Cambridge University LGBTQI+ students: we are not attempting to silence free speech, we just want to deplatform Helen Joyce

We had Nick Griffin to speak at a debate whilst I was at uni. It was a thing of beauty. He was allowed to say his piece and then each of his points were calmly questioned and respectfully demolished. He was shown to have no proper arguments beyond Prejudice. Its what should happen for all stupid ideas - expose them to sunlight and watch them wither.

Nick Griffin on QT is a fantastic example of why giving people with shitty views a huge platform to speak is actually a fantastic idea.

The reason they want to no-platform feminists is because they are worried that they will have decent arguments that are very difficult to refute. Or that feminists might say something that ruins their safe space echo chamber, and that they might have to hear opinions they don't like. I mean, it's terrifying stuff!

Yes exactly @TheBiologyStupid.

In this instance though, I expect the students don't want to hear Joyce for the opposite reason. I've not heard her speak a lot but she is a brilliant writer

Dear all,
It has come to our attention that...oh fuck off, no one cares.

Ditto. And yet when Griffin finally appeared on BBC One's Question Time it was brilliant because he was exposed to the nation as a complete fool and the exposure did more harm to the BNP in that single hour than trying to silence it had ever done.

This is not an attempt to silence free speech [...] It is for these reasons that we implore Gonville and Caius to reconsider their decision to platform Joyce.

No wonder they have trouble with logic and reality...

@beastlyslumber I am sorry to hear about your experience. Thank you for speaking up. I agree with you that the courageous speak. But to me also there is a moral imperative when you see those around you punished for speaking truth and you allow them to bear all of the slack. Thinking of all the high profile academics, writers, and ordinary women who have taken so much shit. Much respect from me and thank you.

Are there any statistics about how many "trans young people" have actually died by suicide? If it was anything like the stats the students claim threaten to I'm sure we'd be aware of it.

"free speech and scientific inquiry. It goes without saying that this kind of rhetoric is fundamentally against what we as LGBT officers stand for"

I think they don't need to say anything else. That sums it up.

Joody, I've only been able to speak freely on this subject since I no longer have a teaching job. Over the past few years, I've been subject to a number of student complaints and attempts to get me sacked. I was also 'cancelled' on twitter years ago. I'm still losing friends over this topic, and my reputation is in tatters. It's a very high price to pay. I do wish that people who were in a position to speak up did so - there are a lot of people who are in an excellent position to intervene in this debate but who are keeping their mouths well and truly shut. I think it's probably always the case that the truly courageous individuals are in the minority.

@beastlyslumber you have convinced me. But I am still lack respect a little for all those who turn the other way and won't rock the boat. I have felt hugely let down by the very very few people who are prepared to discuss genderism even privately. @Clymene agree about IQ tests totally

Incidentally traditional IQ tests are terrible for testing intelligence in anyone who doesn't come from a standard white western middle class background

I see what you mean @JoodyBlue . I think that people not speaking up is because they know there will be terrible consequences, i.e. their speech has already been curtailed. They fear losing their jobs, friends, livelihoods and reputations. It's absolutely vicious what happens to people who put their heads above the parapet. I don't blame anyone for not speaking up in this climate, although I agree that things would go better if more people were able to.

I am wondering aloud if there are some ideas that are so obviously worth protecting, that they cannot be challenged

We only know that some ideas are worth protecting because they have withstood many, many challenges. Good ideas emerge from challenge and interrogation. Racial equality is a great idea, and has already been put through the mill over hundreds of years. It can totally withstand any number of debates. What it can't withstand is being given a 'protected' category, and never flexing its muscles. We are already seeing how it is under attack from those who want a return to racial segregation and hierarchy, and I think it's in part because we've acted as though it's an idea that we can just state as a fact rather than argue for and defend as a dynamic principle.

I have become a much more of an advocate of free speech the older I get. As a student I probably would have been in favour of no platforming Nick Griffin. But now I think that we absolutely should give to those ideas sunlight. And a university which is a venue for the very best minds (in theory) in the country is surely the ideal venue to expose them for their intellectual paucity.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m not saying anyone should be banned from speaking on anything. I’m saying I don’t think some topics should be chosen to be debated - this is not the same thing at all, as far as I can see. Inviting someone to speak formally at a university on a particular topic implies, as you say in your post, institutionally granting that topic (and that speaker) a seriousness - the idea that it is relevant, legitimate, not “too niche”, etc.

I don’t think we would want to do that in the case of racial IQ differences, though clearly there is room for disagreement here about what is too niche, too silly, not serious, not legitimately an issue of concern, etc.

I think that’s completely different from the gender ideology case, NOT because we should institutionally facilitate formal debate on every topic regardless of how extreme, how daft, etc - but because the topic of gender ideology is a different kind of issue. ”Trans identities” are (in my opinion) an unscientific load of nonsense since one can’t change sex.

I’m getting the sense that I’m coming at this from a different angle from several others here. I guess I’d be very interested to know if the extent of others’ commitment to freedom of speech has been created/increased by the experience of the gender ideology/TRA debates, or whether you’ve always held this position. In real life I haven’t come across many with such an extreme commitment to freedom of speech, and speaking personally I know that my position on - for example - the uselessness of “hate speech” as a concept has been hardened greatly by watching the misuse of it by TRAs.

@beastlyslumber because of this issue, I am wondering aloud if there are some ideas that are so obviously worth protecting, that they cannot be challenged. Such as the examples I gave above. You may well be arguing that there are not. I would not say you are wrong necessarily. I am gobsmacked by the anti-scientific incline that society has taken recently though because not enough people are brave enough to stand against it.

@beastlyslumber sorry I'm not making myself clear. I accept all of the points you are making and in theory I am also an advocate of entirely free speech on principal. What I'm saying though is that free speech on the subject on genderism has been suppressed because not enough of those who have been free to speak up in theory have. In particular I am thinking of all of the parents of school kids who say such things as "it's ridiculous, but I'm not rocking the boat for my little Johnnie at school". Hence bad ideas are able to take political hold because not enough ordinary people will stand against them. And so the free speech of those who do is curtailed because the brave people who say what they want to are then punished socially. I am certainly not arguing against free speech. I guess I'm trying to highlight some of the difficulties I see in people not using it enough. I am trying to highlight that many people can be and are obviously coerced into bad ideas.

It is of course the usual nonsensical load of claptrap dressed up in an incomprehensible diatribe but the fact is that these people do not want to debate on a sensible level. They are running scared of facts and just want to hide in a corner. This is the opposite of what a university should be. A university should be a place where people exchange ideas and vigourously debate them in a civilised way. The people who do not wish to debate ideas in this fashion or who are too mentally disturbed to do so should not be at university. These people who claim that people are going to commit suicide if Helen Joyce comes and speaks are just indulging in emotional blackmail and should be ignored. Universities are the place for free speech and should always remain the same. People who do not like that should leave and form their own conclave and cult

But free speech has not been physically suppressed, there have just been too many people unprepared to challenge it because it has been promoted by the establishment.

I'm not clear what you're saying here, Joody. But there's no doubt that speech has been and is being suppressed at universities and in other places up and down the land.

We have to remember that the price we pay for our own free speech is everyone else's free speech. If we want to be able to speak, we have to accept that people we disagree with have that same right, too. Since we can't stop them from speaking, we go one better and we debate them, and we win (if and when we have the better case).

Thinking further on Humanities/Arts and STEM, it's not even that simple to 'solve'; I'm thinking of people with science training like Alice Roberts blapping on about clownfish to try to justify why TWAW. And I recently read that book Bitch, about female animals that behave more like the stereotypes of male ones and not at all like stereotypes of femininity. It's fascinating and (I think; I'm no scientist) robust – until the end, when even it goes a bit clownfish and talks about sex as a spectrum, again with reference to obscure species and behaviours. So it's not only Arts types who are susceptible to the kind of mental gymnastics we're talking about; ANYONE who's an intellectual/academic, in any field, can and in some cases do make a case for pretty much anything. It's possible as long as you don't mind how obscure and granular you go.

Universities are places that have actually been structured specifically so that controversial topics can be discussed. And researched. They are the best place to talk about this stuff. In part because in the past they have been largely uninterested in pandering to people's feelings and sensibilities.

Look at how damaging it has been that gender ideology could not be openly researched and discussed, even the scientific elements. This was on the basis of the kind of argument you are making. That disputing trans identities is not something an institution with standing should be supporting in any way.

What makes an idea too niche to be discussed in a university is really just that it creates no interest or controversy among academics. It's too silly, too obviously not serious. As soon as anyone does raise an issue seriously in academia, it's an issue worthy of discussion, whether you think it's correct or totally wrongheaded and so needs to be opposed.

You should have a look at the Glen Loury podcast above, and remember that under the thinking you are suggesting, Murray would be barred from university speaking events too. They go into a fair bit of detail in the discussion about how tools used by economists and social scientists quite recently, like looking at employment stats in relation to IQ, are no longer considered ok because of this new idea that some things are just out of bounds because somehow we all know they are wrong.

No, I know, I completely agree.

I would also love to listen to a debate on race -IQ. There is so much to unpick. Who invented IQ tests and on what cultural and educational foundations are they built on which mean some groups of people are better at doing well at them? Does it matter if you have a high IQ? Are you more likely to do better, be better if you have other traits that we haven't invested in measuring in a similar way. I would expect to go to a debate and hear ideas or arguments that I had never considered.

I think it's widely accepted by people like these kids trying to deplatform HJ.

It's certainly not been accepted overall in English universities in the past.

Here is the thing, if you think it is not the case that intelligence is related to race, good empirical evidence and argument will support that position. Which means it has an advantage against the arguments of grifters and racists.

If you do not have serious discussion about these ideas, neither side has an advantage. Because you will certainly not somehow prevent the discussion from happening, it will simply move to dark corners.

Which scenario is better in terms of what you want more easily influenced people to see?

Laws against Holocaust denial are frankly foolish and will come back to bite people in the arse - they already are.

To respond to above. I'm not really making an anti free speech case. I am undecided personally. But there are issues with charismatics, I think that is undeniable. Yes I am talking about genderism. But free speech has not been physically suppressed, there have just been too many people unprepared to challenge it because it has been promoted by the establishment. This is my point. There are not enough people prepared to challenge bad ideas. Perhaps there is a case to say some points have been well established and therefore are not up for discussion. Racial equality being a case in point. Same with holocaust denial. Perhaps I am coming across as anti-free speech. It is the opposite of what I feel. But I feel there are dangers too.