To worry about free speech at universities

[ChristinaXYZ]

Despite the various moves by the government to supposedly protect free speech and normal academic deabte the situation on the ground does not seem to change at all.

In the last week Claire Fox was disinvited from Royal Holloway for a deabte on free speech I believe - incredible as that may seem. Some students want to hear what she had to say and had invited her but got 'strong-armed' out of it by the students' union and then failed by the university admin who should have backed free speech.

And before people say it can't be that bad, Claire Fox's was disinvited after liking a Ricky Gervias joke - going on his social media profile that means millions and millions of us are also not fit to speak to university students!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/22/chilling-truth-cancellation/

Today this:

"Dr John Armstrong, a scholar at King's College London (KCL), applied to carry out a survey of elite athletes and volunteers on whether trans women, who are born male, should compete in women's track and field categories and whether they felt they could express their views.

However, the university's ethics panel rejected his application last week citing equality and diversity concerns, in what has been labelled an attack on academic freedom."

Further in the article it goes on to say:

"Dr Armstrong told The Telegraph: "They appear to be trying to prevent me from using the concept of sex at all. I am not misgendering any individuals, I am just accurately using the terms male and female.

"I’m being blocked from conducting research and it’s impacting upon my academic freedom.

"No serious work has been done by the various federations to try to find out the opinions of people in athletics, both at the grassroots and elite athletes.
"By refusing to allow people to conduct research that doesn’t meet certain activist viewpoints, that undermines the credibility of research in general.""

You can read much more here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/26/transgender-athlete-research-rejected-professor-called-trans/

What it must be like to study and work in this kind of cloistered enviroment with a kind of inquisition checking up on whther you have transgressed I can't imagine. there must be hundreds of little choices staff and students make every day to conform - changing what they say,m what they write, the topics they're prepared to research. All the little chilling-effect ramifications that never make the headlines.

And if you think your family is woke enough for your teens to pass the purity tests when they get to unviersity - you're wrong. You can't feed this monster to pacify it. If wants bigger and bigger sacrifices and keeps changing the rules.

I just wish the governemnt would do more. Much more. And now.

Oh good lord, are you really struggling this much with reading comprehension, or deliberately trolling? Or perhaps very, very young and finding it heard to keep up?

You don’t appear to be reading carefully enough to actually understand what I am saying. And hence arguing as though I’m saying something completely different, and sometimes opposite, to what I’ve actually said.

I don’t support Claire Fox. I’m not anti her either. I don’t actually know enough about her to have an opinion on her one way or they other.

What I am very much FOR is freedom of speech and I am AGAINST censorship. I make no bones about that and own it 100%. I don’t understand why you’re frightened of free speech.

No good ever comes of restricting freedom of speech. No good ever comes of totalitarianism.

I’m not telling anyone they have to engage in debate. I’m saying they have to respect the right of others to do so, if they so wish. Nobody should be seeking to control others, or prevent them from hosting or listening to speaker.

Nobody is obliged to invite a speaker to speak. But equally nobody should be trying to censor or deplatforn if a speaker they don’t like is invited by somebody else.

This is what’s happening here.

Maybe this will help you understand. If the University Tiddlywinks Society wants to invite a speaker to one of its events and the University Lawn Bowls Society takes exception to the person, and runs off to complain to the University management, the University management should tell the Bowls Soc complainers that it’s the business of the Tiddlywinks Soc who they invite. Nobody from the Bowls Soc is obliged to show up if they don’t want to. But they don’t get to prevent others from doing so either.

Instead, what’s happened here is the University management has shit its pants and given in to bullying, instead of taking a stand for freedom of speech. It’s pathetic.

😂so everyone has to debate respectfully, except you? You resort to insults because you can’t put forward a logical argument. I’m not reading beyond the insult because it’s a waste of time, which is my right to do. Bye.

From the poster who told someone to fuck off a few posts back . . .

It’s you who can’t put forward a logical argument and can’t follow what’s explained to you, despite numerous people explaining it you in various very simple ways. Which does rather give the impression of either posting with mischief or perhaps more charitably, being so blinded by pre-conceived notions that you’re unable to take in new information and process it adequately.

Exactly 🙄

I disagree with no-platforming guest speakers just because they may offend someone. It is totally ridiculous.

Regarding the academic wanting to study if trans women have an advantage over cis women in athletics - the only institution that should allow spending thousands of pounds on this should be The University of The Bleeding Obvious. Similar academic studies have previously concluded:

1. Students have more accidents and injuries after drinking excess alcohol.
2. Women who get epidurals experience less pain during childbirth than women who don't.
3. People who don't get enough sleep make more mistakes at work than those who do.
4. Wearing high heels for a long time hurts your feet.
5. Chocolate is a poor material for heat resistant applications like fireguards.

Not forgetting the classic:

People in general.

Well that's a bit vague

I've been making this point for a long time and I've had people on threads agree with me, saying that they'd ignored complaints they'd read about because they didn't agree with those de-platformed.

So you're addressing your points to these unnamed posters, but not anyone actually on this thread? Odd. As this doesn't seem to apply to anyone on this thread (by your own admission), I'm not sure why you keep reiterating it.

"Dr Armstrong told The Telegraph: "They appear to be trying to prevent me from using the concept of sex at all. I am not misgendering any individuals, I am just accurately using the terms male and female."

Just on this one point, she might want to tweak her language use a bit, regarding the word 'misgendering' (hopefully my screenshot will post)

This is bullshit.
No one was forced to go to the debate

Those who didn't want to go had the choice to stay away

What they did not have was the right to stop other people who did want to go to the debate from going

Now THAT is totalitarinism

It's not just a standard free speech question either. Universities are unique in their role. It's imperative that ideas of all kinds are heard and discussed. That's the point of them.

I didn't keep reiterating it. I wrote one post. The op then contended that I was against free speech. I corrected them.
Then you started posting to me, accusing me of aiming comments at you. I replied denying that. If you don't want me to reply to you, don't keep quoting me, questioning my posts!

Then you started posting to me, accusing me of aiming comments at you.

I didn't 'accuse' you of anything. I said I didn't know where you were getting this idea from. Turns out you were apparently talking about posters on an entirely different thread, without ever making that clear. Just a bit odd really.

Oh, you and all your odds. 🙄

If freedom means anything at all it means being able to tell people things that they do not wish to hear.
George Orwell.

Too right.

It is disproportionately women who seem to be suffering too. I agree with @DemiColon that it is not just a standard free speech issue either as universities really do have a very particular role. I know it is only a tiny sample but I cannot think of any other point in my life or my parents lvies when over 80% of people responding would agree that there is an issue with saying what you think at university!

I just wish the so-called-conservative government would fine both Royal Holloway and Kings and then set about truly establishing free speech for all side including the right for restrained protest that is not intimdating and does not prevent speakers being heard. (like this lot here trying to prevent women form speaking to each other https://twitter.com/Ashworth101/status/1640250941709377536 not at a university I know but I bet a large proportion of the mostly young male protestors are students and seeing this is part of the chilling effect on young women including at university)

When I was at university you couldn't walk past the union building without someone shoving a leaflet arguing for or against something into your hand. Back when building an argument was a thing. So sad for students now - all that money spent just to learn the hymn book.

Yes. If she was disinvited then she wasn’t welcome to speak. The reason why isn’t relevant. It’s flatly not a violation of freedom of speech for an organisation to say they don’t want you to speak at their venue.

No, the reason why really DOES matter and it would be of great concern if Uni students don't understand that - something would be going very wrong with their education. It is not a level playing field re: who are 'disinvited' - this demonstrates the operation of power. If you let things play out, then if there is not enough interest, ideas can fizzle. If, however, you choose one side of a divided debate to disinvite and allow the other side free reign, e.g. to make policies and influence structures, you are an instrument of power. Presenting it as a neutral face that she was disinvited and refusing to examine the reason shows a lack of critical thinking. Now maybe that's OK in the average Jo(anna) but it's absolutely not OK for people who are being university level educated. Anyone who has had higher education and can't see that has been a victim of a poor system IMHO. Thinking in terms of analogies, if a black rights movement, or a suffrage movement (which maybe this is) speaker were disinvited, I don't think any intelligent person would try and argue that he reason why they were cancelled doesn't matter.

I know it is only a tiny sample but I cannot think of any other point in my life or my parents lvies when over 80% of people responding would agree that there is an issue with saying what you think at university!

Christina over 80% agree with you including me....I think you have got your YABU and YANBUs mixed up!

86% YANBU 'to worry about free speech at Universities'

It's not just speech thats being curtailed in the pursuit of an ideology, it's reality.

Fascinating really given that universities were supposed to be bastions of knowledge and reason.

Can you really not see the contradiction in your statements?

Freedom of speech also means the freedom to say “I don’t want you to speak here”. Yes, that's the freedom of one person, or one group, to prevent another being heard at a public meeting.

What about the public's freedom to hear the information that person wanted to give? And when that information is not in step with the currently prevailing orthodoxy, that means the freedom to be given opposing facts in order to build up a clearer picture. Would you protest at a government seeking that kind of censorship?

the platform decides whether or not you're entitled to use them: true, they have the right to do that.
because that decision is their freedom of speech: false. It's their right to decide who uses their platform, but that is not freedom of speech.

Firstly, “freedom of speech” isn’t actually a legal concept. The legal concept is freedom of expression - which includes actions and words. Refusing a platform is an action protected as freedom of expression (or what people refer to as freedom of speech).

There would only be a contradiction if it were a ban from a public place or a public setting. It’s not. It’s a university. The university have complete and total jurisdiction over who can and cannot speak there. That’s the difference. In a public space, I’d agree with you. In a space that is controlled by a specific person or organisation, they call the shots. Preventing them from making that decision is preventing them from expressing their viewpoint in the way that they wish to do so. If you own/run/control a venue then it is up to you who can and cannot speak there - if you wish to express your opinion by banning certain speakers, that is your right under freedom of speech. If they were saying she couldn’t speak because it violates fire safety policy or because they accidentally double-booked then that wouldn’t be freedom of speech, banning her to express that they disagree with her comments is freedom of speech.

I’m not making any comment on whether I agree with her or why she’s been banned. I have no idea who she is or what she’s said. It’s just that this particular scenario is a simple case of their freedom of expression trumping her freedom of expression because they own the venue.

The BBC gave notorious right winger Nick Griffin a platform on Question Time in the 90s. Once at the table with the grown ups he had to answer proper political questions and not rely on whining that he was an oppressed martyer denied freedom of speech. Support for the BNP pretty much collapsed overnight once it was revealed what a political lightweight one trick pony he really was.

People used to be able to have calm, measured debates with those they strongly disagreed with, to share a platform with individuals who they despised personally. Because they had confidence in the strength of their own arguments, and evidence to back them up.

What are students learning if they can't bring themselves to hear from people they don't like?

Who gets to decide that? Clearly some people did want her to speak at the university, or they wouldn't have invited her.

Are you seriously suggesting that liking Ricky Gervais or not believing that humans can change sex makes you equivalent to a Nazi or a Holocaust denier?

Because if you are, you are part of the problem.

The university get to decide, fucking obviously.

As I’ve stated multiple times now (and you have chosen to blatantly ignore), I’m not making any comment on whether she should have been banned, about her personally or statements that she has made. Just that it’s their right to ban her because saying the disagree with her is their freedom of expression.

Who specifically at the university?

And if universities are making such batshit decisions, are they actually fit for purpose?

All these woke warriors should be sacked and universities should be allowed to get back to what they are actually for: education (as opposed to indoctrination) and research.