Some good news!

[pegdolly]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5684887/Minister-bans-student-trend-censoring-controversial-speakers.html

Seems that maybe, just maybe, common sense is creeping back into politics!

I would disagree with your view of Prevent TheNavigator, I’m in the East Midlands (and work in education), and certainly the Prevent duty has been useful in the settings I work in, there have been numerous cases of kids being identified as at risk from right wing extremism and interventions used accordingly.

(Although I work in secondary and FE not Uni/HE)

I am in an area where radicalisation really is not a risk, so the Prevent duty is disproportionate in that we have to apply it, regardless. And in HE that largely comes down to having to have a policy on speakers and events, that encompasses our students' association.

So basically we have been pissed on then told off for using an umbrella.

wacademia thanks helpful to have it set out so clearly.
Seems like universities are in a bind.
That’s all such a subversion of how most people might think universities should be able to work, ie they should be able to be educating and challenging students to turn out robust critical thinkers at the end of the course, rather than having to run the whole institution as a popularity contest between rival universities because ‘unis’ are all reliant on student fees. Central funding is needed.
Then govt places responsibilities on universities- like ensuring free speech- which in principle is the right idea, but which all of the above financial factors mitigate against because they create a specific climate which is about not being able to really challenge students thinking because the customer is always right.

Article about the protests against WPUK meeting in Oxford.
By Rebecca Lush,
"in those 26 years of protest-organising I have never witnessed anything like the authoritarian, silencing tendency of current trans activism against women meeting to discuss their legal rights."

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/women-have-every-right-discuss-changes-law-could-affect-them

"This Quaker man became very upset and frustrated at the lack of respect accorded to him and the contempt with which he and the survivors’ group were treated.

The female co-ordinator of the survivors’ group came out and tried to speak, but none of the students would listen. They just continued their chants to drown her out. I spoke to a number of the students around me and asked the male leader with the megaphone whether he would communicate to the rest of the protesters that a meeting of sexual abuse survivors was being disrupted and his exact words were “we don’t care.”

There was something uniquely obnoxious about a privileged male Oxford student telling women that they didn’t care about sexual abuse survivors and that women need to get back in their box as they had no right to speak."

Report from NUStrans18
[extract]
"It is undoubtable to say that this year we saw a huge spike in Transphobia across the spectrum. Groups like Women’s Place attempted to limit Trans discussion, Trans activists had to face attacks by TERFS (It stands for “Trans-exclusionary-radical-feminist, those women who deny transsexual women acceptance in the women’s liberation movement, or even deny them their right to womanhood) when campaigning in Birmingham and national newspapers tried to compromise the foundation of Trans and nonbinary activism by labelling them as ‘snowflakes’. If anything, these examples demonstrate that we have some way to go with regard to Trans rights. However, #NUSTrans18 Conference was certainly a starting point. Demonstrating activist movements, organisers and The NUS Trans Campaign have a key part to play and are arguably more relevant than ever in 2018."

www.nusconnect.org.uk/articles/nustrans18-conference-highlights

TheNavigator - Prevent isn't just about Islamism (as I'm sure you know). Referrals to Prevent over concerns about Far Right extremism are growing rapidly and I doubt there is a part of the UK where that is not a potential threat.

Regardless, the point of the Prevent duty in relation to speakers is to avoid situations (as has happened previously ) where convicted terrorists and criminals, or those who have been banned from the UK for their (genuine) hate speech are given a platform at UK universities without any real understanding by the authorities of who the speaker is and why their views are problematic and without consideration of taking steps like bookiing another speaker to provide a contrasting opinion.

RowanTrees what an important article thank you for posting. I am trying to restrain my contempt for those ‘protesters’ in oxford having read in this article how obnoxious and mindlessly authoritarian they were behaving. Shame on them.

Founder of TransOxford describes that event as 'the night the bullied became the bullies"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3234661-Condemnation-of-the-shameful-campaign-of-bullying-intimidation-against-WPUK-meeting-by-founder-of-TransOxford

Has the official statement now been made?