Universities legally bound to protect free speech | Letters
Jo Johnson has decided to grasp the nettle of free speech at universities (Students attack no-platform threat, 27 December). It’s a prickly subject.
The minister seems to have “no-platforming” by student unions in his sights. However, there is a major free-speech failure by the universities themselves that is easier to fix. For some years now universities, not the student unions, have been routinely obstructing campus events that focus on Palestinian rights and their denial by Israel. The government’s own adoption of the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism a year ago has fuelled this, with play-safe administrations seemingly unclear about the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It was Jo Johnson himself who instructed Universities UK to send this definition round to all universities – with a pointed suggestion that they adopt it for internal use. No single act in recent years has been less helpful to free speech in universities.
Campus installations (eg mock checkpoints) have been refused permission, and meetings face a barrage of bureaucratic barriers up to outright cancellation. The threat of disturbances by pro-Israel demonstrators has resulted in the imposition of sky-high security charges – in these cases, instead of protecting free speech, universities have negated it. In 2016 an entire international conference was cancelled on security grounds by the University of Southampton; it was subsequently held successfully in Ireland.
Freedom of speech is legally protected everywhere, and doubly so at universities – under the European convention on human rights, as well as the Education Act 1986. Universities are thus under a positive obligation to protect freedom of speech. Assuming that the minister means what he says, he shouldn’t be threatening the universities with fines for what their student unions (independent bodies) are doing. Rather, he should be telling universities in terms that their own erosion of free speech will not be tolerated.
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Vice-chair, Free Speech on Israel
You quote a senior National Union of Students official as saying it only denies a platform to a small number of extremist groups: al-Muhajiroun, the British National party, the English Defence League, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK and National Action. The vice-president for welfare goes on to say “these are the only organisations ‘no-platformed’ by the NUS. No individual person.”
However, the Guardian and other papers have reported the attempts to no-platform Maryam Namazie at Warwick University (Student union blocks speech by ‘inflammatory’ anti-sharia activist, 26 September 2015) and Goldsmiths, an attempt initially supported by the college authorities until protests by some academics led to them reversing their decision. Far from being dangerous and supporting violence, Ms Namazie works to help those escaping from violence. (Watch the video of her speech at Goldsmiths online to see who is threatening whom.)
Also, individual people have been “no-platformed”. There have been attempts to no-platform Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel, among others. Free speech is essential for a healthy democracy and a worthwhile university education, and any student considered intelligent enough to win a university place should be able to hear – and challenge – a wide range of opinions, including opinions that offend them. We are entering very dangerous waters if we allow the no-platform policy to silence debate. The only restriction to free speech should be when it directly incites violence.
Jill Rooney
Ashtead, Surrey
While it is difficult to argue against Jo Johnson’s call for higher education institutions to uphold the principle of free speech, there is an important caveat that the universities minister failed to acknowledge in his speech. When a speaker with a track record of making factually inaccurate and misleading public statements, such as a climate-change denier, is invited to address a campus audience, he or she should be subjected to robust and rigorous rebuttal that can expose the falseness of their claims. Very often, those who peddle falsehoods to promote an ideology or prejudice wrongly assert that freedom of speech means the right not to be challenged. Above all, universities should remain institutions for learning that help students to acquire the ability to distinguish facts from fictions, and should not simply become theatres for performances by liars and frauds.
Bob Ward
Policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science 
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