Earlier this week, the government named its long-awaited “free speech tsar” for higher education. It is Arif Ahmed, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, who said he will defend “all views”. He will be responsible for investigating breaches of the Freedom of Speech Act, which was passed last month.
I do believe there are threats to freedom of speech in our universities. One reason is that our views and our identities appear to be more closely entwined – criticism of someone’s opinions is likely to be seen as an attack on who they are. Another is the emergence of the idea that language itself can be an instrument of oppression, so what you say matters even more. These attitudinal shifts are putting real pressure on freedom of speech on higher-education campuses – vividly seen with the problems encountered by the gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock, whose 2021 book Material Girls is a lucid philosophical investigation of issues around gender and womanhood. Her visit to the Oxford Union earlier this week was met with protests, and one demonstrator glued their hand to the floor.
Universities are not alone in encountering these problems. But they are central to concerns about freedom of speech because that is where many young people have their eyes opened to such issues. Part of the excitement of university is in meeting people from a range of different backgrounds and with much more diverse views. They can be where, stimulated by that diversity, we learn how to disagree.
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