of difficult to prove or disprove a statement of negation like the one Higgins made. It not like the academy has a running tally of "articles that critique imperialism as a ratio to total articles published." But anyway, I will do my best to try and give some insight.

1) Is there a feigned amnesia in the US academy over British/European imperialism? I would argue a very strong no

The best way to quantify this would be to look at the rankings for the top history programs in the US. Take the top 30 universities as a sample size and go through their faculty lists. You will find an enormous wealth of current historians working directly on British, European, and American imperialism, and at the top 10-15 universities in particular, will find a wealth of historians who have published works that pretty strongly critique imperial rule. As CapriciousCupofTea has already pointed out, empire and colonialism is absolutely having a heyday in the American Academy. Look at any undergraduate course list for the top 40 universities in the States and you will see an almost endless amount of courses on European/American imperialism. To say there is a "disinclination in both academic and journalistic account to critique empire" is quite off the mark as far the American academy is concerned. Now, I know Higgins's qualm is with European academies, my point here is that it is important to note where studies of imperialism are flourishing.

2) What about the British academy? It's harder to say. I get where Higgins is coming from, but he’s not quite right if you take his quote literally

(I will stick here to the British academy and British imperialism since that is my field).

Certainly, in my experience of studying colonial South Asia the "softer" critiques of colonial rule do indeed, largely, come out of the British academy. In the field of South Asian history in particular there were huge debates in the 80s and 90s reaching across the Atlantic where American scholars of South Asia, many of whom had studied at Chicago/Columbia, looked at the works of British historians from the Cambridge/Oxford schools as somewhat subconsciously downplaying the effects of Colonial rule. These critiques were not unreasonable considering that up to the 1980s the British academy was indeed still heavily influenced by scholars with either immediate, or single generation ties to the Raj. Take for instance, any one of John Keay's works. Now Keay is a good historian, and he writes very well, but British rule is largely characterized as a mostly peaceful one punctuated by the admittedly awful atrocity here and there. It's history that is sort of "well there was good and bad." But major episodes of British mismanagement during colonial rule, such as the Bengal Famine, are almost entirely non-existent in works likes Keay's "India: A History."

We still see this somewhat in historians working through an Oxford/Cambridge historiographic lens today. Just to take a few examples, Tirthankar Roy works on South Asian economics during colonial rule and can definitely be charged with underplaying numerous aspects of the oppressive nature of colonial rule (particularly concerning India's rural economy). Even more popular historians like Yasmin Khan and William Dalrymple can perhaps be charged with downplaying the extractive and destabilizing nature of colonial rule. In Khan's "Great Partition" for instance - one of the rare academic works that broke through into popular culture - there is definitely a sense that she foregrounds Partition as a game of politics that was shared evenly between the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Raj. The book is impressive, but the analysis and the placing of all three political rivals on the same level of power dynamics is a bit misguided since it is unquestionable the British were the supreme ruling power until 1947. So Higgins's argument could be applied here. That is, in the British academy, British colonial rule is indeed focused on, but biting critiques of colonial rule tend not to be found as they would coming from scholars working in America or India.

Even Dalrymple, the biggest name in terms of popular history working on colonial India, could have the argument that he presents colonial history as something of a mostly peaceful rule punctuated by atrocities here and there leveled at him (I could expand on Dalrymple at length if necessary). However, the point here, ultimately, is that it is difficult to agree with Higgins and say the topic of imperialism is simply shied away from in British academia, but you can indeed argue that those in British academia have much softer critiques of imperialism than they perhaps should. So I kind of get what Higgins is trying to say.

3) In the wider British public is there a feigned amnesia? Probably yes but also it's more complicated than that

The British government since the period of decolonization has not really, to any substantial degree, ever really acknowledged the toll colonial rule took on their colonies. Otherwise you wouldn't get the shock over works like Caroline Elkins's "Imperial Reckoning" - about the concentration camps in Kenya in the 50s - which when it came it in 2006 was met with almost a shock horror from many on the fringes of the British academy (to my understanding anyway). Nor would you get things like Shashi Tharoor's 2015 Oxford Union speech about how Britain owes India reparations of £1 per year (a powerful symbolic gesture) going viral. Historians like Niall Ferguson, who unquestionably celebrates (to a degree) the virtues of colonialism, still dominate much public discourse on colonial rule. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread things like the infamous PragerU video on British colonialism - which is basically straight up celebrating the civilizing mission of colonial rule - have a huge effect on wider discourse particularly in the States but also worldwide.

Additionally, in Britain a survey from 2015 showed 59% of Britons polled felt the empire was something to be proud of, whilst a more recent poll showed a plurality of Britons thought the empire made life in their former colonies better and a quarter wished Britain still had their empire (although 50% said they did not wish Britain still had their empire). Now these surveys are naturally pretty flawed and the questions asked are remarkably loaded, but you could argue they give somewhat of an overview of British cultural feeling toward the empire. Although it is important to note that the younger demographics have much stronger anti-empire opinions, which is perhaps representative of a current cultural demographic shift on this point.

In summary - what I would respond to Higgins's point is 1) I know he doesn't say the academy in US shies away from critiquing empire, but it is still important to note that in the US academy studies of imperialism are flourishing, and in my view, generally include very nuanced critiques. 2) He kinda has a point about the British academy, and you could definitely argue the British academy, to a certain degree, does not acknowledge their own imperial bias, but to say the British academy on the whole shies away from critiquing their imperial past is not really true. Although you could definitely argue those critiques are not particularly strong and as such contribute to this idea of "feigned amnesia". 3) Higgins has more of a point about the non-academic world of the general public in Britain, although one must note that large sections of the general public definitely does not have a "feigned amnesia" even if you could fairly argue that even larger portions of the public probably do.

This is a bit of a discursive question, so I will provide a discursive point of discussion.

At least in major U.S. institutions, academia has dealt with and studied empire, race, and colonialism, whether it pertains to the U.S., Great Britain, or anywhere. This is not new, either. There will always be America-triumphalist types, those who repeat nationalist myths in their scholarship (you get a flurry of new scholarship along those lines in the immediate post-1989 moment), but a far more critical lens has been increasingly normalized in U.S. academia ever since the 1970s New Left movement.

I like to imagine that there is also a small but growing U.S. public attention towards the legacy of imperialism and militarism, as historians of war and U.S. history have published more critical, public-facing pieces after the start of the Global War on Terror. Daniel Immerwahr's How to Hide an Empire, albeit a flawed piece, brought Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the heart of modern U.S. history while achieving broader market success among non-academics.

Many U.S. academics, by generally being willing to engage with empire so readily, necessarily deal with histories of European imperialism, U.S. wars against indigenous Americans, and other topics that push back against Euro-American centric narratives.

Not all U.S. institutions are like this, obviously. But the study of empire and colonialism is having a heyday.

Do European institutions have similar critical lenses of imperialism? I have no idea. Much of my information about European institutions come from the same sources as everyone else (e.g. the recent NY Times piece about French academics denouncing "U.S.-based theories of race and postcolonialism"). But it would be difficult to imagine that the study of empire is absent in its entirety. If historians at U.S. institutions are traveling to British archives and writing fabulous histories of empire, wouldn't British academics be doing so as well? I'd be interested to hear from someone based in a UK/EU university on this point.

I can only offer a very partial answer - albeit deep from a symbolic center of the British "academy" - as a history undergraduate at Oxford. Down the road from my college is the old Indian Institute were administrators used to be trained; take the other road and I pass by Rhodes House in a few hundred meters. There's been a lot more talk and moves to 'decolonize' the curriculum (more on what the implications of this might mean later) - many papers at the very least engage with imperialism.

Nonetheless, I agree with /u/churchcomer that just including imperialism in the syllabus doesn't necessitate a critical engagement with it, and the relative flexibility of teaching means you may avoid the topic altogether even when it's formally listed on the syllabus (most undergraduate papers will cover 15+ themes, so it's entirely conceivable that by your own preference/tutor's expertise, engaging with all this can be cursory or slight). Most academics will at least pay lip service to the idea that imperialism was an awful thing, but the undergraduate syllabus right now is undergoing some changes. From my own conversations with my professor, who convenes one of the bigger modern history papers, the process has been slow. Very slow. Other prominent academics that have an affiliation or visited Oxford have espoused views that do downplay the ills of imperialism - sometimes beyond the grounds of what I might consider quite reasonable scholarly analysis.

Higgins probably also had 'Rhodes Must Fall'-type debates in mind in making his comment, for those unfamiliar with this, there's been a long controversy over Oriel College's very, very prominent display of Cecil Rhodes' statue (who lent Rhodesia its namesake). To somewhat simplify: despite longstanding student protests, the college has been stonewalling the removal of the statue, largely due to donor threats to pull funding out of the college should it go. More recently there's been some agreement to convene a commission to advise about the statue, which seems to be more like a token gesture rather than the precursor to any change. Some academics, like theology professor Nigel Biggar, have said some pretty ridiculous things - recently on the Telegraph that "British colonialism was not essentially racist, wasn't essentially exploitative, and wasn't essentially atrocious". Nonetheless, I bear in mind the incredible autonomy that Oxford colleges enjoy, the fact that Biggar isn't a historian, and how this might say more about Oriel's administration, to suggest that the issue is far more complicated than a couple of 'rogue' historians or obstinate donor circles. (Edit: also see /u/Gwenavere's thoughtful comment on the origins of Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa below.)

A lot of these debates have somewhat different dynamics from debates across the pond about colonialism, imperialism, or indigenous representation. As David Olusoga's argued well, the template of Black History in America doesn't have a ready application in Britain and European countries for leaving out their stories as imperial powers. Of course I'd also be cautious about uncritically echoing claims that to further 'decolonize the curriculum', increase representation, or advance powerful challenges to symbolisms of imperialism at academic institutions are just importing American culture wars (often a talking point, see the two links above). At the same time, plenty of problems remain - very few black professors are hired across departments, and I get the sense these are voices that are not listened to as much as they should be. The same with students who have deep links to imperial projects of the past.

You've also asked about academia, but there is a growing sense of discomfort - if not outright anger - at all of this, that have produced student-led initiatives like Uncomfortable Oxford- a walking tour that seeks to unsettle narratives about the university through uncovering its deep links with "racial inequality,  gender and class discrimination, and legacies of empire."

Finally, a more general note that takes us out of one university in England. The Point recently published an excellent essay about postcolonial/decolonized curricula, albeit about literature. It is a reminder of the dangers of tokenism when incorporating non-Western', postcolonial/colonial histories and societies are incorporated into academic study and teaching. That these societies are often present only to 1) "negatively illustrate some form of moral or social misconduct" or 2) "positively represent a “marginalized” culture or geography" (in its totality). In doing so, there is a relegation of these histories in the process or aftermath of imperialism to "ur-manifestos and histories of repression and suffering"; I also add that "critiques of empire and imperialism" are not fully synonymous with the study of societies outside a traditional region of concern (framed various as a 'trans-Atlantic', 'the West', etc.).

Taken together, I would argue there is definitely an amnesia, albeit one selectively applied and argued in varying degrees of good-faith towards imperialism rather than a total hegemony. Beyond academia, there is much to be said about this selective forgetting, and here I broadly concur with /u/Adrian5156's views of a wider British public. I also view subreddits like ColonisingReddit or ImperialKingdom with equal parts revulsion and worry, noting that some questions here about imperialism have been posed by frequent posters there. Hopefully there'll never be any feigned amnesia on a forum like this!

Edit: as /u/nmcj1996's suggested, as of June 2020, Oriel College's decided to remove the statue, and since then there's been a process of inquiry/review over the statue's future. Officially it's slated for removal by the summer - but I'm not optimistic this will take place in the timeframe given, especially given recent delays and news of possible obstructions. Something else to consider is the role of the Rhodes Trust, where debates about the nature of the scholarship naturally relate to the history of the trust as well as its current engagement with its own history.