Free Speech?

[naomi24]

Angelos Sofocleous, a Durham University student, whose tweet “women don’t have penises” provoked a transphobic row, has been banned by the student union from taking part in a debate about free speech.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-47199156

Ironic that the subject under debate is free speech, so should free speech mean free speech – or should it be curtailed and the speaker rejected simply because his opinion, albeit clearly accurate, doesn't meet with the approval of other people?

[Rockrose]

Its the student union - who really cares? Half their opinions will change in the next 3 years anyway.

[naomi24]

You don't see a principle here?

[Rockrose]

Personally I don't see it as a great issue because as I said they are students and opinions change over time.
Remember the students of the 80's - and their behaviour - how many still behave in that manner.
At the end of the day their opinions have no affect on my life - so I don't bother.

[naomi24]

Okay.

[Rockrose]

Its just Naomi that we all did things as students that we wouldn't do now as 'adults'.
Sorry perhaps this is not the debate you were looking for.

[naomi24]

I'm not looking for any particular kind of debate, just people's views. Thanks for giving your opinion.

[Old_Geezer]

Don't know what the security reasons are, but I suspect that the answer to the debate has been made clear before it starts. Sounds like it's bound to be a one sided discussion.

[Calicogirl]

I agree Naomi I think the right to free speech is more important than virtually anything with the proviso that it is not abused as an excuse to stir up hatred. In this instance it seems unlikely.

[ichkeria]

My opinion is that it is very sad and it looks as though the SU is hiding behind spurious security concerns.
You don’t have to support someone to see that this is a ridiculous situation.

[ichkeria]

Even if the security concerns are genuine, as in “we don’t want a lot of protests and disruption”, it’s still unsatisfactory

[Zacs-Master]

I think I’m taking the same line as Rockrose. I don’t believe that the opinions of one student or a student union are a sound basis on which to discuss free speech.

[ichkeria]

Surely free speech matters in places of learning?
I’m not sure this is just about free speech though. “Common sense” also springs to mind.

[Kromovaracun]

It is important. Many of the people at this university (and most importantly on the student union) will be making their way into the civil service and onto local councils. Even if that wasn't the case, though, it's important because it comes back to the old issue about how student unions treat the people they are supposed to represent. Currently students in the UK are getting a pretty raw deal in various ways and they would benefit enormously from having conscientious and intelligent union reps to lobby on their behalf and represent their interests. That is what unions are for. Instead, the tiny cross-section of people who get on to these unions (invariably on remarkably shoddy electoral processes which would not be tolerated on any other kind of union) do something quite different. They waste their time picking fights with people who have the 'wrong' opinions and exploit sensible security rules to have them excluded from campus debate, they use their positions on student councils to grandstand and tote up CV points for their own political careers, and in general they make themselves a nuisance to the people they are supposed to be representing, who understandably respond by getting on with their lives and avoiding the Union at all costs. This is not how the majority of students who go to university think and it's a real shame that their representatives behave in this way.

[Zacs-Master]

Yes, it matters but I don’t think a Uni, where people are developing their place in the world and opinions are sometimes fashion-fluid, is a good place to debate free speech per se.

[youngmafbog]

Surely students should be debating all topics, no matter how distasteful? How else will they learn how listne and then to counter argue a point?

I see what you are saying ZM but this is just really a local debate, the outcome, whatever it would be, would not be binding or broadcast (apart from maybe Social media).

Students need to understand people have different opinions and those with different opinions need to understand where the line is if it is a contentious subject.

[Zacs-Master]

‘this is just really a local debate, the outcome, whatever it would be, would not be binding or broadcast’

But it has been broadcast!

That aside, I think your points actually back mine up. The opinions of students aren’t really any basis for pinning the concept of free speech on.

‘One week he’s in porker dots, the next week he’s in stripes’

[Zacs-Master]

Polka. I wrote ‘polka’.

[youngmafbog]

Yes, I am fundamentally on the same page as you ZM.

But I suspect that if the SU had not been so daft nothing would have been "News".

[Zacs-Master]

I agree. I don’t even think it’s newsworthy. The BBC picking up on it simply panders to these type of people’s craving for publicity.

[Theland]

Another example of those who like to preach tolerance being totally intolerant.