Corrosive conformity

I wonder whether Warwick students and alumni would welcome the “brand” of their university (or indeed their degrees) being associated with strict academic obedience and conformity and an avoidance of reasoned debate (“The right to be unpopular”, Leader, 10 July). Definitions of “acceptable” and “dangerous” behaviour in relation to any exercise of free speech (vide the Education Reform Act 1988) are rightly a public concern – or where will it all end?

Nigel Wood
Professor of literature
Loughborough University