The lines on free speech are becoming blurred

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Robin Thicke, Nietzsche and Page 3 do not, at first glance, appear to have a great deal to do with terrorism.

But there is a thread that links all three, suggests a new ranking – freedom of speech. Thicke’s song Blurred Lines (accused by some campaigners of glorifying rape), a society dedicated to the German philosopher, and The Sun have all been banned from UK universities.

At a time when higher education leaders are battling against the government’s proposed counter-terrorism bill, those behind the Free Speech University Rankings, produced by the online magazine Spiked, claim their findings mean that institutions should get their own houses in order before taking the fight to the home secretary.

The rankings, released on 2 February, found restrictions on freedom of expression at four out of five UK universities. A total of 47 institutions were given a “red” rating by the rankings, meaning they were deemed to be particularly censorious.

Dennis Hayes, professor of education and head of the Centre for Educational Research at the University of Derby, was in the team behind the report. He said that many university policies went far beyond legislative requirements. “If universities believe in academic freedom and free speech, they should be looking at their own practices and those of student unions, as well as what the government imposes,” he added.

But should we consider the banning of a newspaper or a song to be in the same league as restricting a speaker who condemns people on account of their religion, ethnicity or sexuality?

Another member of the team that compiled the rankings, Joanna Williams, suggested that the arguments fell into the same arena because censorship on campus was part of a general trend that reflected a fear of giving offence.

“The idea of putting things beyond debate, particularly in the name of safety and emotional protection, says that some things are [too] dangerous to be discussed.

“I think university should be the place where students do confront all different kinds of ideas and engage with these discussions and don’t have discussions closed down,” Dr Williams, senior lecturer in higher education and academic practice at the University of Kent, said. “The real world doesn’t have a ‘safe-space policy’ – students are going to be confronted by Ukip MPs and The Sun newspaper, and the danger of creating university as a safe place is that students don’t learn how to deal with these things.”

But Eve Livingston, vice-president for societies and activities at the Edinburgh University Students’ Association, takes a different view.

“It is precisely because of the importance of freedom of speech that we enact no-platform policies and we reserve the right not to use our resources for material that is potentially harmful to our students,” she said. “When speakers, events or media make students feel unsafe and marginalised, their voices are being silenced.”

When this happens, she said, “free speech is no longer serving its origins of holding the privileged and powerful to account. We owe it to our students not to allow this co-opting of a very important principle.”

The producers of the rankings question whether students’ unions typically have the democratic mandate to decide on what is palatable for their members. Professor Hayes claimed that it reflected a “thinly veiled prejudice” that presumes that some groups of students are less able to withstand a challenge than others.

But Dr Williams acknowledged that although the current campus constraints reflected a history of “no platform” tactics, they had resulted from the accumulation of “incremental, one-off bans” rather than a conscious decision to restrict free speech.

“My hope is that the rankings, in exposing the extent to which this is happening across the country, will really encourage students, lecturers and managers to assess whether this is a good thing in total,” she said.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com