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And is the UK government behind the erosion of free speech identified at a large number of institutions who have banned and actively censored ideas on campus? S

And is the UK government behind the erosion of free speech identified at a large number of institutions who have banned and actively censored ideas on campus? Shall we assume they are helpless in the face of demands from Whitehall? http://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings http://www.spiked-online.com/free-speech-university-rankings

triplesec 9y ago
Could you please explain your Whitehall (prsumably Civil Service) rhetorical question? I don't follow, and I suspect it's a little brief for others also.
mayniac 9y ago
I have a few issues with that link. Namely that a traffic light system is a huge, huge, HUGE oversimplification of complex issues. While the analysis seems fairly transparent, I don't think many people will actually look into it past the traffic light. I checked out the uni I went to: apparently the students union got an amber light because of "no tolerance to sexual harassment". How exactly does that violate free speech? The right to free speech unequivocally does not give you the right to harass people in any way. Similarly "Rules and Regulations for the Use of Information and Communications Technology" is an amber for institutions: does that mean all AUPs are in violation of freedom of speech? Most of them come down to "please don't hack our infrastructure or download anything that will make the police come round". Also when things like "bans on specific ideologies" are very likely to get misconstrued. Banning groups which verbally harass others is likely going to be seen as a ban on free speech, despite the fact that such bans may be warranted. The whole analysis and ranking system seems biased, and completely garbage to me. Edit: since I'm an idiot and didn't realise that you could expand the amber/red points on the site, my uni SU's "no tolerance to sexual harassment" was due to them adopting the NUS (National Union of Students) guideline that sexual harassment is defined as ‘any unwanted comments which makes someone uncomfortable’, and the ICT rule was ‘Users must ensure that the content and tone of their email messages cannot be considered offensive.’ Both of these appear reasonable to me. There's some genuine debate to be had over the issue of no-platforming but all this site is doing is furthering their own agenda, which seems to be that they should have the right to insult and harass people however they want. As always, this is relevant here: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- Angostura 9y ago
  Apparently my old university gets an amber light too because " Sexual Harassment is Never OK".
- SuoDuanDao 9y ago
  That particular xkcd gets linked a lot in this debate. I really wonder what happened between when the author drew that comic and when he drew this one: https://www.xkcd.com/137/ https://www.xkcd.com/137/
  - aninhumer 9y ago
    Maybe he realised that speech has consequences beyond an employer not hiring him, and decided to take responsibility for those consequences? And that rather than "watering down" ones thoughts, understanding the implications of language and avoiding unintended ones actually expresses your ideas better? Or, in short, he grew up.
  - sudosteph 9y ago
    I don't see any incompatibility there? Seems like in 137 he's saying that he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear. He's accepting the risks that come with making his opinions public, and challenging assumptions that he should just shut up, in part because he has confidence in the validity of his beliefs and a willingness to defend them. The more recent one is about people who publicize poorly constructed opinions with no consideration to the potential consequences it will create for their interpersonal and community relationships. Those folks are welcome to say "fuck that shit" like the character in 137 and go build their own forums or whatever to spread and defend those ideas. But most of these types would prefer to whine and call themselves victims.
    - henryaj 9y ago
      > he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear Exactly. Just apply that to the fear of running afoul of draconian speech codes designed to reduce the amount of "offence" people experience.
neel_k 9y ago
Yes, the UK government is behind the erosion of free speech on campus. The Counter Terrorism and Security Act of 2015 imposes a statutory duty on universities to have a "due regard to the need to prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism". This means that institutions now have a statutory duty to participate in the government's Prevent strategy. This means UK universities have a legal obligation to narc on students who are too Muslim. As a whole, universities have tried to finesse this attack on free expression this by defining violent radicalism as a signal of mental illness and telling us lecturers that we should feel obliged to refer struggling students to mental health services. Ultimately, though, when the intent and design of the rules is fundamentally bigoted, there is only so far that technical compliance can mitigate that.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  what is a preferable way to handle what you call "violent radicalism"? If the rule is only targeted at those who are drawn into beliefs that would see those individuals commit violent acts, what makes reporting them bigoted compared to reporting other violent groups?
  - DanBC 9y ago
    Here's some information about CHANNEL / PREVENT: http://www.teescpp.org.uk/prevent-channel-referral-process http://www.teescpp.org.uk/prevent-channel-referral-process People who are referred are assessed, and most appropriate help should be provided. For some people this will be mental health services. For others it might be befriending services, or access to non-radicalising social groups. People have mentioned external speakers. Here's the guidance for Higher Education in England and Wales. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445916/Prevent_Duty_Guidance_For_Higher_Education__England__Wales_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... ---begin 6. We would expect RHEBs to be delivering in the following areas. External Speakers and Events 7. In order to comply with the duty all RHEBs should have policies and procedures in place for the management of events on campus and use of all RHEB premises. The policies should apply to all staff, students and visitors and clearly set out what is required for any event to proceed. 8. The RHEB clearly needs to balance its legal duties in terms of both ensuring freedom of speech and academic freedom, and also protecting student and staff welfare. Although it predates this legislation, Universities UK produced guidance in 2013 to support institutions to make decisions about hosting events and have the proper safeguards in place: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/Externalspeakersinhighereducationinstitutions.aspx http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/Extern... ---end https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445977/3799_Revised_Prevent_Duty_Guidance__England_Wales_V2-Interactive.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
watwut 9y ago
You mean the ranking that ignores all religious and private institutions with much higher restrictions?
pjc50 9y ago
Spiked online is not a reputable news source, it's a professional troll organisation. They're currently libertarian but are the successor paper to "Living Marxism".
bannedaccount 9y ago
In my college in US there was a "Free Speech" group that would bring in different radical speakers to "expand the minds" of the student body. Well that was it's stated goal anyway, in reality every single speaker was a hard right-winger and the groups was entirely funded by a conservative PAC. When nobody actually showed up the group shut down after only a year. Also this article isn't really even about free speech in the context of personal or political expression.

triplesec 9y ago

Could you please explain your Whitehall (prsumably Civil Service) rhetorical question? I don't follow, and I suspect it's a little brief for others also.

mayniac 9y ago

I have a few issues with that link. Namely that a traffic light system is a huge, huge, HUGE oversimplification of complex issues. While the analysis seems fairly transparent, I don't think many people will actually look into it past the traffic light. I checked out the uni I went to: apparently the students union got an amber light because of "no tolerance to sexual harassment". How exactly does that violate free speech? The right to free speech unequivocally does not give you the right to harass people in any way. Similarly "Rules and Regulations for the Use of Information and Communications Technology" is an amber for institutions: does that mean all AUPs are in violation of freedom of speech? Most of them come down to "please don't hack our infrastructure or download anything that will make the police come round". Also when things like "bans on specific ideologies" are very likely to get misconstrued. Banning groups which verbally harass others is likely going to be seen as a ban on free speech, despite the fact that such bans may be warranted. The whole analysis and ranking system seems biased, and completely garbage to me. Edit: since I'm an idiot and didn't realise that you could expand the amber/red points on the site, my uni SU's "no tolerance to sexual harassment" was due to them adopting the NUS (National Union of Students) guideline that sexual harassment is defined as ‘any unwanted comments which makes someone uncomfortable’, and the ICT rule was ‘Users must ensure that the content and tone of their email messages cannot be considered offensive.’ Both of these appear reasonable to me. There's some genuine debate to be had over the issue of no-platforming but all this site is doing is furthering their own agenda, which seems to be that they should have the right to insult and harass people however they want. As always, this is relevant here: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

Angostura 9y ago
Apparently my old university gets an amber light too because " Sexual Harassment is Never OK".
SuoDuanDao 9y ago
That particular xkcd gets linked a lot in this debate. I really wonder what happened between when the author drew that comic and when he drew this one: https://www.xkcd.com/137/ https://www.xkcd.com/137/
- aninhumer 9y ago
  Maybe he realised that speech has consequences beyond an employer not hiring him, and decided to take responsibility for those consequences? And that rather than "watering down" ones thoughts, understanding the implications of language and avoiding unintended ones actually expresses your ideas better? Or, in short, he grew up.
- sudosteph 9y ago
  I don't see any incompatibility there? Seems like in 137 he's saying that he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear. He's accepting the risks that come with making his opinions public, and challenging assumptions that he should just shut up, in part because he has confidence in the validity of his beliefs and a willingness to defend them. The more recent one is about people who publicize poorly constructed opinions with no consideration to the potential consequences it will create for their interpersonal and community relationships. Those folks are welcome to say "fuck that shit" like the character in 137 and go build their own forums or whatever to spread and defend those ideas. But most of these types would prefer to whine and call themselves victims.
  - henryaj 9y ago
    > he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear Exactly. Just apply that to the fear of running afoul of draconian speech codes designed to reduce the amount of "offence" people experience.

neel_k 9y ago

Yes, the UK government is behind the erosion of free speech on campus. The Counter Terrorism and Security Act of 2015 imposes a statutory duty on universities to have a "due regard to the need to prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism". This means that institutions now have a statutory duty to participate in the government's Prevent strategy. This means UK universities have a legal obligation to narc on students who are too Muslim. As a whole, universities have tried to finesse this attack on free expression this by defining violent radicalism as a signal of mental illness and telling us lecturers that we should feel obliged to refer struggling students to mental health services. Ultimately, though, when the intent and design of the rules is fundamentally bigoted, there is only so far that technical compliance can mitigate that.

beaconstudios 9y ago
what is a preferable way to handle what you call "violent radicalism"? If the rule is only targeted at those who are drawn into beliefs that would see those individuals commit violent acts, what makes reporting them bigoted compared to reporting other violent groups?
- DanBC 9y ago
  Here's some information about CHANNEL / PREVENT: http://www.teescpp.org.uk/prevent-channel-referral-process http://www.teescpp.org.uk/prevent-channel-referral-process People who are referred are assessed, and most appropriate help should be provided. For some people this will be mental health services. For others it might be befriending services, or access to non-radicalising social groups. People have mentioned external speakers. Here's the guidance for Higher Education in England and Wales. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445916/Prevent_Duty_Guidance_For_Higher_Education__England__Wales_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... ---begin 6. We would expect RHEBs to be delivering in the following areas. External Speakers and Events 7. In order to comply with the duty all RHEBs should have policies and procedures in place for the management of events on campus and use of all RHEB premises. The policies should apply to all staff, students and visitors and clearly set out what is required for any event to proceed. 8. The RHEB clearly needs to balance its legal duties in terms of both ensuring freedom of speech and academic freedom, and also protecting student and staff welfare. Although it predates this legislation, Universities UK produced guidance in 2013 to support institutions to make decisions about hosting events and have the proper safeguards in place: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/Externalspeakersinhighereducationinstitutions.aspx http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/Extern... ---end https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445977/3799_Revised_Prevent_Duty_Guidance__England_Wales_V2-Interactive.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

watwut 9y ago

You mean the ranking that ignores all religious and private institutions with much higher restrictions?

pjc50 9y ago

Spiked online is not a reputable news source, it's a professional troll organisation. They're currently libertarian but are the successor paper to "Living Marxism".

bannedaccount 9y ago

In my college in US there was a "Free Speech" group that would bring in different radical speakers to "expand the minds" of the student body. Well that was it's stated goal anyway, in reality every single speaker was a hard right-winger and the groups was entirely funded by a conservative PAC. When nobody actually showed up the group shut down after only a year. Also this article isn't really even about free speech in the context of personal or political expression.