Powers to protect free speech to become law

Powers to protect free speech and stop speakers from being cancelled at universities are set to become law.

The Government has rowed back on plans to water down the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which will allow academics and students to sue universities for breaching their free speech rights.

Amendments that would have meant lecturers and students could seek compensation in court only as a last resort were dropped after a backlash from MPs and free speech campaigners.

The U-turn will anger some peers who voted to scrap the law that would allow universities to be sued for free speech breaches entirely in December.

Claire Coutinho, minister for children, families and wellbeing, said it was an essential part of the Bill ‘that academics, students and speakers must be able to go to court when their rights to free speech have been wrongly infringed’.

It is hoped the Bill will bring an end to ‘no platforming’ of speakers and academics on campuses. 

Cambridge don Professor Arif Ahmed is tipped to become the ‘free speech tsar’ in a new role created by the Bill. 

He has previously hosted free speech training at his college and spoken out against ‘cancel culture’ on campus.

Jo Phoenix, a criminology professor who quit the Open University claiming it failed to protect her , applauded the removal of the amendments.

She said: ‘Some universities have spent too long doing little to stop the problem.Maybe this will make them sit up, pay attention and protect the space for lawful exchange of ideas.’

The Bill will go to the Commons for consideration of the Lords’ amendments on Tuesday.

The rise of ‘woke’ activists has led to several speakers being shunned in recent years, including former home secretary Amber Rudd, who was uninvited by an Oxford University group in 2020 over her role in the Windrush scandal.

In 2021 Professor Kathleen Stock had to resign from her job at the University of Sussex amid a high-profile transgender row in which she received death threats.

In 2019, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson had his offer of a visiting fellowship rescinded by Cambridge University after its student union said his views were ‘not representative of the student body’.