New research explores the relationship between free speech and decolonisation at UK universities
The Free Speech Union
The FSU is a non-partisan, mass-membership public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members.
Research just out from think tank Civitas has identified 374 "free speech controversies" at UK universities during the period 2017-20. These include: 142 "anti-free speech petitions", 123 "transphobic" controversies, 30 so-called "no-platformings" or "disinvitations" of external speakers, and multiple demands for the censure or firing of academics, and/or restrictions on their publication and teaching.
The research also sought to understand the relationship between free speech and the recent trend towards decolonising curricula at UK universities. Civitas researchers scoured university websites, looking for any mention of either formal university policies or official statements/commitments on decolonisation or any mention of academics pushing for decolonisation. What they found is that "the decolonisation movement is more pronounced in British universities than previously thought". Specifically, the results of this web scraping exercise reveal that over half (56%) of 140 UK universities surveyed have "an official commitment in some form", while a third (34%) "employ academics that are advocating for decolonisation". Seven out of 10 have at least one or the other.
Correlation analysis of key variables of interest also establishes that free speech controversies tend to occur more often "where there are official policies/statements as well as academic advocates of decolonisation." In a sense, that's not particularly surprising — at an anecdotal level much evidence already exists to suggest that the decolonisation movement in UK higher education all too often involves senior administrators, bodies like Advance HE and/or radical activists in pressuring academics to conform, overriding their independence in setting their reading lists and writing their lectures (e.g.,?Mail,?Times Higher,?Telegraph). What's important about the quantitative research conducted by Civitas, however, is that it suggests these anecdotes aren't in fact anecdotes at all, but instances of a wider, statistically observable trend across UK higher education.
Drawing on research conducted for the Higher Education Policy Institute last year, the report concludes with a summary of students’ views on free speech. It suggests there may be support for the decolonisation movement among students: 77 per cent "of students believe there should be ‘mandatory training for all university staff’ on understanding ‘other cultures’" (up by 22 percentage points since 2016); 76 per cent of students thought that "universities should always or sometimes ‘get rid of’ memorials of potentially controversial figures" — up from just over half (51 per cent) in 2016); and 62% of students say they support the creation of so-called "safe spaces" on campus, a policy?increasingly associated with attempts to decolonise the?university classroom?— that represents a 14-point rise since 2016.
The report's author, Dr Richard Norrie, concludes that "the evidence shows a strong and growing censorious cohort of students who prefer cossetting over intellectual challenge, as though the harms of the latter were real and unbearable."