The culture of safetyism on campus is becoming increasingly absurd There was a time when people who said ‘I feel unsafe’ were referring to a tangible threat. But not anymore. Take the students at Wolfson College, Cambridge, who have complained that they were made to...
Too many on what passes for the left today are keen to dismiss the free-speech crisis in universities as a ‘right-wing myth’. They brush off the countless examples of censorship as overhyped. And they ignore concerns about the moral policing of dissenting views. In...
Edinburgh University has decided to take yet another step to distance itself from its most important intellectual legacy – the Scottish Enlightenment. It has decided to rename its David Hume Tower because some students claim that the 18th-century philosopher’s views...
YouTube has set itself up as the world’s thought police over Covid-19 and is shutting down the voices of highly respected experts. This has dangerous consequences for us all, as scepticism and questioning gets us closer to truth. As far as YouTube is concerned, it is...
I became a university lecturer almost 50 years ago, in 1974. At that time in British higher education, there were occasional attempts to shut down discussion and limit freedom of speech. But the vast majority of academics and students were relatively open-minded, and...
In this series, writers give their verdict on the previous decade and predictions for the next. Here, Frank Furedi reflects on the decade when no-platforming, cancel culture and trigger warnings took hold. Instead of policing speech in the 2020s, he says, a...
During the past decade, and especially this year, those in positions of influence have tried to change the narrative through which society understands itself. There is an insidious crusade afoot aiming at controlling what the public sees, hears, thinks and believes....
The issue of language is becoming more and more acrimonious and controversial. Politicians are attacked not so much for their views and policies as for the words they use. And this new policing of language is not confined to politically motivated censors. Even the...
As a university professor and fervent advocate of academic freedom and free speech, I felt uneasy when I heard that an international group of academics is planning to launch a new journal that will publish anonymously written articles on sensitive topics. The...
As if Australia Day isn’t dangerous enough for the culturally insensitive, we are now advised not to celebrate the Australian belief in mateship and the fair go. The language police at Macquarie University have declared these are dangerous stereotypes, generalised...