UCL Provost speaks on whether the university would ‘no-platform’ a Holocaust denier

Dr Michael Spence spoke of the university’s commitment to platform all invited speakers, as long as their speech is lawful. “Personally, I doubt that the views of a Holocaust denier would be lawful, and I believe that they ought not to be,” he noted.

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In an interview with the Times Radio on Monday, UCL’s new President & Provost Dr Michael Spence responded to a hypothetical question on whether the university would prevent a Holocaust denier from speaking on campus. Spence answered broadly, that everyone who is invited on campus by students or academics should be allowed to speak, as long as their speech is lawful and students and staff are “looked after.”

The interview concerned Dr Spence’s column, “Universities must learn how to disagree again,” published in the Times earlier on the same day. Dr Spence wrote that “universities have a particular responsibility for the intellectual life of the nation so should be advocates of respectful discussion and hosts for difficult public conversations.”

When asked by Times Radio host Stig Abell where he would draw the line, Dr Spence stated: “At UCL, we would have anybody to speak who was invited by an academic or by a student, so long as the speech was lawful and there weren’t going to be public order problems that we couldn’t control or whatever. We’re deeply committed to the notion of free speech.” 

Abell asked whether the University’s commitment to free speech would extend to a Holocaust denier, to which Dr Spence replied: “I think if a Holocaust denier were to be invited by an academic to speak at the university, then the university would obviously have a responsibility to make sure that its Jewish and other students and staff were looked after; that that event took place in an environment in which other views were expressed, and all the rest of it. But yeah, our commitment to free speech is deep.”

Jonathan Hunter, chair of The Pinkser Centre, a Jewish think tank which supports free speech on university campuses, reacted on Dr Spence’s statement: “Holocaust denial is not an academic opinion in relation to a historical event – it is knowingly fraudulent and hateful propaganda promoted by white supremacists and anti-Semites solely in order to malign, victimise and incite against Jews and other minorities.”

After receiving a letter from Mr Hunter, Spence clarified for the Telegraph that the point he was trying to make was that “UCL will allow free speech for all staff, students and visiting speakers, providing it is within the law.” He noted: “Personally, I doubt that the views of a Holocaust denier would be lawful, and I believe that they ought not to be if they are. But that was not the question put to me.”

The interview came amid growing tensions between free speech and antisemitism concerns on campus. In February, the UCL Jewish Society expressed that they felt “disturbed” that some academics at UCL seemed “more interested in theoretical discussion of antisemitism than practically supporting their students.” 

The society’s statement concerned UCL’s Academic Board’s vote in favour of the university’s rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The Board recommended replacing it with a more “precise” alternative, grounds for which they detailed in a report published in December 2020, where the IHRA definition was claimed to have “potentially deleterious effects on free speech, such as instigating a culture of fear or self-silencing.”

“Whilst I support the Provost’s commitment to free speech on campus and believe that universities should be a place for robust disagreement and debate, I don’t agree that this should be extended to Holocaust denial. This type of hate speech, which would only serve to target Jewish students and make them feel unsafe, should have no place at UCL,” Samuel Goldstone, president of the UCL Jewish Society, told Pi News after seeing a clip of Dr Spence’s interview with Times Radio.

“I fully acknowledge the huge emotional impact that Holocaust denial has on Jewish and other members of the community. I will do my utmost to ensure UCL remains the kind of place in which such a speaker would never be invited and our university tackles anti-Semitism in all its forms,” Spence told the Telegraph.

Free speech on campus has been a topic of debate since plans for tighter measures to ensure free speech at universities in England were announced by the government in February. The new measures will require both universities and students’ unions to “actively promote free speech” and make it possible for no-platformed speakers to sue universities who believe that this duty has been breached. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson argued that the measures are necessary to combat the “chilling effect on campuses of unacceptable silencing and censoring,” while critics argue that the threat to free speech on campus has been exaggerated.

(The full Times Radio interview with Dr Spence is available here, starting at 01:44:14.)