“This is my first speech in this country in the newly created role of Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students, the independent regulator for higher education in England.”

“This is perhaps the longest job title anyone ever had outside the Mikado. It exists by virtue of amendments made to schedule 1 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 by the recently passed Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. The relevant provisions state that the Director shall have responsibility for overseeing the free speech functions of the Office for Students and performing other functions which may be delegated by the Office for Students.”

Non-partisan, non-judgemental

“The first and most important point is that this is not a partisan role. I really can’t stress enough that there is absolutely no question of conforming university teaching or research to any political agenda. Freedom of speech is not the property of one side in any culture war. It belongs by right to the whole human race; indeed for those of us who enjoy it, nothing is more precious.

“More concretely, this means that we will take a broadly viewpoint neutral approach. Broadly speaking, we will protect the lawful speech rights of speakers at universities – students, staff, visiting speakers – independently of the viewpoint that they are expressing. It makes no difference at all whether you are in favour of Brexit or against it. It makes no difference at all what side you take on statues or pronouns or colonialism, or abortion or animal rights, or ULEZ. You can castigate the monarchy or defend it. You can argue that Britain is fundamentally racist – or that it never was. You can speak or write as a Marxist, a post-colonial theorist, a gender-critical feminist, or anything else – if you do it within the law. You can even be rude about me – up to a point.”

Using the new laws to protect our basic freedoms

“The reason for this is that the role exists to protect and to promote freedom of speech within the law. And freedom of speech is not just one political position or value among many. Supporting freedom of speech is not like supporting Scottish independence or opposing an increase in VAT. Nor is it like socialism or one-nation conservatism. The reason is that freedom of speech, like democracy, is – although it may not only be – what you might call a process value rather than an outcome value. It does not tell you what the outcome of any political or scientific debate should be. What it tells you is how that dispute should be conducted: namely, through open and tolerant discussion in which all sides both feel and really are free to express their views.

“So what matters to us, within the confines of the law, is not what side you take – what matters is that you get to choose what side you take. A great historian once wrote that it is a rare and happy time in which you may think what you like and say what you think. It is a rare and happy place too. We think higher education should be such a place.”

CONTINUED

Professor Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom,
Office for Students

Highlights of the keynote speech at KCL, 09 Oct 2023, CONTINUED

Freedom of speech and academic freedom

“Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamental to higher education. The core mission of universities and colleges is the pursuit of knowledge, and the principles of free speech and academic freedom are fundamental to this purpose. They provide a necessary context for advancing new ideas, encouraging productive debate and challenging conventional wisdom. All staff and students are entitled to teach, learn and research in a culture that values vigorous debate, including – or perhaps particularly – in relation to difficult or contentious or discomforting topics.

“As the statutory regulator for higher education in England, the OfS wants every student to have a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers. Students will not have a high quality education if that education is not grounded in freedom of speech. That includes freedom of speech for themselves, for fellow students, for those who teach or supervise them and for visiting speakers. One of our strategic goals is that ‘providers secure free speech within the law for students, staff and visiting speakers’.”

But there’s a problem

“But there are now persistent and widespread concerns that many in higher education are being silenced, either by the activity of the university or by its inactivity. And that silencing may fall disproportionately on those who are most vulnerable. On the student who might join university eager to debate contentious issues about gender identity, or gay rights in Islamic law, or the Black Lives Matter movement. To discover that those issues are avoided, that seminars steer away from such topics. Or on the lecturer who may face a disciplinary process following complaints from students about their inclusion of certain texts in the course reading list. Or on the trainee who is told that they are ‘unfit to practise’ in a particular profession because of lawful, but contentious, views that they have expressed in a class.

“There is evidence to support these concerns. For instance, a recent study published by Bobby Duffy et al. at King’s College London showed that 48% of students agree with the statement ‘Students avoid inviting controversial speakers to my university because of the difficulties in getting those events agreed’, compared to 37% in 2019.”

Academic Freedom

“Things are no better when we turn from freedom of speech to academic freedom. This concept, which is related to free speech but distinct from it, concerns the freedom of academics to teach, research and discuss theories and ideas on the basis of their own judgment, without external pressure from their employer, from the state or from the public. The Academic Freedom Index 2023, conducted by the Institute of Political Science at FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg in Bavaria, finds that academic freedom in the United Kingdom has fallen significantly in the last ten years and that the UK now ranks around 60th in the world for academic freedom, well below nearly all EU countries.

“And if these reports are true, even that is not the worst of it. Because when an institution fails to protect, or punishes, legal speech, the effect goes well beyond the speaker. It casts a penumbra of silence. This is the chilling effect. A 2017 poll of UCU academics – the most recent of its type – found that more than 1 in 3 UK academics (35%) surveyed was self-censoring, compared to 19% in the EU at the time. In Prof. Duffy et al.’s research, 67% have refrained from voicing their opinion on at least one of a range of issues, including religion, race, immigration and animal rights. And once it is explained to them, 28% express that the chilling effect is a problem for them personally. The 2023 National Student Survey found that 1 in every 7 students in England feels unable freely to express their own views at university.

“Those who say ‘only 1 in 7’, as though it were some kind of victory for freedom of speech, are missing two fundamental points. First – free speech is, and always has been, a counter-majoritarian principle. It is literally there to protect minorities. Saying it is OK that self-censorship only affects a minority is like saying it is OK that poor healthcare only affects people who are unwell. But second – in what world is 14% an acceptably low figure? How can anyone be happy that 14% of those taking part in higher education are missing out on a fundamental pre-requisite of higher education?”