Apparently I am too dangerous to be let loose on innocent students. News to me

Iwas shocked last week to discover that I oppose the survival of women. As a woman, I’ve always been quite keen on survival, but members of the Intersectional Feminist Society at King’s College London think otherwise, and who am I to disagree?

In their petition calling for me to be “no-platformed” from a university event I was due to speak at, they argued I was “someone who opposes women, trans and non-binary people and their well-being and survival”, making me too dangerous to be let loose on innocent students.

Both the petition and a later statement from King’s Students’ Union, exemplify how free speech on campus is under threat today.

I accepted an invitation from the Department of War Studies to speak about the importance of academic freedom many months ago, but it was only the day before the event that some students, clearly lacking any sense of irony, began their petition.

“We ask you to redact her invitation, cancel the event and publish a public apology,” they demanded. (I think they might have meant “retract”.)

The Students’ Union statement argued that there was a “high risk” my advocacy for freedom of speech will result in “attacks on transgender people” (I have written critically of the MeToo movement and the impact of transgender policies).

Let’s put to one side the fact I wasn’t planning to talk about gender. This presumed direct link between defending free speech and attacks on transgender people suggests a very low view of King’s students: are they really so suggestible that my words will turn them into a violent mob?

It seems that, in the eyes of student protesters, there is no distinction between words and violence; words are violence.

Their argument that “there is a line between sharing a view and advocating for the dismissal of an entire demographic” is technically correct, even though it suggests I am a genocidal maniac.

However, it’s hardly a “line” that separates sharing a view from inciting mass murder – it’s a gaping chasm.

Still, the implication that I had blood on my hands (“not supporting women, trans- and non-binary people kills, and Williams knowingly endorses this”) certainly helped gather the signatures.

Just days before my talk had been scheduled, Dame Jenni Murray withdrew from speaking at Oxford after students denounced her as transphobic for arguing trans-women are not, and never can be, women.

Being invited to speak at a university is a privilege and the prospect of intellectual challenge is part of the enjoyment. But dealing with petitions and protesters is hard work: I understood Murray’s decision to withdraw.

Pedants are quick to point out that, if someone chooses to withdraw from a debate, then they have not been censored. The BBC’s Reality Check recently concluded that when it comes to no-platforming speakers or banning books, “the numbers of incidents uncovered is small”. This was enthusiastically shared on social

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion media by those eager to portray alarm about campus censorship as a Rightwing plot to undermine universities.

Yet this focus on technicalities misses the bigger picture: there is more than one way to close down debate. When speech comes to be seen as harmful, particularly to minorities, then it is perceived as only right to remove potential risk.

Speakers are threatened and intimidated until, in Murray’s case, they withdraw. If they do not, then demands for security guards, “safe space” monitors or a neutral chairperson put obstacles in the path of those wanting to host speakers. Invitations are rarely issued to those not deemed completely safe.

Unfortunately, none of this can be written off as mere student shenanigans. Where the campus leads, the rest of society follows.

People appointed to public office, such as Toby Young and Sir Roger Scruton, can now routinely expect everything they have ever written to be pored over for phrases that could possibly be interpreted as offensive by someone, somewhere. The demand to no-platform has migrated from the student union into media and politics.

In the end, thanks to the courage of the War Studies team at King’s, my talk went ahead without disruption.

Higher education should be about confronting challenging ideas but, having lobbed rhetorical hand grenades in from the sidelines, the students disappeared.

Apparently, they needed to protest against the Israeli ambassador, who is considered even more despicable than me.

Dr Joanna Williams is head of education at Policy Exchange

It’s a tricky business criticising the UN, its spendthrift agencies, its sense-blind “rapporteurs”, and its sprawling bureaucracy, as Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary, last week found out to her cost. “Historical and cultural vandalism” was the judgment of Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, when Ms Mordaunt proposed to Cabinet that the UK leave Unesco, the UN specialised agency responsible for educational, scientific and cultural cooperation. We’re “slavishly following America down a path to isolationism,” Ms Thornberry thundered, “and an ever-increasing detachment from the institutions that should govern the globe”.

I’ll assume Ms Thornberry does not really believe in global government, although her comments did betray a view that nation states, especially rich, humane ones like the UK, cannot be trusted to protect their heritage or promote literacy in developing countries (I wonder what she thinks our enormous international aid budget is for). Hers is merely the instinctive Leftist reaction to any critique of what has come to be grandly termed “the rules-based international order”, however wasteful, ineffective or unaccountable the institutions that are meant to promote it have become.

Unesco is a case in point. The

UK has quit the agency before, in 1985 when Margaret Thatcher’s government condemned its

Speakers are threatened until they withdraw. If they do not, obstacles are put in the path of organisers. Invitations are rarely issued to those not deemed completely safe

In resolution after resolution, Unesco is accused of being misused by countries hostile to Israel to attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish state

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion