Speak Freely – Why universities must defend free speech

This is an important and robust book about an important concern for the future of liberal democracy. Readers will be familiar with incidents reported from universities where speakers have been 'no-platformed', protests have demanded the removal of statues associated with imperialism, and students have insisted on being protected from certain opinions. The author sets the discussion within the context of the mission of a university to produce and disseminate knowledge in a spirit of free critical enquiry and truth seeking. This contrasts with the earlier mission of inculcating Christian orthodoxy, overturned in the course of the 19th century. Here John Stuart Mill made a critical contribution with his work on liberty and free expression.

The central chapter discusses free speech on campus, dealing with trigger warnings and safe spaces, hate speech, forms of protest, student groups and outside speakers, and finally faculty and academic freedom. Students should be exposed to contrary viewpoints so that they can arrive at their own rational judgement – even in the 18th century Voltaire maintained the right to free expression even if he vehemently disagreed with an opponent. This is surely the essence of the enlightenment spirit. Academics should also be free to enquire widely in pursuit of truth, while in practice there is an underpinning ideology of materialism that can be dangerous to question, as we examine in our Galileo Commission report. Paradoxically, liberalism involves a degree of tolerating the intolerable. The author sums up his case as follows: 'if students are to prepare themselves to critically engage the wide range of perspectives and problems that they will encounter out in the world cross their lifetimes, they must learn to grapple with and critically examine ideas they find difficult and offensive.' (p. 178)