Something is very wrong on US college campuses. Universities in the nation that gave us the Free Speech Movement have been besieged by an unholy alliance between student offence-takers and busybody bureaucrats, willing to ban speakers and snuff out inconvenient thought. Worse still, over the past 12 months, a supposed backlash against the campus speech police has descended into farce. A small band of un-PC provocateurs, who have taken up free speech as their cause, are met at every campus they visit by illiberal-liberal protesters. The noble fight for free speech has become its own kind of culture war.

That’s why, this year, our sister US free-speech charity, spiked US, founded the Unsafe Space Tour, bringing all-star free-speech line-ups – including Steven Pinker, Laura Kipnis, Bret Weinstein, Sarah Haider, Kmele Foster, Wendy Kaminer and Brendan O’Neill – to US college campuses. Our events so far have shown that we free-speechers have our work cut out for us. We were forced to hold our Title IX event in DC off campus, after students threatened to protest against it and the American University administration pulled our venue at the last minute. Our Rutgers panel, on identity politics, was protested against outside and disrupted inside by Black Lives Matter activists.

But the tour so far has been enlightening and encouraging, too. Our aim is to draw out the radical, humanist case for free speech, to convince students that every college should be an Unsafe Space, and we found packed rooms of students and academics receptive to this message, and up for a no-holds-barred debate. The 2017 tour is now over. But stay tuned for more events, and videos for all of the panels so far will be posted below soon. If you’d like to be kept updated, or if you want to bring the tour to your campus, email Tom Slater. And if you’d like to help keep the show on the road, donate here.

Past events

Is political correctness why Trump won?

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA – Monday, November 6, 2017 The shock election of Donald Trump has sent many looking for answers. Why didn’t his outlandish statements, his ‘locker-room talk’ and his out-there views sink his candidacy in the way it would have sunk others? While many have chalked his win up to racism, xenophobia and misogyny – others suggest it was a revolt precisely against those who so casually throw around those labels. In short, the election was a referendum on political correctness, a choice between the immaculately focus-grouped Clinton and the from-the-hip Trump. Did PC culture get Trump elected? Will his presidency serve as an antidote to offence culture? Or is the thin-skinned Trump, who rankles at any criticism, just a different kind of ‘snowflake’?

Wendy Kaminer is a lawyer and social critic. She has written about law, liberty and feminism for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of eight books, including Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today.

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor in the department of psychology at Harvard University. He has written for the New York Times, Time and the Atlantic, and is the author of 10 books, including The Better Angels of Our Nature. His forthcoming book, Enlightenment Now, will be published in February 2018. @sapinker

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked and a regular columnist for Reason and the Spectator. He has also written for the LA Times, the Sun, the Australian, and more. This year, he was named best online columnist at the Maggie Awards. He is the author, most recently, of A Duty to Offend.

Robby Soave is associate editor at Reason and a columnist for the Daily Beast. He has also written for the New York Times, the New York Post, CNN, USA Today, and more. He is currently on sabbatical, writing a book on activism in the age of Trump. @robbysoave





Is the left eating itself?

New York Law School, NYC – Thursday, November 2, 2017 Right-wingers have long been the targets of campus protests and calls for censorship. But, in recent years, self-avowed progressives, feminists and anti-racists have also been caught in the crosshairs. Feminist Laura Kipnis, a professor at Northwestern, was recently investigated by campus authorities after students took issue with an article she wrote about student-professor relationships. And a progressive professor named Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College is currently facing calls for his resignation due to criticisms he made of an anti-racist protest. Have today’s young progressives abandoned free speech? Is the campus left turning on its own? Or are these students simply holding their forbears to a higher, more progressive standard?

Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary theorist and a former professor of biology at Evergreen State College. This year, he was at the centre of a national news story when he criticised an anti-racist protest at Evergreen that asked white people to stay away from campus. There were calls for his resignation, and protesters took over the campus. Read more about Bret and his work here. @BretWeinstein

Angus Johnston is a historian of student activism and student government, and a professor at the City University of New York. He has contributed to Rolling Stone, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed and Slate, and has appeared on MSNBC, C-SPAN and Fox. Angus also regularly speaks on college campuses. @studentactivism

Laura Kipnis is a feminist essayist and academic. She is professor of media studies at Northwestern University and the author of seven books. Her latest, Unwanted Advances, expands upon her criticism of campus sexual-harassment policies. Due to her writing on the subject, she was subject to a Title IX investigation at Northwestern. @laurakipnis

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked and a regular columnist for Reason and the Spectator. He has also written for the LA Times, the Sun, the Australian, and more. This year, he was named best online columnist at the Maggie Awards. He is the author, most recently, of A Duty to Offend.





Identity politics: the new racialism on campus?

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ – Monday, October 2, 2017 The debate about racial equality is alive again on college campuses. But is it being mired in identity politics and competitive claims of victimhood? Tequila-themed parties or clumsy questions about where a student ‘is from’ have been recast as subtle forms of racism, as ‘cultural appropriation’ or ‘microaggressions’. And the idea that one’s identity gives one a special insight into certain issues is common. Those who dissent from an established view, whether they are from a minority community or not, are often shouted down. Discussions about police brutality towards African-Americans are particularly tense – one Wesleyan student was protested for writing a critical op-ed about Black Lives Matter. Similarly, criticism of Islam is often labelled Islamophobia, as a bigotry against Muslims rather than a rejection or dislike of the religion. By deciding who can speak on a topic and who cannot, by urging students of different backgrounds to tiptoe around one another, are student activists re-racialising campus life? Are students today really interested in fighting for equality, or merely competing for victim status?

Kmele Foster is founder and lead producer at Freethink Media. He is also a regular contributor to various political TV shows, and co-hosts a weekly podcast, The Fifth Column. @kmele



Sarah Haider is a writer, speaker, activist and co-founder of Ex-Muslims of North America. She promotes free speech, human rights, liberalism and atheism. @SarahTheHaider





Mark Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University, and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the international press. His article ‘After Identity Liberalism’ was the most read political opinion piece in the New York Times in 2016. His new book is The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics.

Bryan Stascavage is a writer, free-speech advocate and student at Wesleyan University. In 2015, he wrote an article for the Wesleyan Argus that criticised the tactics of Black Lives Matter, sparking protests and calls to defund the paper. @bstas10



