Universities Minister to ban students from censoring contentious speakers

Sam Gyimah says attempts to silence debate
at universities are ‘chilling’

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Universities Minister Sam Gyimah is announcing his “tough
guidance” on the issue at a free-speech summit that he is chairing
today in London, reports The Times. 

Under his proposals, the Department for Education will set out
new guidelines on free speech on UK campuses; the first
government intervention on the issue since the free speech duty was
imposed on universities as part of the Education Act in 1986, says
the newspaper.

The new guidance will state that all speech must be welcome at
universities, as long as it does not violate existing laws – for
example, on encouraging terrorism. Any institution in breach of the
rules may be “named, shamed or even fined” by the new Office for
Students (OfS) regulator, which also has the power to deregister
universities, the Daily Mail reports.

“A society in which people feel they have a legitimate right to
stop someone expressing their views on campus simply because they
are unfashionable or unpopular is rather chilling,” Gyimah is
expected to say. “There is a risk that overzealous interpretation
of a dizzying variety of rules is acting as a brake on legal free
speech on campus.”

The Times cites a recent investigation by MPs which found that
“campaigners against abortion, Christian groups and secularists
were among those who felt that it was hard to get a hearing at
universities”. Feminists who oppose transgender self-identification
have been met with similar resistance.

Political figures have also been subject to censorship at
universities. In February, pro-Brexit Conservative MP Jacob
Rees-Mogg was caught in the middle of a fight on Bristol
University campus when protesters disrupted a student event at
which he was speaking. 

The new proposals were criticised by Labour’ shadow universities
minister, Gordon Marsden, who said that Gyimah was trying to
“micromanage free speech issues”. Marsden added that any
discussions about regulation should be conducted in the open,
rather than at private meetings inside the Department for
Education, The Guardian reports.

“This announcement is simply another piece of meaningless
posturing from the Government, while it has nothing practical to
offer students dealing with record levels of debt,” Marsden
said. 

The Department for Education said today’s summit involves
wide range of influential organisations, including the Charity
Commission, Universities UK and the Equality and Human Rights
Commission.