Campus extremists

Kathleen Stock would not strike most people as dangerous. She is a softly spoken academic who holds the mainstream view that biological sex is real. But Prof Stock was hounded from her previous appointment at Sussex University after a campaign of intimidation by trans rights extremists. Now she is being targeted again. Activists at Oxford University are attempting to prevent her from speaking at the Oxford Union debating society, professing themselves dismayed that she should ever have been invited.

Prof Stock’s critics are not just disagreeing with her opinions. They believe that she has no right to express them and have been accused of employing sinister tactics to punish the venue planning to host her. Their behaviour is borderline totalitarian. Since they erroneously believe Prof Stock to be “transphobic”, they argue that allowing her to speak would be “harmful” to the welfare of trans people.

The bizarre notion that speech equals violence has spread rapidly on campuses, emblematic of the infantilisation of swathes of a younger generation that is so lacking in resilience that it cannot bear to have its views challenged. The majority of students may still support free speech, but an outraged minority has been allowed all the running.

The Government’s new free speech Bill received royal assent this month, and many hope that it will shift the dial back towards free expression on campus. But this is about leadership as much as legislation. University administrators have been shockingly craven, failing to defend students and academics who question contemporary orthodoxies. They should realise that there is no future for academic institutions that prioritise ideological purity over inquiry and debate.