New ranking exposes curbs on university free speech

The Conversation 05 February 2015

Freedom of speech is at the heart of academic life and a university should be a place where every issue is discussed and debated. Not so, according to the findings presented in the first ever Free Speech University Rankings which reveal that 80% of UK higher education institutions routinely regulate and actively restrict students’ free speech and expression in some way, writes Dennis Hayes for The Conversation.

Perhaps surprisingly, institutions in the Russell Group – which are generally considered to be the UK institutions with most prestige – place significantly more restrictions on speech than other institutions. They appear to be leaders in censorship as well as research.

The ranking was the result of a six-month-long project, developed and researched with a team of students and academics – of which I was involved as director of Academics For Academic Freedom, for the online current affairs magazine Spiked.
Full report on The Conversation site

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