Telegraph article - University speakers with GC views most likely to be banned

[SirTiffikate]

Is anyone with a subscription able to post the text of this, or the equivalent of a share token? I can't subscribe to yet another paper just to read the very occasional article, but I'd love to read this one.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/20/university-speakers-gender-critical-views-likely-banned-addressing/

archive.vn/kL7xG

The BBC have a line on this that I've now heard several times. Apparently no-platforming at universities hardly ever happens because in a recent investigation only 6 instances of cancelling speakers had occurred with 4 of these due to paperwork irregularities, 1 due to fraudulent misrepresentation by someone invited to speak, and 1 was Jeremy Corbyn who couldn't safely attend because the venue was too small for the large number of people who would be attending.

I tried to find out the source for this interesting story and found this:

A survey of 61 university students’ unions in December 2020 found that in 2019-20, just 6 events from almost 10,000 involving an external speaker (0.06%) were cancelled – mainly for failing to follow basic administrative processes. But there is nonetheless a concern that there is a “chilling effect”.

On a thread about Kiri Tunks being uninvited by the Labour Party to speak about sexism in education, I mentioned how last week on Radio 4's Any Questions? Anita Anand came out with this prepared line.

Quoting myself:
"Abitofalark Sat 20-Feb-21 20:36:43

On Any Questions on Radio 4, after the Universities Minister Michelle Donelan mentioned no-platforming, the presenter Anita Anand was quick to rush in citing some data reporting only six no-platform cases out of so many thousands and giving chapter and verse as to what sort of cases the six were. I didn't catch the source or all the detail.

Why she was so eager to come prepared so that she could leap in to disprove that there is any such problem in universities? Was it designed to be a gotcha of the Conservative minister or is it something the BBC feels sensitive about for some reason? Perhaps it feels too close to home."

Who conducted the survey and where is it to be found?

The source is this:

wonkhe.com/blogs/our-radical-student-led-proposals-will-secure-and-champion-campus-free-speech/

However, the line being spread by the BBC contains extra information so I suspect what's happened is that wonkhe.com/about-us/ has good contacts and is feeding the survey with bonus information into the BBC and to Novara Media (Ash Sarkar is a fan of this statistic), maybe via wonkhe.com/staff/sol-gamsu/.

Absolute misdirection.

It's not the number of events cancelled, is it? It's the number of speakers disinvited to an event that goes ahead with a suitable wokey replacement. Or 'postponed' but never rebooked.

And they know it fine well.

Thanks for posting the article and the source material. I couldn't agree more with you, @teawamutu. The actual cancellations are the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface are the disinvitations and 'postponements', and below that all the events that never get organised in the first place because the academics and students who might want to organise them are (understandably) unwilling to face the stress of the targeted campaigns that will inevitably be mounted against them.

Then its holocaust deniers and racists on the list.... What does that tell you?

Ash Sarkar is a fan of this statistic

She thinks that "no platforming" isn't happening and so not a real problem?

Ash Sarkar herself has made supportive statements about no platforming people. In her mind, it's OK to do it to "fascists" like Ben Shapiro.

Ash Sarkar on Twitter:

"Of course there's freedom of speech issues on campus - Prevent being perhaps the most worrying of all."

So Ben Shapiro bad and probably shouldn't be given a platform to speak, but apparently the government's counter-violent extremism policy is getting in the way of the kind of university guests that Sarkar wants to see...

I do think it is interesting that much of the analysis of this issue from within HE focuses on what might indeed be summed up as "Holocaust deniers and racists," with no mention whatsoever of GC speakers, as if the latter never actually happens. It would be nice to see some real data on exactly which speakers and topics have been cancelled or not invited in the first place, and what various topics and viewpoints they covered.

However, it's completely irrelevant that some other cancelled speakers are "Holocaust deniers and racists," those are different individuals speaking on different topics who are disinvited for different reasons. Shrug.

@Zinco

Ash Sarkar is a fan of this statistic

She thinks that "no platforming" isn't happening and so not a real problem?

Ash Sarkar herself has made supportive statements about no platforming people. In her mind, it's OK to do it to "fascists" like Ben Shapiro.

Was Sarkar actually dim enough to call Ben Shapiro a fascist or are you paraphrasing?

She definitely appeared to have him in that category. See:

mobile.twitter.com/ayocaesar/status/1126861645341515777

I would say "no platforming" also includes things like violent attacks on speakers, threats being made to people, and intimidation of people entering an event.

I would also include staging a mass walk out of a speech, as that may rob other people of the ability to attend where there are limited tickets.

The "only 6 instances of cancelling speakers" statistic that's been taken up by the BBC gets parroted by presenters and guests on BBC programmes. This means that when no-platforming in universities is discussed, the audience can get this version reinforced by both sides, the BBC presenter and the guest. There's no attribution and no context about it being a narrow set of circumstances for a limited time period.

The BBC like this because it supports the institutional view, that the concerns about no-platforming are wildly overdone, outfits like Novara Media love it because it's doing their propaganda work for them, and supposedly the audience is happy that they're getting a simple and reassuring answer to the question "is no-platforming a problem in UK universities?"

It's a shame that misinformation is being spread and the BBC is misleading the audience but it's a small price to pay to get the right message out there.

[quote nauticant]The source is this:

wonkhe.com/blogs/our-radical-student-led-proposals-will-secure-and-champion-campus-free-speech/

However, the line being spread by the BBC contains extra information so I suspect what's happened is that wonkhe.com/about-us/ has good contacts and is feeding the survey with bonus information into the BBC and to Novara Media (Ash Sarkar is a fan of this statistic), maybe via wonkhe.com/staff/sol-gamsu/.[/quote]
That survey was by Wonkhe, working with students' unions from five universities in England. The introduction to their report in Feb 2021: " The good news - Research from King’s College London last year found that 81 per cent of students think that freedom of expression is more important than ever..." and then went on to give the magic figure of six quoted by nauticant above. wonkhe.com/blogs/our-radical-student-led-proposals-will-secure-and-champion-campus-free-speech/

But wait... I look at the 2019 King's College survey of over 2000 students in 2019 and lo, it also has the magic figure: "King’s College London hosts about 3,000 events a year. Over the past five years there have been around half a dozen incidents which you could legitimately critique King’s for not upholding its commitment to freedom of expression – that is 6 out of 15,000 which is 0.04 per cent."
www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/student-experience-freedom-of-expression.pdf

While the number 6 matches, there's a mismatch in time periods:

A survey of 61 university students’ unions in December 2020 found that in 2019-20, just 6 events from almost 10,000 involving an external speaker (0.06%) were cancelled – mainly for failing to follow basic administrative processes. - Wonkhe

Over the past five years there have been around half-a-dozen incidents which you could legitimately critique King’s for not upholding its commitment to freedom of expression – that is 6 out of 15,000 which is 0.04 per cent. - KCL

But it wouldn't surprise me if the same source led to these mismatched statistics. The one thing I am confident of is the numbers are being misused and misrepresented to pursue a political agenda

The number six is not a match but a coincidence and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. One survey was Dec 2020 and the other was in 2019. I expect the BBC was poring over the King's one as well.

And there is no getting away from the number six. The Wonkhe report also tells us that there are six banned or no platformed organisations on an NUS list. Coincidence again.