Labour’s outrageous attack on academic free speech

In an extraordinary outburst, a government source has described the new Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, introduced by the Conservatives, as a ‘hate-speech charter’. This is an outrageous distortion of the new laws that aim to guarantee free speech within universities. The best that can be said about that phrase is that, so long as we retain free speech, people are free to describe it that way. But doing so raises worrying doubts about what the new government thinks free speech means.  

Universities have a special role in the promotion of free speech. They are, or should be, places where those teaching and those taught can try out ideas, some of which may on closer examination turn out to be misconceived. In a history department, half-finished ideas about, for instance, the role of profits from slavery in the Industrial Revolution may legitimately be put forward for open discussion; but they must not be imposed on those who differ.