Embattled Columbia University president Minouche Shafik claims to be a champion of free speech, urging her students to engage in “civil discourse” despite viewpoint differences, writes Rikki Schlott for the New York York, but when given a chance to bolster free speech, she didn’t just pass — she moved to actively undermine it. She continues:
Shafik is not just the president of Columbia. She is also a member of the UK’s House of Lords, the upper house of the country’s parliament, meaning she has a voting record, which isn’t so great on the free speech front.
In December of 2022, Shafik cast a vote to weaken free speech protections in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.
She voted in favour of eliminating Clause 4 of the bill, which would have created a new avenue for students and faculty who feel their free speech was violated to sue their college and university.
Apparently, Shafik doesn’t think it’s important for the expressive rights of professors and students to be bolstered with extra protections in the court of law.
Shouldn’t the president of a university believe schools like hers should be held to account? And shouldn’t the leader of one of the most prestigious institutions in America have a clean record when it comes to championing free speech?
Academic freedom is the lifeblood of higher education — and every university president should be a champion of free speech, not its opponent.
The ability to bring a suit against a school is crucial to holding administrators and institutions who violate free speech rights to account. Removing that avenue to justice weakens the recourse of the aggrieved.
Toby Young, founder and director of the British free speech advocacy group Free Speech Union, says Shafik’s vote hindered an important “enforcement mechanism in the bill.”
“By voting for it to be removed, Shafik was weakening the free speech protections in the Bill,” Young told The Post.
Ultimately, after several rounds of votes and amendments, the fourth clause was restored in the final version that became law, but with far weaker language.
Young says the legislation ended up in “a watered down form, making it more difficult, but not impossible, for people to sue universities for breaching their speech rights.”
Nonetheless, Young counts the passage of the legislation as a victory for expressive freedom.
“These new free speech obligations, including the statutory tort that Shafik voted against, will make it harder for English universities to penalize students or faculty,” Young explained.
Worth reading in full.
