Re: Lauren Southern Detained at Calais, Barred U.K. Entry
Originally Posted by
ep1c_fail
It is not the same: the difference between the state detaining, imprisoning or barring an individual entry to the country and a university or private institution refusing to provide a certain speaker with a venue is significant. The state's determinations with respect to which views are acceptable is overwhelmingly more consequential than the determinations of a university's PR department on the same issue. Banning someone from entering the country is a substantial decision: banning them from a localized space (such as a university campus) is not.
Universities technically aren't private though. They are partly publicly funded (Both in terms of state-backed Student Finance England, but also they are directly allocated subsidies and budgets by the state for teaching, research etc) and are state regulated- They like schools have to receive their charter through the state, you can't actually just 'start up' a University. So i get what your saying, it is mixed, but they are primarily public bodies, particularly when it comes to fostering debate and discourse. And this is why i would conflate the too as again your perfectly right, i would add though in terms of 'free speech' as an overarching theme banning someone from speaking, and banning someone from going to a place to speak are the same issue when it comes to shutting down debate (They are different in terms of the what this means specifically for the legal system, politics etc).
There were certain issues cropping up with respect to free speech within universities: most of them related to over-zealous student unions attempting to censor views they disagreed with. For instance, I recall the City University of London's union banning the Mail and the Sun from the campus - an embarrassment for a university known for excelling in journalism.
Notwithstanding, I've seen virtually nothing from the government to indicate that they have an interest in expanding free-speech legislation in the United Kingdom. The Tories might make a fuss about conservative views being occasionally "censored" at universities (see above), but that isn't synonymous with a genuine interest in free-speech. They don't even present themselves as advocates of liberal speech codes: if anything they're more interested in showing everyone how eager they are to crack down on social media, online "abuse" and the use of "grossly offensive" language.
I would say this is more the extreme rather than the norm, iirc only 20 or so Universities in the UK have ever banned a speaker- and this varies from reason to reason of course, though arguably that is still bad, but considering the number of Uni's in the UK- its not a widespread issue, and in the case of City University of London it was the union passing a motion that the University then did not implement if i remember rightly- though of course it was silly in the first place. Again though the examples you provide do have merit and are worth disparaging in terms of the damage it does to open discussion and debate, but its not the big political issue the Conservatives have painted, the UK's universities again being by and large institutions of open debate.
I think too maybe we're talking the same line from different angles- I agree with your statements, what i'm saying is the Conservatives made a big song and dance politically about championing free speech- and then do this- what they say and do indeed are two different things and something that should be abhorred.
House of Caesars: Under the Patronage of Char Aznable
Proud Patron of the roguishly suave Gatsby
)- was big on 'Universities should do more for free speech etc etc' The Minister of Universities and the body set up to oversee Universities are part of this, with indeed their attendant fluff. What i'm saying is that Universities did not need an 'expansion' of free speech- it was already there, there was no real issue, but one drummed up for political gain, particularly for a government lacking the ability to pass real legislation, it was an issue they could fabricate, drum up and then look to do something about with no political capital having to be spent. That's the part i'm tying into this- that for a government to publicly extol 'free speech' as one of their cornerstones when it comes to 'open' debate as they have been- to then effectively mess up on so many levels (Snoopers, Gig-economy act, issues surrounding the back and forth between civil protections post-brexit to name a few other sign posts) and essentially allow for things like this happening, is a wee bit hypocritical.
