Free Speech with Teeth

For our final episode of 2023 we zoom in on the higher education sector, where the Office for Students has just published proposals on its complaints process under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. As reported in The Independent, universities, colleges and student unions in England which fail to uphold free speech duties are set to be named publicly and may also find themselves having to pay compensation to successful complainants. Professor Arif Ahmed’s inaugural speech as the first ever Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom is well worth reading in full and sets the tone for how we might expect the new legislation to be applied. We take the opportunity to remind ourselves of the FSU’s own higher education statistics, cases which have emerged out of some of Britain’s most esteemed institutions. Finally, we review a selection of the individual free speech cases in the higher education sector, many of which owe their success to the launch earlier this year of the Mactaggart programme.

We wish our listeners a very Happy Christmas and a 2024 full of free expression.  

"That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.