Free speech on campuses stifled by excessive regulation, says Oxford professor
Free speech on university campuses is being stifled by excessive government regulation, a leading Oxford professor has suggested.
Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European Studies at the university, has raised concerns about new laws aimed at protecting free speech on campus.
While acknowledging 'significant threats to free speech in universities ', he argued it was students and academics – not the Government – who should decide 'what we should and should not say'.
'That whole path down which we've gone down of government regulation is actually not the right way to go,' he told the Oxford Literary Festival, partnered with The Telegraph.
'A university should be a place where we – academics, students, and everyone involved – figure out what we should and should not say.
'One of the problems we have at universities is that over the last 50 years, we've become entangled in ever more thickets of government regulation, some of which are self-contradictory.
'You have health and safety regulation, then you have the equality and diversity regulation – which is all about things you probably shouldn't have said.
'Then you have Prevent, the counter-terror legislation – which is quite explicitly telling people what not to say – and now we have a new body of regulation that is the precise opposite, that you must let people say these things.'
'It's a bad idea'
Initially, Labour halted the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, passed under the previous Conservative government in 2023.
It has since decided to push ahead with protecting free speech at universities.
Lord Patten of Barnes, chancellor of Oxford University from 2003 to 2024, who was in conversation with Prof Garton Ash, replied: 'I totally agree with that. All politicians have difficulty accepting autonomous institutions which are part of the checks and balances in democracy.
'It's a bad idea to introduce government legislation in free speech.'
In January, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said the Act would impose a duty on universities to secure and 'promote' freedom of speech.
She said: 'Academic freedom and free speech are fundamental to our world-leading universities and this government is committed to protecting them.
'These changes protect free speech but avoid implementing excessive and burdensome provisions which could have exposed struggling universities to disproportionate costs, diverting money away from students to pay lawyers.
'The decisions we are making about the Act demonstrate that we were right to pause commencement and to review its impact before making decisions on its future.'
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