Is free speech under threat at university?

Cambridge professor, Arif Ahmed, the Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students (OfS) gave his first major address this month, following his appointment to the role in June of this year.

In his speech, Ahmed asserted that the culture of suppressing free speech at English universities is a “serious cause for concern” and pledged to protect all views. Under his responsibility for academic freedom, he reaffirmed his commitment to this cause, citing the UK’s recent decline in international rankings on the Academic Freedom Index.

Ahmed reinforced the necessity of freedom of speech in higher education providers as it empowers students to consider different points of view, a fundamental factor to many degree programs.

This comes in the wake of the controversy of the Prime Minister’s statement at the Conservative party conference regarding transgender people: “a man is a man and a woman is a woman.” In a culture of growing transphobia, it came into question whether views such as this should be expressed on university campuses, to which Ahmed responded that “as long as a view can be legally expressed,” it is acceptable.

In an interview with the BBC, Arif established that the OfS is “completely politically neutral” and wished to emphasise that these complaints come from “all sides of the political spectrum.”

New legislation passed in May of this year states that universities now have a duty to not only ‘secure’ freedom of speech, but also ‘promote its importance’, and in order to ensure this, a new complaints scheme is being put into place, that could see universities facing sanctions, such as fines if they are deemed to be breaching their free speech obligations.  This scheme is set to be implemented by August 2024.

This legislation was seemingly in response to the Oxford Union protests against gender-critical academic, Kathleen Stock, earlier this year. The Union’s LGBTQ+ Society argued that the professor’s views were transphobic and objected to her invitation to debate this. Rishi Sunak said that the talk should be allowed to go ahead, stating “students should be allowed to hear and debate her views.”

Arif Ahmed concluded his speech by affirming his commitment to protecting students’ rights to express their opinions on topics such as Brexit, statues, pronouns, colonialism, abortion or animal rights whilst clarifying that harassment or incitement of violence is not protected by freedom of speech.