A potentially serious assault on our academic freedom is under way in the form of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill currently going through Parliament. If enacted, Northumbria will of course have to comply and this poses a significant threat to the academic freedom of our members.
The Bill contains clauses that put a duty on universities to
- ban 'extremist' speakers on campus;
- develop 'extremist' speaker policies;
- conduct risk assessments of students vulnerable to violent extremism and non-violent extremism (as the Bill states "which can create an environment conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit");
- put in place procedures so that when an event with external speakers is organized, checks can be made on the content of their presentations, the
footage to be shown, etc.
A recent article in the Guardian warned that the expression of radical ideas within universities could be criminalized: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/02/anti-terror-bill-making-radical-ideas-crime-campus
Of course, the subtext of all of this is tackling Islamic fundamentalists on campus, but the danger is that 'extremism' can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Indeed, this was conceded by the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy, who expressed his concern to the press that terms such as 'extremism' leave too much discretion to the police to decide, in the heat of the moment, what constitutes 'extremism'.
Similarly, the Joint [House of Commons and House of Lords] Committee on Human Rights published a report in January 2015 [see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201415/jtselect/jtrights/86/86.pdf (pp.24-27) which stated that "In our view, universities are precisely the places where there should be open and inclusive discussion of ideas. Broad terms such as "extremist" or "radical" are not capable of being defined with sufficient precision to enable universities to know with sufficient certainty whether they risk being found to be in breach of the new duty and therefore subject to direction by the Secretary of State and, ultimately, a mandatory court order backed by criminal sanctions for contempt of court. This legal uncertainty will have a seriously inhibiting effect on bona fide academic debate in universities, and on freedom of association, as lecturers and students worry about whether critical discussion of fundamentalist arguments, or of the circumstances in which resort to political violence might be justified, could fall foul of the new duty" (p.26).
If the legislation is passed, we might want to consider, as a branch, engaging with management over what is in any 'extremist' speaker policy and to seek the issuance of some clear guidance that protects our academic freedom.
To share with colleagues a concrete example of where this legislation might face us with a problem, a few years ago a Muslim student expressed her view in one of my seminars that the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq had the right to self-defence and thus were justified in killing British and US soldiers who were illegal invaders and occupiers. Was she exercising her right to free speech or was she expressing 'extremist' sentiments that could be used to justify 'terrorism'? If this legislation was in place at the time, should this student have been put forward to be risk assessed? I would not have done this, but her fellow students, many of whom were outraged by her comments, might have contacted the University authorities to request this. They may also have launched a complaint against me as a member of staff for, in their eyes, being complicit in her 'extremism'. The potential for academic and student self-censorship and the encouragement of Islamophobia is clear.
Food for thought
Andy Mullen