Free Speech at Universities

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The government has announced a series of proposals to “strengthen free speech and academic freedom at universities in England”, with a “free speech champion” investigating potential infringements on campuses. The Education Secretary Gavin Williamson warned of a “chilling effect” where students and staff feel they cannot express themselves freely. Many believe these measures are a welcome legal intervention following claims of increasing numbers of individuals being silenced, no-platformed or sacked. Critics, however, say the threat to free speech on campuses is grossly exaggerated and the government is cynically stirring up a culture war to distract from its own failings in tackling Covid. Moreover, they claim these proposals actively undermine free speech because they are just another way of controlling what is 'acceptable' speech, the impact of which is to discipline those who are defending others from racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Students have a right to physical safety and to expect not to be subjected to hatred, but some worry about a ‘concept creep’ in which the definition of hate speech has widened to include any opinions that go against the prevailing orthodoxy. Academics’ own experiences are mixed: some say they feel no pressure of censorship, others believe their colleagues are in denial about the regression of academic freedom. Universities have long been seen as places of intellectual danger, where people go to be shocked and changed. Is this idea in retreat? Or are universities still the vibrant and stimulating places they always were, with a generation of students who are merely less tolerant of intolerance? With Jonathan Haidt, Zamzam Ibrahim, Prof Eric Kaufmanm and Prof Dr Alison Scott-Baumann.

Producer: Dan Tierney

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Good evening. It can be a nasty business teaching philosophy at a British university.
0:04.4	When Professor Kathleen Stock got an OBE last month for services to higher education,
0:09.2	600 fellow philosophers worldwide signed a letter of protest.
0:13.7	Invitations to speak at conferences have been withdrawn because other academics have said
0:18.2	she makes them feel unsafe, even though she's appearing online on a different day.
0:23.5	She compares her treatment to 17th century witch trials. It's strange to work somewhere where people make it quite clear they loathe you, she says.
0:31.9	Professor Stark is a prominent target of the so-called cancel culture in British universities because she maintains biological sex
0:38.7	is immutable, and although she says she's supportive of trans people, questions whether those
0:43.8	she's described as male-bodied should be allowed into formerly women-only spaces.
0:49.0	The government seems now intent on rolling back what it sees as the shutting down of free speech
0:53.8	on campus, introducing new legal measures the shutting down of free speech on campus, introducing
0:55.4	new legal measures and appointing a free speech champion, inevitably dubbed a czar. There are
1:01.6	those who see this as an opportunistic foray into the culture wars that seem to be taking over
1:06.6	from politics as normal. They see the issue as safeguarding students from harm, rather than
1:12.0	imposing a woke orthodoxy, a matter simply of not tolerating intolerance. Others see a new era
1:19.1	of censorship and self-censorship, stifling debate in our colleges. Free speech? Our moral maize
1:25.9	tonight, the panel Anne McClevoy, senior editor at The Economist,
1:29.3	Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University,
1:33.7	Ash Sarkar, editor at Navar, the left-wing media group,
1:37.5	and the historian Tim Stanley.
1:39.6	Tim, you seem to me inoffensive, if rather unfashionable, if I may say so.
1:43.3	Have you ever been cancelled? I was once no platform from Oxford University. That's correct. And it was a troubling experience, although it did get me out of the engagement. So it wasn't all bad. I was an academic for several years, and I never had any trouble with no platforming. But that was a long time ago. And I've since then come out as a conservative
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.