So, the government has finally come up with a solution to the scourge of yellow-bellied censoriousness that has swept university campuses in recent years: it is going to ban it. Yes, it is going to ban banning. It is going to No Platform the No Platformers. It is going to force universities to be pro-free speech. Which is such a contradiction in terms it makes my head hurt. You cannot use authoritarianism to tackle authoritarianism. This is a really bad thinking.
The thinking comes from the universities minister, Sam Gyimah, a politician I normally have time for. Bright, young and absolutely right about the problem of campus censorship — he says it is ‘chilling’ that some students and academics think little about ‘stopping someone [from] expressing their views on campus simply because they are unfashionable or unpopular’ — Mr Gyimah will, I hope, go far. But his proposal, outlined today, to use government clout to get ‘tough’ on university banners strikes me as worse than useless.
Mr Gyimah says ‘tough guidance’ will be issued making it clear that universities and their staff and students will be prevented from censoring.
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