It appears Labour will allow the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act to proceed, but with both arms tied behind its back. Progressive illiberalism is simply too close to the hearts of Left-wing activists to be jettisoned.
The bill is a shadow of its former self, and is therefore unlikely to prevent no-platforming, cancellation mobs or the chilling of academics through the extended opaque disciplinary processes which I experienced several times at my former university. Left-wing forces inside and outside the party have clearly managed to hamstring the Act.
I have had numerous run-ins with woke illiberalism. All it took was a radical group of students or staff members to file a complaint with phrases such as “investigation”, “bringing the university into disrepute” and “violating our policy in work and study” featuring prominently. Until you receive this kind of missive, you cannot understand its psychological impact. The subsequent hearings and correspondence take months or more to resolve, driving home the message that doing something such as retweeting a clip of Justin Trudeau being unable to pronounce “LGBTQ++” is forbidden speech. Best to keep quiet.
Labour’s initial attempt to kick this late-term Tory legislation into the long grass by pressing the pause button is a worrying sign. It shows that the party is not seriously committed to protecting academic freedom when it inevitably collides with hurt feelings. As Government sources have alleged, the act was a “hate speech charter”. Ministers have only acted because of overwhelming opposition and lobbying from high-profile academics such as Richard Dawkins and an imminent judicial review brought by the Free Speech Union.
The legislation, which a number of academics including me were involved in drafting, creates a duty on universities to not only protect but promote academic freedom. It establishes an Academic Freedom Directorate on the sector regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), led by an Academic Freedom Director — a solid proponent of academic freedom, Arif Ahmed of the University of Cambridge.
The Academic Freedom Directorate initially also made a provision for an ombudsman to whom staff and students could complain if universities violated their academic freedom or slow-walked their complaints. It extended to cover student unions, some of the most intolerant actors on campus today. It also established a statutory tort to allow plaintiffs a right to sue their universities for violation of their rights, so that institutions could not just ignore OfS rulings. However, this right was conditional upon the plaintiff first exhausting OfS and internal appeal processes and was thus extremely unlikely to be abused by vexatious claimants as its detractors charged.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has done the bidding of the radical lecturer’s union, the UCU, by removing student unions from the legislation. They are now free to no-platform “hateful” gender-critical feminists or even ordinary Right-of-centre politicians. Meanwhile, the right to sue has been struck off at the behest of the universities’ lobby group, UUK. Students will no longer be permitted to use the OfS complaints scheme but must instead shout into the wind to the notoriously ineffective Office of the Adjudicator for Higher Education, a body whose failure to act helped give rise to the legislation. Finally, while Arif Ahmed has been permitted to remain in post, Phillipson has signalled that he will be on a tight leash by suggesting that his appointment was political.
What this means in practice is that when Ahmed tries to issue guidelines about how to reform notoriously illiberal policies around “respect” or “bringing the university into disrepute” or harassment, he will meet obfuscation from Government and bureaucrats. With his hands tied, there will likely be no penalty for universities which fail to protect, much less promote, academic freedom as is their duty under the law.
The process will be the punishment, and progressive illiberalism will continue to be the order of the day at Britain’s universities. This reflects the new morality of the Left, in which equal outcomes and emotional harm protections are more important than free expression and the pursuit of truth. With wokeness dominating the ethos of elite universities, as well as the Labour Party and its clients such as the UCU and UUK, we can hardly be surprised at the defenestration of the academic freedom law.
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Subscribe” As Government sources have alleged, the act was a “hate speech charter”.”
A small point, but if you start that sentence with ‘As’ you are agreeing with what they say. Presumably you didn’t mean that.
I can correct you. “Government sources have alleged the act was a hate speech charter.”
There you have their argument in a nutshell. You will not have free speech because some of that speech is hateful. We will decide what is hateful. And who is we? Starmer and friends.
There is only one way out of this mess. First annul any of the non-crime and hate-crime laws. Second. Pass a Free Speech Law. Everyone has the right to say what they think and feel. Add a note to that law. Your right to free speech will not exempt you from any current criminal or civil law you break while exercising your right to free speech, such as incitement, conspiracy, libel etc.
Nonsense. You’re making mountains out of molehills, against someone who’s on the right side of the argument.
One thing you forgot to say. Starmer and his Labour government are a disgrace.
I think there will be far more of this type of initiative over the coming years.
There is a viewpoint and belief system that the best I can do is call “Progressive”, linked to a left wing view on all matters.
The, so called, slow march through the institutions has been very successful over the past 40 (or even more) years. Noisy, newsworthy arguments against this have been getting more and more visible all over the west.
The “Progressives” answer seems to be to hide behind the Law, tweak and change things, pay lip service to “changes”. This is a defence system that doesn’t need to win any logical argument or appeal to the majority in a Democracy. It is very clever!
We have lawfare being used all over the place, regulation after regulation, moving so much of the command and control systems to non-elected bodies that it makes it almost impossible (short of revolution) to change things to reflect any majority view.
On the Unherd article about debanking recently a commentator made an interesting point. Basically, change the rules while there is the chance to stop retaliation once power structure changes. Get ahead of the game to protect the group.
No answers, sorry, no idea how to move things back towards a more pragmatic and fair system for the majority.
Classic bit of doublespeak and classic too of this government! Say you support free speech; make a law which can never enforce it.
Communist and fascist regimes never allow free speech. How long before they come after independent media platforms?
Why don’t British people defend their right to have an opinion and express it?
It is the strangest sight. And the most pitiful too.
I think I am the only subscriber here who insists on that right.
“This reflects the new morality of the Left, in which equal outcomes and emotional harm protections… ”
Why give the far-left, labelled the ‘progressive illiberalism’ here, the benefit of doubt about their motives?
They don’t care about ‘hurt feelings’ and ‘equal outcomes’. The far-left is fascistic in every conceivable way, including race hate paranoia.
Free Speech touches on so many things. This government will put you in prison for an intemperate Facebook post to your friends, and no one cares.
Or everyone here is a Starmer supporter, chuckling to themselves, ‘quite right too’.
It’s as if the British people want to be gagged. I don’t get it.
But if free speech at universities has to be explicitly protected in law, hasn’t the battle been lost already?
Any self-respecting university would simply expel any student or staff member who tried to limit free speech. But I guess ‘self-respect’ these days is viewed as evidence of bigotry.
Changing the law has only so much impact because the university can easily contravene it. All they have to do is claim that its interpretation of an action somehow complies with the law. For example, current case law states that mockery of an ideology comes within the “common currency of debate” and such free speech is therefore protected. But a university can easily and implausibly claim that describing someone’s view as, for example “silly”, will bring the institution into disrepute. This may happen if they feel the view is integral to their “values” They could even go on to argue it has crossed the line into unacceptable harassment and caused real distress. In the real world they are at liberty to then impose any sanction it wants. Its HR enforcers simply disregard what a legal judgement would likely be. After all, what are you going to do- take legal action against them?