Free Speech is in Danger in Universities

[i] (English-Speaking Union, 2017)

Free speech in universities is in serious danger of being infringed upon in universities across the Western world. This trend is becoming ever more obvious with speakers at universities having to cancel their events because opposition to their ideas and topics by students and other interest groups [ii](Nolan, 2017).

This has been a dogmatic issue in the United States (US) for some time [iii](Lukianoff, 2016), but this censorship exercise has begun to spread to the United Kingdom (UK), and now to Ireland.

In recent years, impediments to free speech in UK universities have grown to a head with events such as sombreros being banned from campuses, abortion debates being cancelled, and the statue of Cecil Rhodes being removed from Oxford University because of his links to the apartheid regime in South Africa [iv](Espinoza, 2017).

Such actions shield students from the realities of real life and universities are doing their patrons a disservice by giving them the impression that the world is a place which they can saunter through without hearing views which they do not agree with and that they possess the right to be never offended. In my opinion, the example of Rhodes’ statue being removed is particularly grievous. Yes, the man was one of the founding members of the apartheid regime. However, are we to attempt to remove all artefacts about him, and ignore everything about him? By doing this we essentially forget about his racist ideology and grant him pardon. The best way to deal with evil ideologies is to talk about them and to not forget their existence.

If you thought that we were safe from this suppression of speech in Ireland, you would be wrong. A talk in Trinity College by the Israeli ambassador to Ireland had to be cancelled because protestors blocked the entrance to the venue, and also in Trinity, it has been voted into the laws of the university that one is not allowed to offend an individual in the course of a debate [v](Dunne, 2016).

Freedom of speech is essential in our universities if we are to have an educated, critically thinking population who can make decisions for themselves and who are not offended and shocked about how the real world is when they leave their ‘safe spaces’ in universities.

[i] English-Speaking Union (2017). Freedom of Speech Should have no Limits. [image] Available at: https://www.esu.org/__data/assets/image/0014/16313/Freedom-of-Speech-should-have-no-limits.JPG [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].
[ii] Nolan, L. (2017). Free speech under threat on our college campuses. The Irish Ties. [online] Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/free-speech-under-threat-on-our-college-campuses-1.3045149 [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].
[iii] Lukianoff, G. (2016). Campus Free Speech Has Been in Trouble for a Long Time. [online] Cato Unbound. Available at: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2016/01/04/greg-lukianoff/campus-free-speech-has-been-trouble-long-time [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].
[iv] Espinoza, J. (2017). Politically correct universities 'are killing free speech'. The Telegraph. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12059161/Politically-correct-universities-are-killing-free-speech.html [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].
[v] Dunne, R. (2016). Free speech should reign on campus. The Irish Times. [online] Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/free-speech-should-reign-on-campus-1.2496720 [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].

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