The condition of freedom of speech in Britain’s university and college sector is as far as I can tell, abysmal. It has become an intellectual and viewpoint monoculture where students and faculty live in fear of the censoriousness of the extreme Left and those who are the votaries of identity politics.
Leftist staff and student bodies rob the higher education ecosystem of one of its most important aspects, that of viewpoint diversity. Instead of being places where ideas could be openly discussed and people could agree or disagree in a civilised manner, too often our institutions of higher education are merely ideological crammers filling students heads with stuff that cannot be challenged for fear of causing offence.
However all is not totally lost. There are brave individuals out there who believe in free expression, freedom of speech and thought and who take the view that there should be no sacred cow ideologies that are unable to be criticised. There are also groups who are fighting hard to bring back the spirit of free thought and expression that once characterised Britain’s university system when it was at its best.
One of those groups is Alumni For Free Speech which tries to link university alumni together to press universities to respect freedom of speech. If you are a university alumnus and you care about free speech, freedom of thought and enquiry and intellectual and viewpoint diversity then you might want to visit their website which is linked below.
Alumni for Free Speech website
https://affs.uk/
“causing offence” Stop right there! These people are not remotely “offended” – they are gratified to find an excuse to virtue-signal, shout down other points of view, impose their own by force, and generally bully, threaten, intimidate, and punish dissenters. They absolutely love it.
You have a point there. There are indeed those out there who desire to be offended so that they can whine about it, cry bullies if you will. But I am still gratified to see the existence of this Alumni organisation. The more organisations kicking back at these censorious bullying pricks the better in my view.