Tories are the kings of restricting free speech, unless it relates to bigotry
No mention in the article of the Zionist lobby shutting down criticism of Israel in universities under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” What a suprise.
Yet another case of right-wingers weaponising legislation in order to force their outdated beliefs on people. If a university’s student body rejects or condemns a certain belief, then it is only right that they should be able to exercise their own free speech and refuse to enter into these debates. This is the right-leaning academic equivalent of a toddler complaining that nobody will play with him.
“a recent survey by King’s College London showing that over a third of students felt that free speech is very or fairly threatened at their university, and research by the think tank Policy Exchange showing that 32 per cent of academics who view themselves as Right-wing have refrained from airing their views in their teaching and research”
There isn’t even the slightest chance that a third of students have given free speech a second thought let alone be actively concerned about it.
As for the 32% of Tory fucks, it’d be absolutely disgraceful if it’s that low. Their almost certainly abhorrent views wouldn’t be at all relevant in the vast majority of academic fields, are the rest of them inserting a quick jab about “so called trans women” in the middle of maths lectures?
I have worked at various universities for getting on 6 years now and I’m still yet to see anything like this. I am genuinely confused as to what all the concern is about other than yet another politicized attack on “leftie academics” being used to rile up the Conservative base. I think we’re all just too worn down and exhausted to care to make any noise and push back against it any more.
At worst what I see is these constant publications from right-leaning sources not quite understanding that leaving home for the first time at 18 is a very emotional time, all the kids are full of hormones, students have historically always been a very progressive and socially liberal group, so naturally as they have forced Universities into a kind of pseuco-market to compete for students obviously the administration does a lot of performative stuff to try and appeal to that, to have good support structures for those from diverse backgrounds, to have good training and support for mental health, sexual health, personal development and all the general pastoral stuff I kind of thought you’d surely expect to be there sheperding people from their late teens into full adulthood?
> It follows a string of examples where academics have been no-platformed or faced calls to resign for their gender-critical views
Good. Most gender critical views, such it being dangerous to cis women and girls to allow trans women into women’s spaces, are [easily disprovable by real world data](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z). Free speech doesn’t mean that hate speakers are entitled to a platform
Tragic what can happen when woke mobs criticise their professors. Things get so desperate that they voluntarily resign, get a ton of bootlicking publicity from right-wing press like the Telegraph, continue publishing books and articles and take part in political pressure groups without really changing their perspective at all.
8 comments
Bypass paywall link:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2022%2F12%2F15%2Fstop-using-equality-laws-restrict-free-speech-universities-warned%2F
Tories are the kings of restricting free speech, unless it relates to bigotry
No mention in the article of the Zionist lobby shutting down criticism of Israel in universities under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” What a suprise.
Yet another case of right-wingers weaponising legislation in order to force their outdated beliefs on people. If a university’s student body rejects or condemns a certain belief, then it is only right that they should be able to exercise their own free speech and refuse to enter into these debates. This is the right-leaning academic equivalent of a toddler complaining that nobody will play with him.
“a recent survey by King’s College London showing that over a third of students felt that free speech is very or fairly threatened at their university, and research by the think tank Policy Exchange showing that 32 per cent of academics who view themselves as Right-wing have refrained from airing their views in their teaching and research”
There isn’t even the slightest chance that a third of students have given free speech a second thought let alone be actively concerned about it.
As for the 32% of Tory fucks, it’d be absolutely disgraceful if it’s that low. Their almost certainly abhorrent views wouldn’t be at all relevant in the vast majority of academic fields, are the rest of them inserting a quick jab about “so called trans women” in the middle of maths lectures?
I have worked at various universities for getting on 6 years now and I’m still yet to see anything like this. I am genuinely confused as to what all the concern is about other than yet another politicized attack on “leftie academics” being used to rile up the Conservative base. I think we’re all just too worn down and exhausted to care to make any noise and push back against it any more.
At worst what I see is these constant publications from right-leaning sources not quite understanding that leaving home for the first time at 18 is a very emotional time, all the kids are full of hormones, students have historically always been a very progressive and socially liberal group, so naturally as they have forced Universities into a kind of pseuco-market to compete for students obviously the administration does a lot of performative stuff to try and appeal to that, to have good support structures for those from diverse backgrounds, to have good training and support for mental health, sexual health, personal development and all the general pastoral stuff I kind of thought you’d surely expect to be there sheperding people from their late teens into full adulthood?
> It follows a string of examples where academics have been no-platformed or faced calls to resign for their gender-critical views
Good. Most gender critical views, such it being dangerous to cis women and girls to allow trans women into women’s spaces, are [easily disprovable by real world data](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z). Free speech doesn’t mean that hate speakers are entitled to a platform
Tragic what can happen when woke mobs criticise their professors. Things get so desperate that they voluntarily resign, get a ton of bootlicking publicity from right-wing press like the Telegraph, continue publishing books and articles and take part in political pressure groups without really changing their perspective at all.