Free speech

Universities – whether state funded or private -- are not just places of research and teaching. Everyone agrees that they also have important normative and ethical obligations to society (it is, after all, the basis on which the taxpayer forks out for them).

In his 1997 report, Lord Dearing spelt this out carefully. It was the duty of universities, he said, 'to play a major role in shaping a democratic, civilised and inclusive society'. He repeatedly emphasised these points ('universities must be part of the conscience of democratic society, founded on respect for the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the individual to society as a whole').

If Dearing is correct (and I believe he is), it must follow that universities should not be sites of 'truly free debate' where that debate would lead people to want to undermine or overthrow our democratic society or attack, harm or terrorise individuals. My concern here is with politics and the importance of creating a democratic, civilised and inclusive Britain -- but similar considerations might apply in other areas of academic activity (for example the exploitation of 'bad science').

Of course, some would argue that words are merely words, not weapons, so that full freedom of speech is never a problem. Others might accept words can cause harm but believe this is the price of liberty. One might add: if you cannot say whatever you like in a university, how can academics discharge the other tasks Dearing laid upon them ('promoting respect for evidence, encourage curiosity, challenge existing ideas and generate new ones')?

Actually, there are three rather different questions here. First, whether words are, or can be, weapons; second, if they are, whether universities should control their use – and third, whether universities still breed 'respect for evidence and new ideas' in any case. History answers the first: words used by visitors to campuses or by dons with political agendas can be very dangerous weapons. If the price of their pitch is radicalisation or terrorism, it is too high. Indeed, civilised values in our complex and unhappy culture are more likely to prosper if words which set person against person, or group against group, are left unsaid. Self-censorship would be the best way of achieving this end but ethics committees might act if this didn't happen. When I was a student, the bizarre theories of Prof Eysenck of the LSE (who suggested that black people had lower IQs than white people) almost certainly fuelled the racist thinking of many. Even if he had been right, which he wasn't, he should have kept quiet.

What's more, universities are no longer temples of pure knowledge, unsullied by contact with governments. Because they have come to accept this without demur, most academics now keep their heads down. The relentless search for money, particularly from Arab and Islamic states but also from the government (whose 'initiatives' make state-funded institutions bob to every half-baked DIUS scheme) has skewed and will skew the research and teaching they undertake. Are you going to criticise the governance of a country that pays for your new research centre? You should, of course, but are you?

The search for balance – the essence of academia – has long been replaced by a left orthodoxy which squeezes out 'unpopular' (that is, non-left) views. The hard graft of ensuring the other side of the story is always told is eschewed in favour of researching what is politically correct or what is trivial beyond belief. Without balance, there can be no academic debate and indeed the culture of debate in universities has been replaced by the cult of the celebrity, whether evidenced by those getting honorary degrees or the 'speakers' invited to the Oxford Union.

Free speech is also curtailed in universities by the law of libel and the Terrorism Act 2006. This makes it a criminal offence to directly or indirectly incite or encourage others to commit acts of terrorism (including the glorification of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications). Rightly so.

'Liberty', predictably, said that this act created 'unacceptably broad speech offences'. These new crimes, it said, 'represent a serious incursion on free speech rights, criminalising careless talk'. Yet 'Liberty' got very terribly muddled trying to explain how 'free speech rights' are undermined (rather than sustained) by preventing people from inciting others to kill their fellow citizens, or of what, precisely, 'careless talk' consists. It certainly isn't 'careless' to call for the expulsion of blacks or Muslims from Britain, or glorify Islamist revolution. 'Liberty', not for the first time, appears to set the rights of protesters, for example those calling for the beheading of those who published the (nasty) cartoons of Muhammed, higher than the rights of those against whom they were protesting.

Our universities are better – and safer – for agreeing to ban extremists from campuses; the NUS 'no platform policy' which excludes and marginalises racists whether from the extremes of fascism or Islamism is both excellent and ethical. In theory, academics will cheer for Voltaire (who famously said 'I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it'). It seems to encapsulate what functioning democracies and universities should be about. But in reality things are no longer so simple. Free speech has been used to destroy the free speech of others and to fight for the right of your enemies to destroy you is simply suicidal. For Britain to be democratic, civilised and inclusive, universities must leave some things unsaid.


Professor Anthony Glees is Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham