Era of 'self-absorption': Professor Anthony Glees said hard-line students and academics have become more militant in the past ten years

Universities have become breeding grounds for intolerance where anyone challenging Left-wing views is ‘shouted down’, a terrorism expert claims.

Professor Anthony Glees said hard-line students and academics have become more militant in the past ten years as the internet age encourages ‘self-absorption’.

The politics lecturer said he was ‘cynically jeered at’ and branded ‘racist’ at a campus panel discussion on counter-terrorism.

The ‘threatening’ heckling at the University of London event became so bad that visiting Lib Dem MP Evan Harris was applauded when he asked the audience to be respectful.

Professor Glees said he was ‘upset’ at the ‘feeling of menace’, which showed the audience ‘had closed minds’.

He said that the new intolerance by hard-Left groups was threatening the concept of freedom of speech at university, and would end debate.

His warning comes amid concerns about the growth of so-called ‘no-platforming’ on campuses, in which controversial speakers are banned to create ‘safe spaces’ for students who might be offended by them.

Students recently campaigned to ban feminist Germaine Greer from speaking at Cardiff University because her views were considered offensive to transgender people.

On Thursday, Oxford students tried to ‘shut down’ a debate involving Miss Greer because of her view that a post-operative transgender female could not be a woman.

Controversies: Students campaigned to ban feminist Germaine Greer (left) from speaking at Cardiff because her views were considered offensive to transgender people, while Cambridge University took down an internet video of historian David Starkey (right) after student union officials and lecturers accused him of racism

Miss Greer was invited to speak alongside the Mail on Sunday journalist and author Peter Hitchens, who the protesters claimed was ‘racist’.

Activists gathered outside the Oxford Union to protest against her invitation to a panel discussion on marriage. They said she should not speak at the debating society because her views ‘cause genuine damage to trans people’.

Lucy Delaney, student union vice president for women, said: ‘We should condemn the Oxford Union’s decision to invite Greer and Hitchens. These speakers’ ideas are not “contentious” – they are violent.

‘Greer’s life-long tirade against transgender people and her refusal to acknowledge their identities as valid contributes to their oppression and marginalisation.’

The Oxford Union said: ‘The Oxford Union exists to uphold freedom of speech, inviting people of all opinions.’

'Offensive': Sarah Keenan, a law lecturer at Birkbeck University, said it was 'really disappointing' that Professor Glees was invited to speak

Cambridge University took down an internet video of historian David Starkey, who is known for his robustly un-PC views, after student union officials and lecturers accused him of racism.

Author: Miss Greer was invited to speak at Oxford alongside Mail on Sunday journalist Peter Hitchens (pictured), who the protesters claimed was ‘racist’

Professor Glees, who directs the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham and has acted as an adviser to the Home Office, said the intolerance could be related to the financial crisis.

He added: ‘It may be because of the tough economic times we’ve been through. There may be a very dangerous hopelessness. In the internet age, people have become self-absorbed. They live in their own worlds. They can’t see how their own world connects with anybody else’s.’

The panel discussion at which he was publicly abused last month, hosted by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, was themed on the Prevent Duty, which requires academics to report signs of radicalisation.

He said he was ‘mindlessly heckled’ by students and scholars for defending Prevent, which is unpopular among academics.

He was also called ‘white, male, colonialist, Zionist and racist’ by one student because he questioned the right of protesters to stop the Israeli ambassador speaking at universities.

He said some people were ‘happy to shout others down’ and joked: ‘I was glad to get out of there alive. I was taken aback by the atmosphere... these were closed minds.

‘I don’t expect people to share my point of view but I expect people to be open-minded, to engage in debate. Not to be attacked.’

Asked if he felt it was a safe space for debate, he said: ‘No. I felt threatened.’