In a recent interview, universities minister Jacqui Smith said that higher education providers have been put “on notice”, as the latest provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act come into effect.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Baroness Smith of Malvern urged universities to “take lessons” from the Office for Students record fine issued to the University of Sussex following the case of Kathleen Stock.
The higher education regular fined the Brighton-based institution £585,000 in March for its failure to protect Stock’s academic freedom when she came under attack for her gender-critical beliefs. Since then, the obstacles faced by researchers with similar views have become increasingly apparent, as recently documented in the second part of the Sullivan review.
Now, however, the universities minister insists that the Government will be tough on similar cases of cancellation, warning institutions that they could face even more severe penalties now that the new free speech rules have finally commenced. Smith insisted that the “silencing of academics or students who voice legitimate views” will not be tolerated.
“The record fine recently handed down to the University of Sussex has put universities on notice that they must uphold academic freedom and not allow lawful opinions to be silenced”, Smith told the Telegraph. “The Office for Students has made clear that any institution that flouts them in future could face even higher penalties”
Smith’s remarks signal a change of tone from Labour leadership after last year’s attempt to scrap the new law entirely, which saw a member of the education secretary’s office describe the Act as a “hate speech charter”. Still, even ministers have the right to change their minds, and it after a year’s worth of procrastination, obfuscation, and finally modification, parts of the law were allowed to come into effect last Friday.
The newly commenced provisions include an obligation on universities to safeguard freedom of speech through a code of practice, a duty to “promote” academic freedom rather than just protect it, and an OfS mandate to identify and give guidance on “good practice” for free speech on campus.
The remaining parts of the Act are either set to be scrapped entirely or have found themselves in a governmentally induced limbo. These include duties on student unions to protect and promote free speech – something most of them are currently quite inept at – as well as strengthened enforcement mechanisms for existing protections of legal speech by staff, students and external speakers.
The most significant of these mechanisms was a statutory tort, which would have allowed academics to sue universities for violations of free speech rights without needing to resort to expensive and time-consuming employment tribunals.
However, the Department of Education, once again finding its regular tune, said on Friday that the tort would have “saddled universities disproportionate legal costs” and “rendered the rules unworkable”. This is of course nonsense, as the tort would only have been available to claimants after every other means of redress had been exhausted. The impact assessment of HEFSA, made when it was originally making its way through Parliament, estimated its net cost at a drop in the ocean of higher education spending.
Another part of the Act that is currently “under review”, and therefore has no set commencement date, is increased scrutiny of foreign donations. This element was particularly aimed at financial support from Chinese sources, but would have obligated the OfS to monitor such activity across the board.
This addition to the Act could have been extremely useful. A recent report by UK-China Transparency highlighted the potential threats to academic freedom caused by the strong financial ties between several British universities and Beijing. One striking example is the Lau China Institute at King’s College London. It is the country’s largest centre for China studies and it is almost entirely (99.9 per cent, according to one report) funded by a single individual with strong ties to the CCP.
For the moment, the Government prefers such matters to be handled under a new Home Office foreign influence registration scheme, rather than the OfS. Just how effective this will be remains to be seen. Still, ministers like Baroness Smith continue to portray themselves as the new champions of free speech.
The watered-down version of HEFSA have, according to the universities minister, managed to “strike the right balance between a system that can actually be implemented effectively and the robust rules that are needed to protect free and open expression on university campuses”. She added that the Government is “determined to ensure campuses are places where robust exchanges of ideas can take place without fear or favour”.
While these comments are certainly an improvement from the “hate speech” talking points of last year, adequate protection of free speech requires more than tough words. If Labour truly wants to become the party of free speech and academic freedom, it must build on success of these new rules by allowing the rest of the Act’s provisions to commence as soon as possible.