Foreign interference in UK higher education has once again come under scrutiny following comments by Professor Arif Ahmed, the Office for Students’ (OfS) Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. Speaking in the wake of his keynote address at the Committee for Academic Freedom’s inaugural annual conference, Professor Ahmed warned that universities must take seriously the threat posed by students secretly recording seminars and passing information to officials in their home countries.
Reports in recent months have described instances where the families of overseas students were contacted by foreign authorities after critical remarks made in UK classrooms were covertly shared. Concerns have also been raised about scholarship schemes that oblige recipients to report on fellow students and may therefore breach the new Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.
In an interview with Times Higher Education, conducted at the conference, Professor Ahmed said he was “deeply concerned” about evidence of “coercion or harassment” directed at international students and the chilling effect such behaviour could have on academic freedom in British universities.
Here’s an extract from the interview:
Scholarship agreements that require students to spy on their fellow students could also breach new OfS legislation which came into force in August, said Ahmed, who was a University of Cambridge philosophy professor prior to joining the OfS in June 2023.
“If you’ve got a scholarship agreement which essentially says ‘scholars from Country X have to sign an agreement saying they’ll do this’ then they will follow the advice. They will report back to the embassy, and report on other students,” said Ahmed, adding: “Those scholarship agreements need to be stopped.”
Foreign students asked to do this might, however, be considered “victims” as well as perpetrators, he continued.
“They’re the victims just as much as the ones who are themselves being coerced, spied upon, harassed – this is something we would expect all universities to monitor,” he said.
Despite what he called the “deep financial entanglement” that UK universities have with certain countries, Ahmed said “universities absolutely must address threats from states trying to interfere with freedom of speech and academic freedom, whether that’s in the form of coercion or harassment of academics…or students”.
In some cases, visiting researchers and lecturers might need to “pass an ideological test to get here in the first place”, he explained.
“In this case you’ve already got the breach of academic freedom before they even get here.”
His comments followed a keynote speech at the Committee for Academic Freedom’s inaugural annual conference, held in London on 15 October, in which Ahmed urged academics to speak out about academic freedom and report suspected breaches of the new free speech law.
“Now is the time to make your voices heard clearly,” he said, stating university leaders are more likely to push for greater free speech if “academic freedom is the path of least resistance”.
Asked by THE how younger academics in more precarious roles might challenge their institutions, Ahmed acknowledged this duty “may fall more heavily on academics who are established and who have secure positions, and who are able to speak out”.
“Through a position of more knowledge and more experience, knowing who to speak to and knowing what to speak about, they’re able to [speak out] – they have the security which gives them the confidence to do it,” he said, adding it is “important also that the many internal defenders of academic freedom are vocal about it within institutions”.
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This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, subscribe to our newsletter click the link.