One of the frontrunners to become the next Chancellor of Oxford University has been accused of being insufficiently supportive of free speech after proposing students undergo unconscious bias training and score 100% in the post-course assessment.
Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, who was, and remains, the Principal of Somerville College, told students there was “irrefutable evidence” of a link between racism and unconscious bias.
In February 2021, a student at Somerville contacted the Free Speech Union (FSU) after receiving an email from Royall, informing them that all College students would be required to take an unconscious bias training course and score 100% in the post-course assessment. According to the former leader of the House of Lords, this would make the College “a more inclusive community”.
Understandably, the student was anxious that if they refused to take this course, or scored less than 100% in the test, they might face disciplinary action. One of the assessed questions which caused particular concern was:
Acknowledging your personal feelings about particular groups or individuals is a useful starting point in overcoming unconscious bias.
Is this productive or unproductive in addressing your personal biases?
Presumably, the ‘correct’ answer – the answer students were required to give to score 100% – was ‘Yes’.
That is, you were required to answer ‘yes’ even if you were familiar with the various academic research studies that suggest the link between “unconscious biases” and “discrimination” is far from irrefutable, as well as emerging evidence that unconscious bias training can sometimes have the opposite of its intended effect, actually increasing discriminatory behaviour towards disadvantaged groups.
The FSU wrote to Lady Royall, pointing out that insisting that every student score 100% in the test, given that it would mean having to give at least one answer that our member believed to be false, would constitute a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Why? Because penalising a person if they don’t express a point of view they disagree with was deemed to be unlawful by the Supreme Court in Lee v Ashers Baking Company. In effect, the Court ruled that the right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention on Huma Rights) includes the right not to express a particular point of view – and as a public authority, under section 6 of the Human Rights Act, the College may not act in a way that is incompatible with the Convention.
In the face of this challenge, Baroness Royall appeared to back down. “On reflection,” she wrote in her response to the FSU’s letter, “it has been agreed that completing the test with less than 100 per cent will be seen as the opportunity for a chat about the issues involved, nothing more.”
At first glance that might sound rather encouraging. But of course the right to freedom of expression is delicate, and it is all too likely that the prospect of being invited for a “chat” with a senior fellow will, for most non-compliant students, serve to chill free thinking.
When the FSU put that point to Baroness Royall, she responded with a terse email that read: “Thank you for your letter of 18th February. I am grateful to you for expressing your further views.”
But that wasn’t the only glimpse of an apparently lackadaisical approach to free speech to be gleaned from the Baroness’s response.
Despite conceding the FSU’s point that the research used to support her original claim was not in fact “irrefutable”, she then appeared to suggest that this didn’t really matter, because in a febrile situation where some College staff and students strongly believe EDI training will help address “systemic injustices”, all students should be forced to have it, irrespective of what the evidence says.
“[W]hat is clearly incontestable,” she wrote, “is that a plethora of systemic injustices exist in our society, and that these harmful systemic injustices derive from individual unconscious biases from which many or all of us suffer.
“The potential harm of systemic injustices was laid bare for us all last year by the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and too many others. If 2020 taught us nothing else, it is that sitting back and doing nothing more than express a performative sympathy in the face of such grotesque injustice is not an option, nor would it be acceptable to the vast majority of our students and staff who support Unconscious Bias Training and who expect my colleagues and I to embody the positive and inclusive ethos on which our College was founded.”
Subsequent to this row, Somerville did in fact withdraw the training – good news that marked another victory for the FSU.
The bad news, however, is that in a recent interview with the Times, Baroness Royall sought to defend the proposals. Adopting a similar stance to three years ago, she argued that the training she endorsed in 2021 had been proposed by the Junior Common Room “at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests”, as if doing something, anything, in the heat of a moral panic to placate activists is an example of wise leadership.
The Baroness’s 2021 directive, and more pertinently her attempted defence of that directive, is now threatening to undermine her campaign to become the next Chancellor after the campaign group Alumni for Free Speech (AFFS) sent a detailed questionnaire – which the FSU helped with – to all 15 then-known candidates, asking them about their position on free speech at UK universities. (The letter AFFS sent can be found here.)
William Mackesy, from AFFS, told the Times that many of the answers received in response contained “breezy generalities”.
He said: “If you dig down into what a number of the candidates say, you will find breezy generalities about the importance of free speech, but a lot of skirting round the realities and causes of the problem, such as the unlawful enforcement of contested activist agendas.
“A striking example of this is Royall, who avoids questions about her having required students to take ‘unconscious bias’ training and get 100% in a test, an obvious free speech no-no and probably unlawful to boot.
“Oxford voters need to think carefully when casting their ballot what kind of Chancellor they want as the figurehead of the institution,” Mackesy added. “We believe it needs to be someone who cares passionately about free speech, and understands what it takes to defend it.”
AFFS’s intervention is significant in that it demonstrate one potentially effective countermeasure against the long march through the institutions; that is, energising the electorate for what might otherwise appear dull, apolitical appointment application processes, and in doing so helping to prevent woke technocrats from capturing key roles due to low voter turnout.
That this is a key role is beyond doubt. While the Chancellor of Oxford University has no executive responsibilities, it is more than symbolic. As the titular head of the University, the Chancellor provides advice and guidance to the University, particularly to the Vice-Chancellor.
The Chancellor also holds the role of the Visitor, an external figure of authority on whom the University can call for advice and for arbitration if insoluble dispute arises amongst its governing body.
Beyond these duties, the Chancellor also undertakes advocacy, advisory and fundraising work, acting as an ambassador for the University at a range of local, national and international events.
Royall is one of several candidates putting themselves forward, including Lord Hague of Richmond, Lord Mandelson and Dominic Grieve KC, the former Attorney-General.
The great majority of the candidates responded to the AFFS questionnaire. Sadly, Baroness Royall wasn’t the only person to show signs of not understanding the scale of the free speech crisis. Some were also unsupportive or hostile to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.
Based on a review and analysis of the candidates’ responses, the AFFS and FSU jointly recommend William (Lord) Hague.
Rather than answer our questionnaire directly, Lord Hague submitted his own comprehensive statement, addressing our questions which you can read here.
His answers are full, thoughtful and very positive about free speech in every way that those who care about free speech could hope for.
In his statement, Lord Hague described the new Government’s decision to abandon the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act as “a significant mistake”.
He also recognises that the promotion and enforcement of certain programmes relating to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (‘EDI’) “can give rise to free speech issues”. On that basis, he does not agree with “requiring students or staff to undergo training in gender ideology or critical race theory, both of which are highly contested concepts”.
From a free speech point of view, several other candidates gave strong replies. For that reason, we recommend the following other candidates to alumni who care about free speech:
- Dominic Grieve, former Attorney-General and ex-Conservative MP.
- Revd Matthew Firth, formerly a priest at St Cuthbert’s in Darlington.
- Professor Simon Kay a consultant plastic surgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and a Professor of Hand Surgery at the University of Leeds.
Any student who has completed an eligible degree prior to the election will be able to vote, as long as voter registration was received by 18th August, and their degree was conferred by 1st October.
