University ‘safe spaces’? As I found, they’re a danger to us all

As a study reveals freedom of speech is under dire threat, ANDREW DOYLE, who has faced ‘woke’ disdain, blasts back

Last winter, I was invited to give a talk on satire by the International Politics society at aberystwyth University. I spoke mostly about my satirical online persona titania McGrath, an identity-obsessed social justice activist who is always on the lookout for new ways to be offended.

By and large, the students were polite, receptive and eager to be challenged. However, the same could not be said for the academic staff, who had bizarrely refused to let the society publicise the event on the grounds that a talk that was likely to be ‘ antagonistic to woke culture’ would violate their ‘ departmental ethos of promoting diversity’.

Clearly their passion for ‘diversity’ didn’t extend to diversity of opinion. Worryingly, it seems they are not alone.

For as a disturbing study published yesterday by think tank Civitas has revealed, freedom of speech in Britain’s universities is in a perilous state.

In fact, of the 137 registered universities in the UK, 93 have experienced a controversy relating to censorship of free speech. the situation is so parlous that the report even recommends that 35 per cent should face government intervention to resolve their issues, while a further 51 per cent should be offered direction on how best to improve.

Toxic

the figures make for grim reading. But are they that surprising? I don’t think so. For the depressing truth is that for a decade, a toxic new strain of identity politics has seized control of our major cultural and educational institutions.

the origins of this trend can be traced to academia, in particular the kind of postmodern ideas that have given rise to trendy disciplines such as Critical Race theory, Gender studies, Queer theory, Disability studies and Fat studies (yes, they all exist). With so many academics now behaving like activists, it is inevitable that standards in higher education should suffer — leaving any conviction in the value of debate swept to one side.

and so it’s hardly surprising that in recent years, a new generation of academics has decided that emotional ‘safety’ ought to be prioritised over intellectual rigour, and they have managed to persuade a substantial proportion of the student body of the same. as a result, many undergraduates believe they should not be expected to encounter distressing ideas on campus, either in their course content or in their personal lives.

But what’s particularly striking about the Civitas study is how it’s often the most prestigious universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford, which have imbibed this snake oil.

this became apparent this month, when Cambridge’s University Council attempted to amend the university’s free speech policy to insist staff and students must be ‘respectful’ of different opinions.

thankfully, the governing body accepted an amendment proposed by arif ahmed, a reader in philosophy at Gonville and Caius college, to change the wording from ‘respectful’ to ‘tolerant’. It may seem like a small change, but without his intervention, the very concepts of debate and dissent — the lifeblood of higher education — would have been seriously compromised.

such victories, however, are far from the norm. In October a group of students — at Cambridge again — campaigned for a porter at Clare College to be fired because, in his role as a city councillor, he refused to support a motion that ‘transgender women are women’.

the students claimed that his opinions made them feel ‘unsafe’, one of the most common tactics of today’s ‘cancel culture’, a system of boycotting and public shaming that attacks anyone who expresses an unfashionable view. this is why former Home secretary amber Rudd was disinvited from speaking at Oxford in March, apparently due to her involvement in the Windrush scandal. and why, in the same week, gender historian selina todd was ‘No Platformed’ at Exeter College for supposed ‘anti-trans’ views.

It’s also why feminists Julie Bindel and Linda Bellos have had invitations to speak rescinded by universities, because their belief in anatomical sex differences has been interpreted as ‘transphobic’.

But surely there is something perverse about an academic institution clamping down on those who wish to challenge the orthodoxies of the time?

It may sound harsh, but it’s the simple truth that few innovations, scientific or artistic, have come about without offending someone or other.

Conformity

When Galileo supported the Copernican theory of the earth’s motion around the sun, he wasn’t being ‘respectful’. He was causing offence to religious authorities, which is why he spent his final days under house arrest.

Meanwhile, the dire state of free speech on campuses is hardly helped by an atmosphere of conformity among academic staff. according to a 2017 study by the adam smith Institute, less than 12 per cent are Rightleaning, compared with roughly half the population.

the consequences of this were charted in a report by the Policy Exchange think tank, which found that one in three conservative scholars claims to self- censor ‘for fear of consequences to [their] career’.

It was proof that while university leaders claim to uphold free speech, academics who might once have refused to toe the line are now aware that doing so would jeopardise their career prospects.

Ultimately, the freedom of speech we enjoy today was secured at great cost by our ancestors, some of whom were willing to die for the principle.

It’s poignant that the Civitas report comes in the week 14 terrorists were found guilty of complicity in the Paris terror attacks of 2015, where gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people after the magazine dared to satirise the Prophet Muhammad.

It also comes only two months after French schoolteacher samuel Paty was beheaded by an Islamist extremist for showing those same cartoons during a lesson on free speech.

typically, certain sections of the Left-wing commentariat have suggested that, in part, the victims were to blame, the horrific implication being that by expressing themselves too freely, they had forfeited their freedom to exist.

Ridicule

But, if anything, both atrocities demonstrated that freedom of speech is something that constantly needs to be defended. It is the keystone of any liberal democracy.

Yes, there are those who claim that some may abuse their free speech to demean minority groups, but the best way to oppose such behaviour is through counter-argument, ridicule and peaceful protest.

Bad ideas are never defeated through censorship. It simply allows those who have been silenced to claim an undeserved status of martyrdom.

that is why it’s so important that we return to the values of the civil rights luminaries of the 1960s — such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks — all of whom understood that without freedom of speech, theirs was a lost cause.

this hard work must begin in our higher education institutions, because this is where the next generation of leaders will be cultivated. Universities should never be a ‘safe space’. the future wellbeing of our society depends on it.