OXFORD'S FREE SPEECH 'FAILURES'

Should Universities teach what you should think think or how to think for yourself? Has 'no platforming' gone too far, or is it essential to protect us from dangerous radicals? 

Oxford University has come under fire for its position on free-speech after pressure from trans activists resulted in a history professor being banned from speaking at a conference she had helped to organise.

According to Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths, the universities minister Michelle Donelan has warned the government is prepared to change the law 'to compel universities and colleges to guarantee free speech'. It come after Selina Todd - a professor of modern history at Oxford - and Amber Rudd, the then Home Secretary, were both 'no-platformed' in the spacer of a week.

Amber Rudd is quoted by the paper as saying: "What you have got is a highly politicised, small minority of activists who take it upon themselves to terrorise the majority of students who would like to hear from speakers". 

'No platforming' has become more widespread in recent years, and is the practice of 'preventing someone holding views regarded as unacceptable or unoffensive from contributing to a public debate or meeting'. In the case of Selina Todd, it was her links to Woman's Place UK that Trans activists were uncomfortable with. In the case of Amber Rudd, it was her handling of the Windrush affair that led to her being banned by students from speaking at a university event.

The 'no platforming' practice is supposedly designed to protect others from hate speech and intimidation. But is it going far in limiting free speech?

In his 1859 classic 'On Liberty', John Stuart Mill writes: 'We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifiling it would be an evil still'. 

He continues: 'To refuse a hearing to an opinion because they are sure that it is false is to assume that their certainty is the same as absolute certainty...All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility...'. This becomes a problem when considered in the context of human history - 'Every age has held many opinions that subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd...and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present'. 

Mill correctly finds that people 'in less enlightened times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake' . 

Even the 'most intolerant of churches' - the Roman Catholic Church - 'even at the canonization of saints admits, and listens patiently to, a 'devil's advocate'. In order to be certain of our own beliefs and opinions, surely we need to consider alternative perspectives and listen to other arguments on the issue? Even the most conservative of moral forces, the Roman Catholic Church, is prepared to tolerate listening to the counter-argument in the interests of being fully informed in its discussions.

Perhaps one of Mill's greatest lines is his caution of the  'deep slumber of a decided opinion'. Do we deal with those who we think have got issues wrong by silencing them, or by actively listening to their argument and setting out why we believe they are wrong? Does shutting down and silencing speakers ever work, or does it just drive them underground and therefore potentially lead to dangerous conflicts and confrontations?

Even if we profoundly disagree with someone's opinion, does hearing it not help us to strengthen our own argument and become more certain of our own point of view? Silencing discussion will not help to strengthen anyone - we must be confident in the credibility of our own argument to the extent we will tolerate hearing alternative perspectives and narratives. We are not sheep - and we cannot assume everyone else is a sheep - who will just blindly follow what any individual says to them. Hearing an opinion is not the same as being brainwashed into believing it yourself.

Of course, there are certain examples where there is a unanimous consensus that giving someone a platform is an unwise decision to make. Allowing racist, sexist or fascist speakers to whip up hatred is - of course - a very dangerous thing to do.

But we must remember that our educational institutions are designed - or should be designed - to enable individuals to think creatively and intelligently for themselves. They do not teach what to think, but how to think in a competent and intelligent way. Students need to be given the tools to think for themselves, not the told exactly what to believe.  We don't want to know what to believe, but how we can evaluate, analyse and develop beliefs for ourselves.

The debate around no platforming does - of course - need a platform. We need to discuss it and we need to debate it. In a society that is founded on liberty, personal freedom and the right to freedom of speech, this is a debate that must be had by us all.