Student chief pledges to end cancel culture

New head of education watchdog says he will use powers against universities that no-platform speakers

CANCEL culture in universities is “deeply unhealthy” and has a “chill effect” on free speech, the head of the students watchdog has warned.

Lord Wharton of Yarm, the chairman of the Office for Students (OFS), the

Department for Education body that regulates the higher education sector in England, said in his first interview since taking up the post this month that feminism, transgender issues, climate change and some political views are among the areas where “a free, open dialogue and free flow of opinion in higher education” need to be protected.

The Conservative peer, 37, told The Daily Telegraph there is a “risk of a monoculture in higher education where certain views are seen to be, whether formally or informally, acceptable and others are not”. Moves to “noplatform” speakers including Amber Rudd, the former home secretary whose invitation to speak at an Oxford University society was withdrawn at short notice last year, are “ridiculous”, he said.

He argued that exposure to a diversity of opinion is central to a highquality undergraduate experience, and served notice that he was not afraid to use his new powers, which include the ability to fine and deregister institutions as well as ban degree courses from recruiting new students, if universities and linked clubs fail to uphold speech rights. “Free speech is so crucially important that it would be a nonsense to take on these powers and then fail to use them,” he said.

Students should also come up with their own “organic solutions” to defend free expression, he suggested, but stressed that free speech “doesn’t include hate speech; it doesn’t include things that would be racist or targeted”.

Lord Wharton also urged universities to do more to boost their intake of white working-class boys, adding that while admissions chiefs have made great strides in recent years to recruit more school-leavers from certain minority groups, undergraduate numbers from this demographic are “horrendously” low. He pointed out that just 13 per cent of white boys who are eligible for free school meals go on to take up a place at university, compared with 67 per cent of Chinese boys on free school meals. “I am taking the two extremes, but there is clearly a problem there.”

He said while there is now a broader national debate around how to deal with “left behind” communities, which are often found in post-industrial Northern towns, he accepted that universities cannot solve all of the societal issues affecting white working-class boys who, in addition to academic underachievement, often experience problems with “family, stability, and levels of crime in their communities”.

However, he encouraged university chiefs to work with schools to encourage such boys to think about higher education at an early age. “We need to send a clear message that higher education is and always should be for people who can benefit from it,” he said. “The younger we are able to start being clear about spreading that message, the better.”