The government’s Prevent duty has come under fire again after it was revealed that King’s College London, one of Britain’s most prestigious universities, had warned its students and staff that their emails may be retained and monitored in accordance with the anti-terror programme.

Prevent is sold to universities as a safe and sensible method of clamping down on radicalisation on British campuses and promoting ‘British values’. In reality, it is a messy programme that promotes state censorship, chills academic freedom, attacks the relationships between teachers and students and dilutes some of the most fundamental British values. It weakens free speech and religious freedom. If students and academics want to maintain their freedom to listen and respond to different or difficult ideas, then they must resist Prevent.

In response to the monitoring revelation at KCL, a students’ union spokesperson described the scenario as a violation of trust, adding that “students who have not committed any crimes are being treated as suspects.” Here is the crux of Prevent’s problems. The culture of suspicion caused by the ‘suspects’ tag leads to a breakdown of trust between teachers and students. This risks damaging the effectiveness of counter-extremism. Muslim students who are learning about popular yet dangerous themes in the Islamic world – such as the belief that the world is divided into the Dar al-Islam (“House of Islam”) and the Dar al-Harb (“House of War”) – will feel uncomfortable bringing their thoughts to teachers, fearing they will be flagged by counter-extremism measures. This blockage of mistrust pushes student discussions on ‘extreme’ content underground, where the access to other critical minds is unsatisfactory.