Gavin Williamson needs a 'woke'-up call

If there was a list of 100 problems that universities are currently facing, free speech would not be one of them.

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Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced plans to enforce free speech by placing a new condition on British universities. In a bid to tackle the alleged “silencing” of guest speakers and academics on campus, Williamson proposes that universities must “take steps to ensure that lawful free speech is secured” in order to access government funding. Failure to implement these indistinct ‘steps’ could result in a fine.

This comes off the back of a college event at Oxford University where the filmmaker Ken Loach was invited to speak. Students protested outside the event, accusing Loach of antisemitism. An Oxford professor issued an apology for hosting the filmmaker. The government wants to assure that ‘no-platforming’ does not become a common occurrence and plans to appoint a ‘free speech champion’ that will supervise universities and investigate such instances.

This is the same government telling teachers that presenting white privilege as fact is illegal. The same government telling schools not to use material from anti-capitalist groups as they deem anti-capitalism an “extreme political stance”. The Conservatives are very selective about the kind of free speech they are willing to protect, and the kind they condemn.

This is not the first time Gavin Williamson has swooped in to advocate free speech. When Amber Rudd was ‘no-platformed’ 30 minutes before she was due to speak at an Oxford event last year, Williamson was quick to warn universities that if they fail to implement free speech, legislation would be put in place to assure that they do. Rudd’s rejection from the event, however, was hardly an issue of censorship. The Facebook event advertised Rudd’s achievements as the former minister for women and equalities, which the society later felt was a misleading promotion given her links to the Windrush scandal. She was supposed to be encouraging women to seek a career in parliament or the UN at the Oxford event, but students argued she should not be championed as a feminist, and she was cancelled at the last minute.

Aside from the arbitrary nature of the Tories’ latest strike in the culture war, it is also rather insulting for students to find out that this is the education secretary’s priority at a time like this. The government has been exploiting students since the start of the pandemic, yet free speech at events that can’t even be held in person is number one on his agenda. Meanwhile, the London Economic digital newspaper revealed that students have collectively wasted £1 billion on empty university accommodation, without a single mention of compensation. With the remaining academic weeks dwindling away, students have been left angry and frustrated, having had to pay extortionate tuition fees which have amounted to almost a year of classes via Zoom. If advocating for free speech is a way to distract or appease us, it’s not working.

If Gavin Williamson was in touch with the real problems that British universities are currently facing, he would know that racism is a far more pressing issue than free speech. A Guardian investigation found that between 2014 and 2019, universities received 996 formal complaints of racism. An LSE professor concluded that “there has been absolute resistance to facing the scale of racism in British universities”. In the last three years alone the Universities of Warwick, Derby and Exeter have had to suspend groups of students after leaked group chats revealed the vile racism and misogyny that is still alarmingly apparent at university. The education secretary  should be trying to get to the bottom of deep-rooted issues like this, not devising ways to look like the hero of the day.

Williamson said that “universities have a long and proud history of being places where students and academics can express themselves freely, challenge views and cultivate an open mind”. Yes, university should be a space for open political discussion and debate. However, there is a difference between allowing someone to openly express their opinion and actively giving a platform to voices that have the potential to cause damage. University societies have the right to invite whichever guest speakers they want, but if new information comes to light and causes them to retract their invitation, they should not face legal repercussions. Nor should uninvited guests receive government compensation for being ‘no-platformed’. The government undermines the concept of free speech by trying to control it.

If the Tories are going to force universities to give a platform to anyone, no matter their opinion, there should at least be a balance of viewpoints . If they are going to invite a controversial character from one side, they should invite the other. Freedom of speech is driven by hearing the other side of the argument. But I don’t envisage Gavin Williamson suggesting that every Loach-esque personality invited to speak should be counterbalanced with a ‘leftie’ human rights activist.

Of course, there has been no clarity on the practical implementation of this new free speech legislation, nor on what exactly it is supposed to achieve. Universities are yet to be prepped on how to fulfill their “legal requirement to actively promote free speech”. Perhaps there lies ambiguity in this policy because free speech at university is actually not a concern for most people. If there was a list of 100 problems that universities and students are currently facing, free speech would not be one of them. The Tories are clutching at straws, hoping that a right-wing narrative is challenged so that they can rectify the situation. This sorry attempt to captivate the electorate is more likely to result in students being pushed further away from the Conservative sphere of influence. So, for those left-leaning, every cloud has a silver lining.

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