Free speech law’s a right Eton mess

THE FREE- speech row at Eton grows. For those unfamiliar with it, a master has been sacked for refusing to withdraw a lecture which included for debate the proposition that masculine virtues such as strength and courage could benefit society, families and women, saying there was scientific and historical evidence to that effect.

It now emerges the Head consulted not one but two barristers as to whether the piece written by the English master, Will Knowland, broke equality law. As it is reasonable to conclude that Eton would consult only the most senior and reputable lawyers, it is likely that the lecture did indeed fall foul of the equality laws.

That is where the real scandal lies: not that Knowland broke the law but that the statement that he made should be contrary to law in the first place. He obviously thinks so, too, because he refused point blank to take down the lecture from YouTube and was then sacked after nine years’ teaching at the school.

ONE OF the ideas he put forward was that men and women may be different psychologically and that not all of those differences are socially constructed. Sorry, but didn’t some guy write a bestseller called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus saying exactly that? Perhaps the Equality Commission should organise a book- burning in Parliament Square.

In a letter to Eton and its Old Boys, Knowland writes, “I wanted the boys to be made aware of a different point of view to the current radical feminist orthodoxy”. No English master should make such an elementary grammatical mistake and no Head should doubt the rightness of the sentiment.

The saddest aspect of this row is that everyone is right: Knowland in exposing the boys to a range of views, the lawyers in giving a true interpretation of the law, the Head in asking for the lecture to be taken down while a way forward was sought. The only guilty party is the law itself: oppressive, anti- libertarian and lacking in proportionality. Ministers?