BBC article - Free speech plan to tackle 'silencing' views on campus

[Pluckedpencil]

This is an article today on the BBC website. Does anyone know what it stems from? It feels like trans activism, but I'm not sure.

Someone can't just "come to campus". They have to be invited by a member of the university, and they are never given an opportunity to speak unchallenged. It's a university, not an evangelical church. It's also quite insulting to say that members of a university could be "easily persuaded and radicalised

Why? Anyone can be persuaded and radicalised with the right speaker. What makes University students different?

And aren't they given an opportunity to speak unchallenged? I remember people at my Uni coming to give their point of view without someone countering them. Just giving a lecture.

Are you suggesting that university students don't or aren't capable of forming cogent views on the basis of a lecture? I had lectures, but that wasn't the start and end of what I thought. That's the point of university, to explore ideas for yourself.

I think the question here is more about the HARM of a particular belief -- that's what governs speech limitations, not whether or not the speech is robust!
If speech can cause harm "ginger people are a genetic flaw and should not be allowed to reproduce" why do you think people should have to put up with it?

Your example is rather an extreme one which implicates eugenics so it obscures the greyer areas around who gets to decide whether speech causes harm. Undoubtedly, there are groups claiming that speech causes harm in order to shut down their opponents. It's a political strategy, and it works very well, including as a means to remove legal rights from certain groups. No one would now dare say that women don't have a penis on a university campus, even though the majority of the population and everyone working in the biology department believe that to be the case. Should people not be allowed to voice this view and provide evidence for it because some people claim that it is harmful?

And aren't they given an opportunity to speak unchallenged? I remember people at my Uni coming to give their point of view without someone countering them. Just giving a lecture.

In the 28 years I've been in the sector, I've never been to an event that had an invited speaker that didn't involve discussion. Not once. So I find that hard to believe.

Should people not be allowed to voice this view and provide evidence for it because some people claim that it is harmful

So you think there are some views that can be expressed and some views that can't be expressed?

Which views do you think should be allowed to be expressed and which views do you think shouldn't be allowed to be expressed?

And what if your view on those views differs from someone else's views?

In the 28 years I've been in the sector, I've never been to an event that had an invited speaker that didn't involve discussion. Not once. So I find that hard to believe

Does a discussion mean that views are challenged?
Or is a discussion just people who believe the same thing talking amongst themselves in an echo chamber agreeing with the speaker?

Why? Anyone can be persuaded and radicalised with the right speaker. What makes University students different?

What makes people capable of persuasion and radicalisation is a lack of ability to think critically and independently. Ensuring that people do not hear and process opposing viewpoints is hardly conducive to developing these skills.

The point is that everyone gets to speak, and critique the ideas.

@LexMitior

The point is that everyone gets to speak, and critique the ideas.

Are you happy for anyone to come to speak at a University on any subject, no matter how controversial?

Assuming they were invited

@chomalungma

Who gets to decide what is ok to be said and not ok be said?

exactly. The UN Women Oxford UK society (part of Oxford University) invited Amber Rudd, to speak for International Women's Day but a group of students decided that she should be cancelled and disinvited her half an hour before the event - she was travelling to get there.

Now, whether or not you agree with her politics or every decision taken in her day job, Amber Rudd is an inspiring example for women being successful in politics. She is one of the very few women ever that has risen to the top ranks of government and comes across as a very reasonable intelligent woman.

That group of students (the UN subsequently withdrew its links to that group) made a unilateral decision that deprived all of the other students of the opportunity to listen to and maybe meet a very interesting woman. They set the agenda on who was acceptable and not acceptable based on their feelings and narrow political views.

Germaine Greer is another amazing woman who was deplatformed by a representative at Cardiff University.

Renowed speaker and feminist writer Selina Todd was deplatformed by an Oxford students group, and has to have security guards accompany her around her workplace campus for her personal protection (deemed necessary by the university)

Feminist Julie Bindel was physically attacked (although not deplatformed) at an event at Edinburgh University. but also 'no-platformed' by a London University in a debate about prostitution and a Manchester University debate where the male anti-feminist speaker was not banned (the blatant hypocrisy later led to the whole thing being cancelled)

Can anyone see a link between any of these people? Why is it acceptable for some women to be banned/disinvited and treated extremely rudely (like Amber Rudd) from events and even be in fear of physical attacks in their workplace?

Universities have become exactly the opposite of being places of intellectual exploration and open debate and it is harmful to all of us.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/09/no-platform-universities-julie-bindel-exclusion-anti-feminist-crusade

I work in HE and it's a genuine issue that often divides down staff/student lines. Most (but not all) academics tend to of the view that the ability to respectfully challenge opinion, and have intelligent debate should be protected at all costs. Free speech is important and the best way to tackle prejudice is to hold it up to the light.

Unfortunately, many students disagree. Over the past few years I've observed a generation of students who increasingly advocate censorship of anything that offends them. (And it seems a lot does offend them.) I find it hugely frustrating and a backward step.

@chomalungma

In the 28 years I've been in the sector, I've never been to an event that had an invited speaker that didn't involve discussion. Not once. So I find that hard to believe

Does a discussion mean that views are challenged?
Or is a discussion just people who believe the same thing talking amongst themselves in an echo chamber agreeing with the speaker?

Fair point. Increasingly, universities are an echo chamber, yes. Because only certain unofficially-sanctioned views can be expressed there. Which brings us back to the problem at hand.

@chomalungua

Yes I am happy with that. It was how it has worked for hundreds of year since the Enlightenment. Its a form of strength to be able to critique and discuss ideas and if you can't, your universities and intellectual class stagnate.

Why, to put the contrary position to you, is that some ideas cannot be critiqued or considered? That makes them akin to a kind of religion, where believers are immune from the usual rules of intellectual life.

Are you happy for anyone to come to speak at a University on any subject, no matter how controversial?

Assuming they were invited

Yes. Because the alternative is even worse. I say that as someone who is not white and who works someone where a far-right speaker was invited to speak a few years ago.

Fair point. Increasingly, universities are an echo chamber, yes. Because only certain unofficially-sanctioned views can be expressed there. Which brings us back to the problem at hand

OTOH, if a group wants to bring a speaker in to discuss something relevant to that group at University, should they be allowed to ban people from taking part in that discussion because they are not part of that group?

@suspiria777

I think the question here is more about the HARM of a particular belief that's what governs speech limitations, not whether or not the speech is robust!If speech can cause harm "ginger people are a genetic flaw and should not be allowed to reproduce" -- why do you think people should have to put up with it?

Because the best way to deal with offensive viewpoints is to publically scrutinise them and expose them as nonsense. Silencing people and shoving such views underground does not stop them existing or spreading their bullshit. It's not about the individual saying 'this offends me, I don't want to hear it' it's about countering stupid arguments with truth and logic and enabling an audience to recognise that the speaker's viewpoint is hugely flawed. That is the only way to affect lasting change. Censorship is not healthy for society.

What a good discussion. It's terrifying in terms of the future that people are trying to enshrine in law beliefs that counter science and biology, eg women have penises). The tools for doing this are silencing and no platforming. Everyone must be afforded respect and rights in a democracy but we must also be able to insist that where rights conflict - eg, women's sports, keeping vulnerable women in prison safe etc, we must be able to discuss and negotiate. Young people believing - and being enabled by universities - that rights do not have to be respected if you don't agree with them and that you can just silence views you don't like are being sold short. They end up with no tools to negotiate life's challenges.

@chomalungma

Fair point. Increasingly, universities are an echo chamber, yes. Because only certain unofficially-sanctioned views can be expressed there. Which brings us back to the problem at hand

OTOH, if a group wants to bring a speaker in to discuss something relevant to that group at University, should they be allowed to ban people from taking part in that discussion because they are not part of that group?

What do you think? You're firing questions out at people, which have been responded to, but don't seem to be articulating a position yourself.

@GCAcademic

Maybe she is not used to this sort of debate, which goes to the root of the issue, does it not?

You can't just put your hands over your ears and shout "la la la la la la" and pretend that people with different, sometimes harmful views don't exist. Putting a spotlight on them is a far more effective way of dealing with them.

@CheddarGorgeous

You can't just put your hands over your ears and shout "la la la la la la" and pretend that people with different, sometimes harmful views don't exist. Putting a spotlight on them is a far more effective way of dealing with them.

I think this argument is fundamentally flawed. We’ve seen a rise in extremist views as the likes of Tommy Robinson, Milo Yiannopoulos have had access to the internet to platform themselves. This stuff has seeped out far further and become more mainstream. Deplatforming is completely appropriate. If people want to discuss this stuff in their own circles they are free to do so, but they don’t have to have an audience offered up to them . I’m very concerned about this new initiative.

@Hereward1332

No platforming stifles debate, meaning issues are aired in an echo chamber. Challenging distasteful views in the open is the better way to combat them than virtue signalling no-platforming

This.

Have a read through of this website and think about whose speech is being silenced. My experience isn't there, but could be - threatened with a disciplinary procedure by my university for a student complaint about my "transphobic" views expressed on Twitter ie that I'm not "cis", tart biology is not bigotry, and that women have the legal right to single-sex spaces NB: I never taught the student, wouldn't know them if I feel over them)

gcacademianetwork.weebly.com/

No one seems to care how unsafe women feel when THEIR existence is being denied. When their safe spaces have been removed. When female academics have to be escorted around campus by guards because they know biological sex is real.

If you feel ‘unsafe’ hearing different viewpoints, you’re too fragile to live a day-to-day life, let alone be at university. And the world shouldn’t have to change to accommodate you. There is help you can seek.

You also can just not go to talks if you’d rather not.

I think this argument is fundamentally flawed. We’ve seen a rise in extremist views as the likes of Tommy Robinson, Milo Yiannopoulos have had access to the internet to platform themselves. This stuff has seeped out far further and become more mainstream

The reason that these views have become more mainstream is precisely because they are not tackled head-on and made to come into contact with opposing views. The more you try to suppress something, and the more people you try to silence, the more they congregate together, away from spaces where they can be properly countered. The internet is only a platform of sorts, incidentally. While it may pose as democratic space it is in fact an aggressively capitalist and male space, and very far from being a democratic institution.