Amid growing fears of “stalling tactics” in the university sector, a group of leading UK academics have written to the Times, urging all parties to commit to supporting the scheduled implementation on August 1st of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.
The signatories, which include Sir Partha Dasgupta (Cambridge), Matthew Kramer (Cambridge), Robert Plomin (KCL), Alan Sokal (UCL), Stephen Warren (Imperial College), and FSU Advisory Council members Abhishek Saha (QMUL) and John Armstrong (KCL), note that over the past decade “there have been an increasing number of attacks on free speech and academic freedom in western democracies, with widespread suppression of minority views and a shift towards in academic”.
In this context, they say they are concerned by the prospect of “stalling tactics” being employed at senior levels within the higher education sector and call upon all parties to “commit themselves to supporting the scheduled implementation of this new vital act”.
Following the Prime Minister’s decision to call an election for 4th July, the dissolution of Parliament took place last week with all business in the House of Commons and House of Lords coming to an end.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which represents arguably the FSU’s biggest legislative victory since we formed in 2020, is technically already ‘over the line’, in that the statutory instrument was laid before Parliament was dissolved. All the remaining clauses of the Act should therefore now be activated on August 1st unless the next Government intervenes, which is extremely unlikely… but not impossible.
As the signatories to the Times letter point out, the mood music coming out of the sector is not particularly reassuring, with some university leaders in England having urged the Office for Students (OfS) to delay implementation of the Act citing lack of preparation, “despite having had more than a year to prepare since the Act’s passage”.
They also note that Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, has also previously called the OfS a “politicised” regulator despite the regulator having “taken a thoughtful and highly non-partisan approach to the new legislation, recognising that freedom of speech protects everyone”.
The academics’ letter came just hours before news emerged that Durham University had cancelled a debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a mob of pro-Palestinian protesters locked students inside the venue.
The debate, titled “This house believes Palestinian leadership is the biggest barrier to peace”, was scheduled for Friday night but was called off at the last minute.
Those who were set to defend the argument were Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel, investigative journalist David Collier and Lance Forman, a former Brexit Party MEP.
Ms Hausdorff said students preparing the chamber for the debate were locked inside after a “mob” of protesters formed a human chain around the building. Protesters were said to be banging on the windows and doors of the chamber while chanting “from the river to the sea” after forming a human chain to prevent students from leaving.
It is understood that the person who cancelled the debate was Dr Shahid Mahmoud, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Durham University.
The FSU campaigned for the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act for three years. We lobbied for the Bill when the Government was weighing up whether it was needed, advised the Government on what to include in it, defended it from critics in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, helped to amend it and, finally, mobilised our allies in Parliament to get it over the line.
The Act does two things that will help secure academic freedom.
First, it will impose a legal duty on higher education providers (HEPs) to uphold and promote free speech and extend that duty to students’ unions. The Education (No 2) Act 1986 already required HEPs to “take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students and employees of the establishment and for visiting speakers”, but the new Act goes further. It will impose a duty on HEPs to actively promote freedom of speech, and to protect academics’ freedom to question and test received wisdom, put forward new ideas and express controversial opinions.
Second, it will create two new enforcement mechanisms, so HEPs aren’t able to ignore these duties. The first of these is the appointment of a Director of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom to the Office for Students (OfS), whom students and academics can complain to if they believe their speech rights under the Higher Education Act 2023 have been breached. This new ‘free speech tsar’ has already been appointed – it’s Dr Arif Ahmed (above), a professor of philosophy at Cambridge with impeccable free speech credentials – and he will have the power to fine HEPs if he finds them at fault.
The second enforcement mechanism is the creation of a new statutory tort, whereby students and academics will be able to sue HEPs in the County Court if their speech rights have been breached.
Taken together, this package of measures will go some way towards addressing the free speech crisis in our universities. About 20% of the 2,500+ cases we’ve dealt with in the past three years have involved universities, and we believe that in almost every one the student or academic who has got into trouble would have been in a stronger position if this new law had been on the statute books.
