Sussex’s free speech record is shameful

So far this year, the ‘No platforming’ policy of the NUS has been manipulated to ban certain speakers, such as feminist campaigner Julie Bindel,  for fears that their views are derogatory to certain groups. Similarly, Germaine Greer who openly stated that she did not believe post-op men were truly women, has had petitions nationwide to prevent her from talking on campus. Both who have campaigned and worked for many years for their causes have been shunned due to a few words.

Universities across the UK are increasingly happy to censor free speech, no platform opinions they don’t agree with and restrict what students can say or do. Places which are supposed to be a hive of intellectual stimulus and hubbub are now punishing their students for exploring conflicting ideas from a university’s status quo. What is the point of going to university if not to discover new ways of thinking and ideas?

Germaine Greer has been no platformed and accused of being transphobic

‘No platforming’ and campus censorship isn’t restricted to extremists. Many academics have been banned over their speeches for fear they are “inciting hatred’.  Comedians have also been hit by this flurry of censorship: feminist comedian Kate Smurthwaite was blocked from Goldsmiths last February for her views on legalising prostitution.

Student unions around the country are fearful of ideas which conflict their own political agenda. Their reaction to this is to prevent/enforce policies that take away the right of free speech and debate. Sussex university has had its fair share of censorship and restriction of free speech. In September 2015 The Badger, the student newspaper in Sussex, was censored by the Student Union over their story of a Sussex student who was suing the university for ‘defamation of character’. This then led to The Badger conducting a campaign to become independent from the SU.  The referendum was then cancelled a few days after with the then editor resigning.

Sussex University, and the city it’s built in, has a reputation for being a liberal political environment so why is free speech and expression being restricted? Everyone is falling into a trap of preventing each other from speaking and surely Sussex University is better than that? Well, apparently not. In fact, according to Spiked’s free speech rankings, Sussex is “hostile to free speech”. On their traffic light scoring system, Sussex University’s administration staff were given an amber rating, while the Student Union was given a red rating. Spiked assessed the policies of the Student Union and deemed some of them, such as ‘safe spaces’ and the ‘boycott of Israel’, as extremely harmful to free speech.

It’s heart-breaking that of all of the universities in the country, Sussex has ranked so poorly for free speech. A place which has such a vibrant political atmosphere now falls flat on its face by doing all of its students an injustice by limiting what they can say and how they can express themselves.  As much shit as we give Brighton, they have an amber rating, meaning they have more freedoms of expression and concessions to free speech than us.

We already try our best to make sure that minorities are represented within the student union. Now we need to start applying that philosophy to minority ideas.