Do 'no platform' policies threaten free speech at uni?

The debate on campus free speech was rekindled last week as Jo Johnson, the universities minister, announced that the newly created Office for Students will be given powers to fine, suspend or register universities which do not uphold “freedom of speech” on campus. The proposal would entail a clampdown on “safe spaces” and no platform policies. But what do students think about it?

‘No platforming is only a threat to hate speech’

Lucas North studies at the University of York

The announcement has been dressed in the usual language around no platforming – that this is a free speech issue. And as usual, that’s not actually the case. No platforming is not a threat to free speech, it is only a threat to hate speech. No trans person feels free to speak against a celebrity transphobe. No Muslim student feels free to speak at an event led by someone whose only claim to fame comes from Islamophobia. Free speech is not under threat in our universities – our students are.

‘No platforming limits the intellectual lives of students’

David Troy is a PhD student at the University of Bristol

I agree with the spirit of the new regulations, though ideally I would prefer a relentless student movement demanding our right to free speech and the freedom to hear controversial speech on our campuses. By restricting the speech that students can hear at university via no platforming, we are being restricted from developing our moral and debating muscles that we need to argue against and defeat racist, sexist, and discriminatory views.

By no platforming, universities are limiting the intellectual lives of students and patronising them, suggesting that they don’t have the intellectual and moral rigour to hear controversial ideas and be able to judge their value in the marketplace of free ideas. With the exception of incitement to violence (which I think should hold criminal sanction), I believe any problems that arise from free speech can be countered by other free speech.

'There is no intellectual gain in platforming bigoted speakers’

Guo Sheng Liu studies Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Oxford.