Efforts to prevent Germaine Greer from speaking at Cardiff University later this month highlight a worrying trend on university campuses to ban speakers.

The issue, inevitably, raises many legal questions relating to discrimination, free speech, health and safety, and terrorism. However, this is not solely, or even primarily, a question of compliance with the law.

Petition urges Cardiff University to cancel Germaine Greer lecture Read more

One of a university’s main roles in society is to encourage critical thinking and vigorous debate. Occasionally, this will involve inviting speakers who will express contentious, even inflammatory or offensive views. Indeed, some argue that it is the role of universities to provoke and discomfort, and that the true test of free speech is not just allowing someone to express views with which you disagree, but to express views that you find profoundly offensive.

Promoting the primacy of free speech in these terms is not to compromise the sector’s commitment to principles of equality, diversity or security, but to recognise that universities have a unique responsibility to promote and secure free speech – and securing the rights of external speakers to express their views, providing they are within the law – is part of that process.

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This is also a clear legal requirement for universities. The Education (No 2) Act 1986 requires universities to take reasonable and practicable steps “to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured” on campus, including for visiting speakers. Attempting to repress extreme but lawful views is not just inappropriate; it is arguably a breach of the fundamental mission of what universities are about. Many of us may disagree with Greer’s views on gender, or indeed find them profoundly offensive, but that does not mean she has lost the right to speak at a university.

If students and members of the public disagree with an invited speaker, they are well within their rights to express that through petitions and peaceful protest. But what we are beginning to witness on campuses is a more coordinated attempt by special interest groups to ensure that invited speakers with whom they disagree are shouted down and prevented from speaking.

If students disagree with an invited speaker, they are within their rights to express that through peaceful protest

There have been many instances on campuses in recent years of events having to be stopped due to intimidation, threats and active disruption against invited speakers. For instance, a talk by Nigel Farage , the Ukip leader, was cancelled by one university in the face of disruptive protests. David Willetts, when universities minister, had to abandon a speech on campus in 2011 due to sustained heckling and an “occupation” of the lecture hall. A talk on the Middle East featuring Israel’s deputy ambassador to Britain was abandoned due to severe disruption from protesters.

This is where the issue of safety and security comes into play. These sorts of situations place universities in an extremely difficult position in that they are not just having to balance free speech and principles of equality, but also free speech and security.

A university’s duty to ensure that the safety and security of students, staff and visitors on campus is not compromised is so fundamental that it has to trump even free speech. So when faced with the risk of violence or serious disruption that cannot be avoided or mitigated, universities are sometimes left with no choice but to cancel events.

When events are cancelled, universities will often try and secure other opportunities for the speakers’ views to be expressed at a subsequent event in a safer environment, to ensure that free speech is not compromised. And faced with increasingly hostile attempts to shut down discussions, universities are also being forced to consider taking disciplinary action against students found to be in clear breach of the university’s rules on free speech. For example, a PhD student who played a part in halting the Willetts speech was suspended from the university for a term.

The message must be clear: while the rights to challenge speakers and protest peacefully are vital, those who are found to be breaching the university’s rules and preventing free speech risk disciplinary action.

Guest speakers play a crucial role in university life, not least in terms of encouraging students to think for themselves, challenge other people’s views and develop their own opinions. If universities become discussion-free zones, it poses a risk not only to intellectual exchange, but to free speech in society as a whole.