In October, CAF conducted an exclusive interview with Michael Rainsborough, in which he talked about how he was driven out of King’s College London over his pro-Brexit views. Since then, we have talked with several current and former employees at KCL, who describe a free speech environment in which intellectual conformity is the norm and the “dominant mood is apathy”.
While Rainsborough’s case remains uniquely troubling, these testimonies indicate that the episode was symptomatic of a deeper problem at the London institution. None of the people we spoke to – all academics of considerable renown – wished to go on record. Most of them would not even communicate with CAF through their university-provided email accounts. They agreed to comment on the culture at King’s only on condition of strict anonymity.
Michael Rainsborough first ran into trouble at King’s in 2018, when he organised a seminar series called “Endangered Speeches”. This was meant as a “pluralistic exercise” to “expose students to different points of view” – the sort of thing a university ought to be about. However, the series had barely got under way before it encountered a backlash .
The first event was a speech by the author and academic Joanna Williams, who had recently written a book on conformity in higher education. Someone else involved with the event described her as “the least controversial figure in the series”, adding that “[i]t wasn’t political. She [Williams] is a serious person. She talks like an academic because she is an academic”. Rainsborough recalled that “[t]here was no controversy. Everybody left enlightened and informed”.
However, the very next day, the faculty dean came to Rainsborough and “really berated” him for the speaker series, claiming that it had brought the department into “disrepute”. Another member of the faculty, who was close to the Department of War Studies at the time, remembers the upheaval similarly, saying that “I don’t know why they had to make such a big deal out of it at the time. […] It strikes me that Michael [Rainsborough] was treated very badly”.
In his recorded interview with CAF, Rainsborough did not disclose who had “berated him” about the series, but we have since confirmed the person responsible was Professor Frans Berkhout. Currently the Assistant Principal for Climate and Sustainability at King’s, Berkhout was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy when the “Endangered Speeches” series was being organised.
From the evidence of our interviews, Berkhout is a divisive figure within KCL. One source described him as “ruthless” and “not an honourable person”, while others maintained that he is more of a “middle manager” who “does not necessarily agree with the directives but makes sure that they are carried out”. One current member of the faculty, however, strenuously disagreed with these assessments, saying that Berkhout was a “thoughtful and reasonable person”, who could be trusted “to steer a safe course across what has now become the minefield of academic life”.
Rainsborough is clear, however, that Berkhout was the person responsible for pushing him out as head of the War Studies Department. According to Rainsborough’s interview with CAF, the final straw came when he co-wrote an article “backing the whole idea of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union”. This apparently prompted some of his colleagues at KCL to take action and, as Rainsborough put it, “denounce me to higher authority”.
In this case, the higher authority in question was once again Frans Berkhout, who invited Rainsborough to a meeting, which “didn’t take place in any sort of privacy”, but rather was “held in an open café in the vicinity of the college in full view and earshot of anyone”. During this meeting, Rainsborough was informed that the faculty “should be looking towards you [Raisnborough] stepping down from the head-of-departmentship”.
Two other people, who were both members of the department at this time, confirmed Rainsborough’s account of events. One of them said “I don’t actually think it was a good idea to write that article […] as head of a department, it’s not a smart thing to do, but this [response from Berkhout] seemed disproportionate”. The other recalled that “it just seemed clear, at least to me, that he [Berkhout] just wanted him [Rainsborough] gone”. When asked whether Berkhout might just have been carrying out the will of the faculty or college leadership more broadly, this academic said “[l]ook, he [Berkhout]’s quite smart. He doesn’t require direction”.
It is not the first time that Professor Berkhout’s name has come up in relation to free speech controversies at KCL. Back in 2020, two anonymous (sensing a trend here?) academics wrote an article in The Critic magazine lamenting the state of free expression at the University, which it described as a “modern Witchfinder-General”. After the piece’s publication, Berkhout personally wrote a response, dismissing the allegations as “unfounded”.
Ironically, Berkhout is chair of the KCL “Freedom of Expression Standing Advisory Group”, a joint committee of University and Student Union members with “oversight of all staff and student events”. As such, he has frequently defended the institution’s record on free speech. During the King’s Presidential Series on Academic Freedom in 2023, Berkhout claimed that universities have a duty to “maximise the space for the exchange of ideas – in good faith and with minimal constraints imposed by the law”.
This presents a contrast with other comments by Berkhout regarding the University’s sustainability agenda. In a piece for Times Higher Education, he is described as “encouraging leaders to integrate sustainability into their learning objectives” and quoted as saying that students at King’s will acquire “the competence to ask the right questions”. “Faculties are beginning to add sustainability into their job specifications, and we need to ensure that everyone, from our chefs to our philosophy professors, are on board”, he adds.
“This Net-Zero and sustainability agenda is everywhere,” commented one member of the faculty. “It’s not something you can question; it’s the official position of the University. But it is a political stance. What if someone doesn’t agree?” When asked to what extent Berkhout is responsible for this creeping conformity, the person said “It’s not all on him; not at all. He’s a middle manager. It’s a culture thing. In the geography department, for example, Berkhout is a moderate.”
A member of the War Studies Department who has interacted with Berkhout many times agreed that he was not solely or even primarily responsible for the deteriorating free speech climate at King’s: “I guess you could call him a middle manager, yeah. I mean, he’s not the admiral; he’s more like a very effective commodore”.
Who then is the admiral of the anti-free speech armada? According to several of the people we spoke to, the person most responsible for driving woke policy within the institution is former Vice-Principal for Arts and Sciences Evelyn Welch. “I would call her the spider at the centre of the woke web”, was how one current member of the university put it, though we have not been able to verify the aptness of this metaphor.
Welch, who held the job of Vice-Principal from 2013 to 2022 and was briefly interim President and Vice-Chancellor of the University, has since relocated to become the new VC of the University of Bristol. “Let’s just say it was a massively popular event when she went”, explained a former head of department at King’s. “Since then, I do feel a sense that things are lifting” added a current member of staff.
Not everyone shares this sense of optimism, however. An academic in War Studies remained despondent when asked about Welch’s departure, saying “I wouldn’t say there’s been a positive change, no. Things aren’t as rapidly deteriorating anymore, but it feels kind of stagnant. The dominant mood is apathy”.
The person went on to say that “many of the rules are still in place. It [KCL] was once very open to the exchange of ideas. Now it’s more formal.” Asked to provide examples, the academic gave that of arranging panels of external speakers: “you need to justify the composition [of panel speakers] for diversity. Why are all the speakers white? Why are they all male? It’s not to say that you couldn’t do it, but you’d be asked to justify everything. I don’t know many people who bother with external panels anymore. It’s just too much”.
Several of the other members of staff agreed that things certainly had not returned to normal. One person explained that “when you apply for anything internal or external, you have to justify everything on the basis of fairness. But sometimes the question is: what is fair? Your research could literally be about that, and you’d have to already answer the question in your application”.
Another current member of faculty concurred, saying that “those who are still on the promotion track …are subject to a different kind of pressure”, adding that EDI statements are now “a major part of any application”. This person went on to recall that on “at least 3 of the hirings for which I was on the panel, the judgement came down to decolonisation and diversity for the candidates”.
Likewise, an academic from War Studies lamented the effect of this approach to hiring: “if you were to look at the people in our department, how many could effectively analyse a contemporary or historical military [campaign]? I’d be surprised if you could find more than 5 people”. Expanding on this comment, the person said, “this is War Studies. You wouldn’t think it was a woke subject, but it’s everywhere.”
Indeed, two members of War Studies at King’s confirmed the existence of a training course which all MA students in the department are expected to take. Called Professional Skills for a Globalised World, the course claims to teach students “the necessary skills for them to thrive in a diverse and multicultural world”, and includes “sections on diversity and inclusion and why they matter, managing our biases, the importance of considering how our words and actions can impact others, [and the] small steps we can each take to create a more inclusive environment.”
For instance, students are urged not to hold meetings in pubs because pubs are an uncomfortable environment for the “neuro-divergent”. They are also told that they cannot respond to accusations of causing hurt by saying “don’t be so sensitive” since “only the person in question gets to say if they are hurt or not”. The course “was created by activists…and is not subject to oversight from normal college quality control processes” said one King’s academic. “I expect that new Masters students seeing the course for the first time are shocked at its low quality and are increasingly alert to attempts to indoctrinate them.” Another person from War Studies added that “it might take an hour, so no one complains, but it is indicative of a climate in which DEI is the only acceptable ideology”.
Despite the stifling environment described by these current and former members of King’s, outright cancellations, as in the case of Michael Rainsborough, appear to be very rare. When asked if the threat of cancellation might have been exaggerated and created a sense of paranoia amongst the staff, several of our interviewees vehemently disagreed.
One person said, “no, I do think that is too sugary a view. Even if you couldn’t be fired, there could still be serious consequences”. Another current employee agreed, adding that “you still have to go to work every day and see people, have lunch with them. Why would you risk it?” A third person said “I think most people just keep their heads down now. You don’t want the trouble”.
Despite their complaints regarding some of the senior leadership, everyone we spoke to agreed that the problem goes beyond King’s. “It’s broader attitudes in society,” said one person, adding that “if King’s is exceptional, there might be a higher concentration of activists, but not by much”. Someone else said that “we as a society have to fix it, and I’m not sure how that is going to happen. This is going to take a generation to fix”.
The fact that academics are unwilling to speak on the record about the state of academic freedom in their own institution is a very troubling sign. Requirements for politically charged statements in internal and external applications are antithetical to establishing a truly ideologically diverse environment. Members of a university should be and feel free to discuss their views openly with their colleagues and their students, without fear of disciplinary investigations, social isolation, being pushed out of roles, or any other sanctions either formal or informal. King’s College London must do better.
Frans Berkhout and Evelyn Welch have been approached for comment.