UK universities are being accused of suppressing ideas. All they are doing is complying with the law – and common decency

Peter Dench/Getty Images Reportage

IT IS hard to hear the phrase “political correctness” these days without reflexively appending the words “gone mad”. Thanks to self-appointed guardians of liberty, the inoffensive idea that people should try to avoid insulting language has been turned into a battleground over free speech.

This might sound like a silly spat straight out of the pages of the tabloid press, but people who care about science ought to be paying attention. Free speech is a vital ingredient of enlightened scholarship and education.

The latest place PC has supposedly run amok is the British university campus, where staff and students are increasingly drawing red lines on what constitutes acceptable behaviour and speech. That has led to “no platform” bans on controversial speakers and the creation of safe spaces where discrimination is prohibited (see “Trigger warnings are taking over universities, but do they work?“).


To critics, this amounts to an assault on freedom of expression, and is further evidence that today’s youth are a snowflake generation unable or unwilling to deal with challenging ideas. The UK government has threatened to fine universities deemed to be censoring free speech.

If universities really are doing that, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. But the case is weak. A survey of 115 UK universities and students’ unions carried out by online magazine Spiked supposedly found that 63 of them “actively censor speech and ideas”. But a closer look reveals that the majority simply attempt to prohibit hate speech.

“The term ‘political correctness’ is tarnished beyond repair but the ideal it expresses is not”

Consider Imperial College London. According to Spiked, this venerable institution has “banned and actively censored ideas on campus”. Its sins? A policy of removing transphobic material and a dress code banning offensive slogans or symbols. Many other institutions with a similar, measured approach are also tarred as “active censors”.

Whether hate speech ought to be protected as free speech – as it is by the US constitution – is an interesting debate. But at present, in the UK, it is not. Hate speech is a criminal offence.

Admittedly some of the student union policies read like a parody of, erm, political correctness gone mad. But the world of student politics is a crucible for emerging political consciousness and some naivety is to be expected. You may think that banning “lad culture” is a bit silly, but it hardly constitutes snowflakes wrapping themselves in cotton wool. If anything, it is the opposite: engagement with contentious ideas.

The term “political correctness” is probably tarnished beyond repair, but the ideal it expresses is not. Tolerating hate speech is not a courageous and principled defence of freedom any more than prohibiting it is censorship. Playing the free-speech card can often be a Trojan Horse for smuggling some deeply unpleasant and reactionary ideas back into society.

If UK universities really were actively censoring ideas, then people who care about freedom of expression ought to be worried. But the true threat to enlightenment values comes from those who piously pretend that political correctness has gone too far. The madness lies in the exact opposite direction.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Hate speech is not free”