Campuses in hock to victimhood politics will never protect free speech properly

British society prioritises expressive freedom over group validation. But the atmosphere inside elite institutions is very different

Which do you consider a higher value: the feelings of the most sensitive members of a minority group, or the freedom for people to express their beliefs and pursue scientific truth? Too many Left-wing politicians, unions and commentators are pretending we can have our cake and eat it. We can’t. Britain is going to have to decide whether “emotional safety” or liberalism matters more.

The case of University of Sussex professor Kathleen Stock perfectly exemplifies this clash of values. In recent weeks, protesters at her university have engaged in a concerted campaign of harassment, erecting posters decrying the “transphobic s--t that comes out of Kathleen Stock’s mouth”, wearing balaclavas, setting off flares, and demanding Stock be fired to protect the “safety” of trans students. She has been advised to install CCTV at home, and to have security guards when setting foot on campus.

Encouragingly, the law, the Government and most of the media have come down squarely in favour of liberalism, backing Prof Stock against her tormentors. The mainstream have drawn an important line in the sand. British society prioritises expressive freedom over group validation.

But the atmosphere inside elite institutions is very different. This is especially true in universities, the arts, publishing and the creative professions, where there is a pronounced Left-wing skew and taboos against offending historically marginalised groups are extremely powerful. Among those who set the tone on campus, the dominant belief system is not liberalism but cultural socialism, which argues for the redistribution of power and self-esteem from oppressor to oppressed groups.

Many academics have some sympathy for cultural socialism. Among British academics in social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines such as Professor Stock’s, my research finds that Left-wing faculty outnumber those on the Right nine to one, and, among staff and students generally, the ratio exceeds five to one. Those who identify as “very Left” are represented on campus at nearly four times the national level among SSH faculty and two times among students.

I find that close to half of far-Left academics support firing a scholar in at least one of four hypothetical scenarios involving publishing politicallyincorrect research on race and gender. They are twice as censorious as centreLeftists and four times more intolerant than centrists. Younger academics and students are twice as illiberal as academics over 50.

The loudest voices in faculty meetings, student unions, and in the main academic union, the University and College Union (UCU), are those of cultural socialists such as UCU leader Jo Grady. They have been able to steer the direction of university policy in the direction of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policies, which impair academic freedom. They infiltrate the administrative structures of universities, issuing directives which chill the freedom of academics to research and comment on public affairs.

The clash between cultural socialism and cultural liberalism stands at the heart of the Stock affair. If our rule of thumb is to privilege the voices of those with a greater claim to victimhood, the trans card trumps Stock’s hand (woman, lesbian). If redistributing power and selfesteem among identity groups is one’s paramount goal, it makes sense to quash academic freedom when the two collide – as they inevitably do.

Some criticise British academics for not standing up for Stock. But the reality is that many are torn between their commitments to academic freedom and cultural socialism. When asked whether they support political correctness (PC) because it protects minorities, or oppose it because it curtails free speech, 76 per cent of British SSH academics back PC and just 20 per cent oppose it. The British public, by contrast, opposes PC by a 47-37 margin.

Progressive illiberalism has rightly been identified as a growing threat by liberal media outlets. As the relatively illiberal millennial generation enters organisational leadership, this problem will grow worse. To combat it requires both a long-term culture war and shorter-term political solutions such as the Government’s new Academic Freedom Bill.

The latter, by proactively monitoring and regulating universities, provides an important external check on progressive intolerance on campus. This gives academics the reassurance they need to teach and research the truth as they see it, dissipating the chilling effects that cause a third of them to self-censor, impairing the university’s truth-seeking mission.