Universities in England must do “everything they can” to ensure their relationships with foreign countries do not undermine freedom of speech, the Government’s free speech tsar has said (BBC, Express & Star, Telegraph).
In a briefing with the media, Prof Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the Office for Students (OfS) said the watchdog believes there is a “possibility of concerns relating to freedom of speech” in these relationships, and that universities could be told to terminate such arrangements – which include admitting international students on scholarship and hosting institutes partly funded by foreign governments – if those relationships are preventing legitimate debate.
His comments came as the higher education regulator launched a consultation on guidance about freedom of speech, ahead of universities, colleges and student unions taking on new free speech duties.
The guidance includes examples to illustrate what higher education institutions may have to do to fulfil their new duties – due to come into effect in August – to secure freedom of speech within the law.
Prof Ahmed said the watchdog could receive complaints from students, academics or visiting speakers about a university’s arrangement with a foreign country or institution.
He said: “For instance, if it means that there are people who are employed by an institute who are preventing legitimate protests or shutting down lecturers from covering certain kinds of content regarding that country for instance, or that country’s foreign policy.
“Or were complaining about it if a university, for instance, is restricting that kind of activity because it’s concerned about its relationships with a foreign country. If that behaviour amounts to a restriction of freedom of speech within the law, and someone brings a complaint to us, then we may find that the complaint is justified and then we make recommendations.”
Prof Ahmed went on to say that one of those ‘recommendations’ could be that the university “terminate” or “rewrite” its arrangement with the foreign country.
“If there are problems,” he said, “universities will have to do everything they can to act compatibly with their freedom of speech duties. Insofar as that means a rethinking of their relationship with other countries, obviously that’s something that would be a good idea for them to start thinking about now.”
Prof Ahmed was speaking just a few weeks after it emerged that University College London (UCL) banned Michelle Shipworth, an associate professor at its Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources — and a member of the FSU — from teaching a “provocative” seminar on China in order to protect its commercial interests.
After 15 years of unblemished service, senior administrators stepped in to prevent Michelle teaching her MSc course, and blocked her from accessing internal systems or even communicating with students, after a Chinese postgraduate complained that a seminar discussion of modern slavery in China was too “provocative”.
Incredibly, UCL sided with students who said they were “distressed” by Michelle’s handling of the topic, and imposed a raft of restrictions on her in order to ensure their courses remained “commercially viable” to Chinese students.
One of those restrictions is that Michelle must from now on “find different ways of encouraging Chinese students”, because “using China as a topic of discussion seems to be contributing to the perception of bias instead of engaging students positively”. In another email seen by the FSU, she is told by administrators to be “mindful of students’ ability to be very critical on some topics – for example if this would impact their future careers or if they think that this may be the case”.
Find out more about Michelle’s case here.
