Free Speech In Universities?

[mushroom25]

following the resignation of Professor Kathleen Stock, academia has said that universities must exist to uphold academic freedoms, and they should “stop pretending there is no crisis of free speech and start paying attention to the problem and trying to solve it”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/29/stop-pandering-students-universities-told-trans-row-professor/

should students and academics be free to challenge without fear of cancellation, or worse? or are some views just too toxic to be shared with the young and vulnerable?

[naomi24]

Yes, they should be free to challenge.

[jno]

universities are money making machines these days; they won't do things that cause controversy and might deter students - especially rich foreign ones - from signing up. The university offered support to Prof Stock but she left anyway.

[fender62]

but is it foreign students causing the problems though, i htink its more homegrown rentamob activists, or x hippie tutors with an agenda.

[middlemarch]

Kathleen Stock's union has behaved shamefully in this matter.

[naomi24]

Foreign students aren’t causing it. The pathetic woke world of the perpetually offended is responsible for this.

[Deskdiary]

Silly woman.

How very dare she have the bare-faced temerity to have the opinion - an opinion the vast vast majority of people have - that biological sex is immutable.

Everybody should know by know that’s the ‘wrong’ opinion, and the transgender tiny minority will be very loud against those people who voice this ‘wrong’ opinion.

I’m one of those with the ‘wrong’ opinion - biological sex is immutable; actually it’s even an opinion - it is a fact.

[Deskdiary]

Should read - it’s not even an opinion, it’s a fact.

[naomi24]

Deskdiary, it’s not even just a matter of opinion. It’s a fact of life!

[naomi24]

Cross posted.

[Deskdiary]

I’m struggling to understand how it’s possible to make the leap that stating a biological fact is somehow transphobic.

I’m not being obtuse - I genuinely don’t get it.

[naomi24]

J K Rowling has been shoved aside too for saying that people who menstruate are called women.

[Mamyalynne]

What I find perplexing is that people with strong held convictions are not robust enough to share the World with those that disagree with them.

Do they really want a society in which everyone nods and agrees?

How tedious.

[Deskdiary]

^^^I agree.

If people are transgender, then good for them, I have zero issue with that, but they should equally respect the view of the majority.

[Peter Pedant]

// Yes, they should be free to challenge.//
we have had this before you know
and no to advocate murder terrorism or criminal mayhem

clearly they are circumscribed - not to advocate others to burn down the VP's lodge etc

The leddy resigned, and wasnt booted out
and no I wdnt accept someone sending HER death threats

Clearly - this is not rocket science, if we are going to say that she is free to argue men are men ( or not) then we have to limit freedoms of others to threaten...

[Peter Pedant]

// Do they really want a society in which everyone nods and agrees?//

thank god we dont have any of that on AB !

[ToraToraTora]

chalk up another one for the LibFac nazis. Must all our views now be approved lest we be "cancelled"? What a load of old pony!

[youngmafbog]

Bang on TTT.

[andy-hughes]

I am always keen to support the notion of freedom, as long as those enjoying it don't forget Freedom's essential and constant companion, Responsibility.

[naomi24]

//Freedom's essential and constant companion, Responsibility.//

Who decides where the line of responsibility is drawn? The people who are 'cancelling' those who disagree with them think they're acting responsibly. In my opinion they are not.

[andy-hughes]

Responsibility, and freedom, are variable of course, and it is for Society to decide what their parameters are. As long as 'cancelling' and similar nonsenenses remain what they are, pointless attention-seeking stpudidities, given far more attention than they could ever legitimately justify by a bored and lazy media, then we need not worry.

The downside of enjoying the priceless concept of free speech means that it will always be abused by self-aggrandaising numpties, but they always have been, and always will be, a minor irritant, whose overall influence and effect is always directly inversely proportionate to what they think they deserve.