I was branded an extremist for inviting controversial speakers, says ex-oxford Union head
A FORMER Oxford Union president claims fellow students called him “extremist” and threatened him in the street because he invited controversial speakers.
Charlie Mackintosh, a politics, philosophy and economics student at New College, who served as president of the debating society from January to March this year, said he was called a “fascist” for hosting Peter Thiel, the American tech entrepreneur, and accused of “denying the right of LGBTQ+ to exist” for hosting a debate on same-sex marriage in the Church of England in the week of the General Synod.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, he wrote: “Over my three years at Oxford, I came to realise that to digress from – or even merely challenge – certain viewpoints results in being labelled an outlier or extremist.”
He added such labels are “endlessly amplified by social media channels”.
Mr Mackintosh said he supports more than 40 Oxford dons who have written to The Telegraph this week to warn freedom of speech is at risk as a trans row escalates at the university.
Activist students have tried to cancel an appearance at the Oxford Union by Prof Kathleen Stock, a leading feminist, claiming that she is transphobic for her view that it is fiction to claim “transwomen are women”.
Mr Mackintosh said he had been “physically threatened and shouted at on the street” and alleged the Union’s current committee had been subjected to similar treatment because of Prof ’s Stock invitation to speak this month.
Amiad Haran Diman, a PHD student who is leading plans for a protest at Prof Stock’s talk, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One it was not a freedom of speech issue. Mr Diman, who is president of Oxford University’s LGBTQ+ society, said: “Kathleen Stock’s views are everywhere in the media. They are held by a majority in parliament and they have influenced legislation.”
He added: “I know the youngest cohorts at the university are increasingly not cisgender and are super accepting.”