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Charlie Parker is talking about a recent debate at the LSE student union. “A woman asked the union officers if they would ban something like a colour if it offended students and the welfare executive said yes,” says Parker, 21, a second-year philosophy student, sitting down on a blue beanbag at one of the campus cafés. “That stuck out for me as being absolutely crazy.”

Parker and his friends Chiara Cappellini, 19, and Christian Benson, 20, have set up a speakeasy society to bring free speech back to their university in a nationwide climate of “safe spaces” and bans — sombreros were recently banned at the University of East Anglia in the name of preventing racial stereo-typing, and Parker tells me that at Edinburgh clapping and laughing are banned if motions are rejected at union meetings.

“Our society is emerging from this growing sense of censorship that seems to be a problem on loads of campuses in universities across the country,” says Parker, whose father is Sun journalist Nick Parker and whose mother campaigned against The Sun being sold when she was at university in Manchester. “We want to encourage discussion of difficult ideas as opposed to closing down debate and undermining students’ ability to make up their own mind.” The Speakeasy is planning three campaigns: inviting people who have been no-platformed (prevented from speaking) to talk, another recounting the history of free speech and the third, called Expose Yourself, debating ideas that people might be uncomfortable with.

When Parker started at LSE last year the union had suspended the rugby club for a year because it gave out sexist and homophobic leaflets. More recently, The Sun was temporarily banned in union shops and the student paper refused to publish an article about upcoming elections because it was too political. Trigger warnings have been placed in front of the Palestine society’s stall, saying their content may be upsetting, and the atheist society was prevented from wearing T-shirts showing Jesus and the prophet Mohammed holding hands.

According to Spiked, an online current affairs magazine where Parker worked, LSE is among “the most ban- heavy universities in the country”. “That’s when I thought something needed to be done,” he says. “Universities ban things under the name of safe-space policies or no-platform policies but it’s counter-productive.”

These students describe their campus as a place where people can feel intimidated about speaking lest they say something that is offensive. Capellini, who is studying international relations, says there is “a veil of hypocrisy” where “people pretend they agree so as not to disrupt the safe space”, and she says that one of her lecturers has commented that “we are being treated like kids by this paternalistic approach”.

She continues: “They banned the rugby club because it was sexist, but if you believe that women are strong, surely they can expose people as misogynists rather than completely banning people who are offensive and have patriarchal attitudes.”

For Benson there has been “confusion” between debating topics and agreeing with them. “The student union here and others in the UK operate in such a way that if they don’t agree with something, that becomes an excuse to stop anyone else from deciding it for themselves. When Blurred Lines was banned from being played at university, few students agreed with the song or wanted it played, but what led to the establishment of our society was a sense that we want to feel able to come to our own opinions and we don’t need the student union’s heavy hand to tell us what we can and can’t hear in the name of trying to protect us.

“At the bottom of it is a lack of trust,” says Benson. “We fail as students and as adults if we aren’t trusted by our student union.”

An MA student interrupts from an adjacent beanbag: “Surely the union executives are democratically elected by students, so don’t you think if they decide to ban something it is their right as representatives?”

Parker is “happy” that she has joined in. “Debate like this is exactly what we want to encourage.” Benson points out that Parliament is elected but that doesn’t give a mandate to every one of the Government’s policies. “If they are allowed to make decisions just because we elected them all year round that means everyone else is only treated as an adult one day a year when we vote for them.” Parker states: “We are opposed to any form of restriction that treats students as not capable of making up their own minds.”

Why is it so intense at LSE? Benson says that “groupthink” comes into it. “Everyone in the union tends to be like-minded. Also, LSE students tend to want to prove themselves and bans can be a way for student unions to show they’ve done something — perhaps the ban culture is a manifestation of that.”

Cappellini adds: “Students will be in a safe bubble at LSE. Then when they go into the outside world they are confronted with controversial opinions but don’t know how to face it with debate. University should prepare us for the real world instead of putting us in the safe-space bubble.” Benson has found that “critical discussion is being undermined time and time again”.

The Speakeasy is yet to have its first formal meeting but a lot of people have already volunteered to join and Parker says “the guy I spoke to about setting up societies was excited”. Meanwhile, the student union general secretary, Nona Buckley-Irvine, says she “wholeheartedly disagrees that there is a culture against free speech at LSE”. “Decisions that can be polarising are taken to democratic vote where students decide what union policy is. Decisions we have taken that are claimed to restrict free speech have been taken to ensure that discrimination does not persist on campus, as we do not tolerate it.” She says the union “prioritises campus being a safe space for students and we are pleased to have moved forwards in promoting greater inclusivity and diversity in recent years”.

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Do the Speakeasy founders think bans are ever necessary? Benson says: “The line is where it goes into physical violence.” Parker adds in the abstract manner of a philosophy student: “That would be like John Stuart Mill and the harm principle. But free speech is for me and for the people I don’t agree with. It is a necessary democratic tool, to confront sexist or homophobic people.”

Too often, there is an automatic link between free speech and being offensive for the sake of it, says Benson. “There is a misunderstanding that being for free speech means you are a xenophobic lad who wants to go around offending people. That is not in our interests.” He uses the rugby club as an example of when bans lead to more trouble and people retreating. “It fuels hatred and the student population becomes divided.”

Safe space culture extends online. Benson says that someone with an ambiguously gendered name was criticised by the Feminist Society on Facebook and called a “white, privileged man who didn’t understand feminism”. That person turned out to be a woman. Another online group called LSE Memes mocked this, and the Feminist Society asked for their jokes to be taken down. LSE Memes refused.

Parker says: “These are bans which have little weight compared with the socially progressive movements of civil rights or women’s rights movements.” Benson points out that people are creating problems for themselves. “It’s a shame that society has gone from supporting good causes to the absurdity we have now. Arguing about whether the colour yellow is offensive is not on the same level as important free speech debates that happened in the past, such as whether black students could sit next to white students in lectures in America. We hope to prove the values of free speech by encouraging debate.”

Follow Susannah Butter on Twitter: @susannahbutter