Students’ war on free speech ‘poses threat to UK science’
BRITAIN risks missing scientific breakthroughs if student zealots shut down free speech on campuses, the universities minister has warned.
Jo Johnson said students must get used to having beliefs challenged or research would suffer.
He warned against the ‘erosion’ of free speech, with some academics drawing up ‘extensive lists of trigger words’ and seeking to have ‘certain books’ removed from libraries.
Mr Johnson said the country was in danger of starting on a ‘slippery slope’ that would see it fall behind in the global innovation race unless ideas are allowed to be debated.
From April, the new Office for Students (OfS) regulator will have the power to fine or de-register institu tions that refuse to safeguard free speech on campuses.
In the past decade student campaigners have demanded ‘safe spaces’ from views they find offensive. It has led to some speakers being ‘no-platformed’ – or banned – by student unions because of their views.
Some universities have even caved to pressure by removing or reclassifying ‘offensive’ books in university libraries and imposing ‘trigger warnings’ on offensive course content.
Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that students should ‘learn to be resilient and deal with controversial opinions’. He added: ‘We need people to be able to deal with the uncomfortable.’
He said he had seen ‘erosion’ of free speech on some university campuses in recent years, adding: ‘There is a proliferation of so-called safe spaces and there’s a rise of no-platforming.’
Earlier this year Churchill College, Cambridge, moved books by the historian David Irving into closed storage because he is a Holocaust denier. Meanwhile, prominent figures at top universities have said they are considering taking action on books about climate change denial.
Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, has said he supported relabelling and even restricting access to some books, including those which are ‘anti-Muslim’, ‘advancing racial theories’, ‘ conspiracy literature’ or ‘jihadist propaganda’.
Bob Ward, of the London School of Economics, said works querying climate change should be ‘flagged up appropriately’ as ‘ not credible books’. Many top universities now have ‘trigger warnings’ on courses to allow students to avoid or prepare themselves for difficult topics.
At Cambridge, students have been given a warning that Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus deals with ‘sexual violence’ while at the LSE anthropology students are warned about content regarding eating disorders.
Meanwhile, there have been student union campaigns to ‘no-platform’ feminist Germaine Greer over her views on transgender issues, and gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell over his views on Islam. Speaking at the Limmud Festival in Birmingham yesterday, Mr Johnson said universities should be ‘marketplaces of ideas’ that allow ‘truth to emerge’. He added they should be places that ‘open minds, not close them’.
‘Allow truth to emerge’