← Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence
00:44:57
How do you protect and police freedom of speech on campus and in society?
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- [00:00]
Nick Robinson
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- [00:06]
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- [00:36]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Each morning as I walk into the BBC, I pass a statue of George Orwell with the inscription beneath it Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. That freedom has never been more contested. On the one hand, each and every one of us now has the ability, unthinkable a few years back, to say and publish what we like online and have our views shared potentially with millions of others. On the other, some fear that that freedom is in truth a license to promote hatred, division and fear. And the events of recent days have shone a huge light on that vexed debate, with protests on university campuses in which some have celebrated the events of October 7th behind a banner, in one case with the phrase Glory to our martyrs. My guest on Political Thinking this week is Arif Ahmed, an academic, a philosopher before he took the job of being what some call the Free Speech Czar.
- [01:39]
Arif Ahmed
If we don't learn to settle differences, really important political differences, through speech, which is an alternative to violence, then ultimately we will be staring into the abyss.
- [01:49]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Ahmed's official job title is Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office of For Students. In a moment we'll hear a long conversation we recorded a few weeks ago about free speech, about the law and why he cares so much about it. But given what has happened in the past week, I asked him to come back to bring us up to date and how what we've seen on the streets and on campuses fits into that debate. Arif Ahmed, welcome to political Thinking.
- [02:22]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
Thank you so much. Good to be here.
- [02:24]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
You are a champion for free speech, but have even you felt some concern of what we've seen and heard in recent days around the anniversary of Hamas's.
- [02:35]
Nick Robinson
Attacks on Israel on October 7th?
- [02:39]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
Yes, I have, and I would say that freedom of speech means freedom to express ideas and information. So it's about the what what you say, but it doesn't mean freedom to intimidate, to harass and lawfully to discriminate against, for instance, Jewish students. And I'd be very concerned. We are very Concerned about the rise in national antisemitism and very concerned also about antisemitism against Jewish students, the Education.
- [03:08]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Secretary in England issued a plea in.
- [03:11]
Nick Robinson
Advance of rallies marking that second anniversary.
- [03:14]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Bridget Phillipson said, it's critical that Jewish students are able to conduct their studies and express their Jewish identities in safety. Does that mean, as a. As a regulator, that you would be prepared to act to make sure that.
- [03:28]
Nick Robinson
That is the case?
- [03:30]
Arif Ahmed
Yes.
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Arif Ahmed (short responses)
So I agree that part of freedom of speech and freedom of expression means, for instance, the freedom of Jewish students to express their religion.
- [03:38]
Arif Ahmed
Universities and colleges also have a duty.
- [03:40]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
To take steps to protect students from harassment, and that includes anti Semitic harassment. And we in the OFS would be prepared to act if we think universities are not meeting those duties.
- [03:53]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
So, at the office for students, do you have a view or do you have to wait until something happens? Or, for example, an event to celebrate the events of October 7th in which so many people died and so many people were taken hostage?
- [04:07]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
So I would say that unlawful support for terrorism clearly is an offence, criminal offence, and we would expect universities to take steps to address that. But we also place responsibilities on universities to take steps to address harassment, and that would include, for instance, harassment of Jewish students, of which this may be an example.
- [04:25]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
I said in the introduction that this.
- [04:28]
Nick Robinson
Points a light at the vexed question.
- [04:31]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Of the boundary between free speech and speech, which is intimidatory. It is, if you like, an example of just how difficult the job you've now got is, isn't it?
- [04:41]
Arif Ahmed
Well, I think one of the things that it illustrates is the distinction, which is between the importance of freedom of.
- [04:48]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
Speech as being about the content of the speech and the ideas being expressed. And freedom of speech does protect lawful ideas, including political ideas. So, for instance, criticism of the government of Israel, just as much as support for it, if lawfully done, are protected. But there's a difference between that and how and where and when you express those things. So expressing those ideas in a way that's intimidating outside a synagogue, for instance, wouldn't be protected. Expressing them in a peaceful way, lawful way, in a classroom or as part of academic debate is much more likely to be protected. So the line really depends. On the one hand, speech and ideas and information, particularly, perhaps political ideas, are protected if expressed lawfully and peacefully.
- [05:32]
Arif Ahmed
But if they're done so in a.
- [05:34]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
Way that intimidates and harasses people, and of course we have concerns, just as many people do, about welfare of Jewish students at the moment, then that is something that certainly would not protected that.
- [05:45]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Was Arif Ahmed, the Free Speech Czar, reflecting on the events of recent days. But let's turn to the much longer.
- [05:51]
Nick Robinson
Conversation we recorded a few weeks ago.
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Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
Which covers everything from philosophical principles to foreign spies and even to the musical Hamilton. When we sat down to talk about his new role, I asked him first about the new law that he's paid to implement, the law that affects students at English universities. Take a listen.
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Arif Ahmed
So the first thing is, as you said, there are now new duties on universities. They have to secure. Take steps to secure freedom of speech for students and for academics and for visiting speakers. You can't stop people talking because you don't like what they say. Second thing is that they also have to take steps to promote freedom of speech. So they will have to think about ensuring that students have the right to talk about controversial topics and to engage them in a tolerant and thoughtful way and indeed promoting discussion of difficult issues. And the third thing is that the body that I work for, the Office for Students, will have powers around enforcing some of these duties. And we have issued guidance to universities saying how we expect them to carry out those duties.
- [06:57]
Nick Robinson
You've put it in a more graphic way, a bit like that quote under the Orwell statute, you said you should expect to face views you might find shocking or offensive. Interesting choice of words. You should expect to find views. Why? Why should I expect to have that if I'm a student?
- [07:13]
Arif Ahmed
I think it's really important for university education. And in fact, if you go through your three years of university without being exposed to something that you don't find shocking, you don't find offensive, that's a serious missed opportunity, because that's how we learn, particularly in a world where there are all kinds of different views and very, very strongly held views about the most important topics in the world. If we think about international politics, if we think about morality and sexual morality, if we think about. About religion or race, deeply important issues, issues in which there are so many divisions, people have to learn to talk about them rather than to settle their disputes in any other way.
- [07:46]
Nick Robinson
There's something else that you said. Universities should be the intellectual equivalent of stepping into a boxing ring. It's fascinating, that boxing ring metaphor, because I think there are lots of young people who say, I don't want to get into the boxing ring. I don't want to risk being hurt. I actually want to be protected from what I think many young people see as a kind of Wild west online, from the anger and the hatred and the fear and the division.
- [08:12]
Arif Ahmed
Let me start by telling you a story in response to that. I do remember a student that I had when I was a university teacher from some years back who's now very successful. She's a partner in a big advertising firm. And I remember speaking to her some years after she left university. And she said the one thing that she got at. Out of studying at university was that she would never feel intellectually intimidated again. She could walk into a boardroom or any sort of meeting, and she could hold her own against any kinds of arguments or objections, and she could face difficult conversations. And she got through it brilliantly and is now doing extremely well, I'm very proud to say. And I think that illustrates the point that actually there is a perception that young people are fragile and that they're unable to take. Take difficult conversations or unable to face views that they don't agree with. I just think that's wrong. The young people that I see are politically engaged. They may disagree with all kinds of things that I think, but great. They're thinking for themselves, and that's what matters. They go to university, they gain political consciousness, Many of them, when they go to university, they are exposed to a very wide range of ideas. They say all kinds of things themselves. They reach their own opinions, and then they leave. And they go out into the world and they are able to. To engage with all kinds of opposition of the sort you will meet. And what they do want to be protected from, rightly, of course, is harassment and abuse. And we can talk a bit about the difference between that and freedom of speech. There's plenty to say, but that's different from being exposed to all kinds of content and information and ideas, which is what free speech is really about.
- [09:43]
Nick Robinson
Try telling someone who doesn't instinctively think free speech matters that much, for whom this isn't an important value. Why does free speech matter?
- [09:52]
Arif Ahmed
I think the first thing I'd say is free speech really matters because free speech protects most of all those who have the least power. And that's what history teaches us, if it teaches us anything. If you think about minorities and the protection of minorities, perhaps the best example is the civil rights movement in the United States could not have existed without freedom of speech. The greatest weapon of its enemies was the suppression of their speech. If you think the ways that Dr. King was prevented from demonstrating, for instance, it goes back further, back to Frederick Douglass. The ways that they organized and protested depended crucially on freedom of speech, and that ultimately was why they achieved success. More generally, I would say that freedom of speech means what does it mean in this context, it means the student who feels unable to talk about problems with their accommodation because the university puts pressure on them not to write about it. It's the lecturer or the academic who's researching into human rights abuses in another country, who's pressured by the university not to do that, who has their funding pulled. It's students or academics, for instance, who go on protests and who are investigated even though their speeches and activity is lawful. All of that is freedom of speech. And it is, I think, something that all students will recognize.
- [10:58]
Nick Robinson
Let's turn to the story, in a way, of why your job was created, of why you came out of, if you like, some fusty Cambridge teaching room and ended up on the front line of this big debate. It is, isn't it, around the protection of minority rights? The people who now are often accused of stopping free speech would argue they were trying to protect minorities. And an obvious one is trans men and women. And one of the key cases on universities was the case of Kathleen Stock. Now, I know there's a limit to what you can say because that's still working its way through the courts, isn't it? But she effectively argued that biological sex trumps gender identity. That's what she was arguing, and she was harassed for that. She eventually lost her job for that. Philosophically, what was happening on our campuses, that meant that that sort of case could happen?
- [11:53]
Arif Ahmed
Yes. So, as you say, I can't talk about a case where there's live litigation, but I can say something more broadly about these issues and then perhaps we can talk about the background to it. So, just in terms of these issues, I think the first thing to emphasize is, of course, that freedom of speech is not the same thing as unlawful harassment. And freedom of speech doesn't protect people from harassing and abusing people where that's against the law, but it does protect people who want to express a very wide range of ideas, including ideas that many people find shocking or offensive. In this particular case, this particular type of case, I guess I'd say a couple of things. So the first thing is that this right goes both ways. So people absolutely do have the right to state the gender critical view on this debate. So to state the view, for instance, that trans women are not women, they do have that right that's protected. They also have the right to say that that's wrong, and we will protect academics and students on both sides of that debate. If you had, for instance, an academic who wanted to criticise this recent Supreme Court ruling, for instance, they absolutely have that right. That's their academic freedom. And again, we will protect it. And that illustrates, I think, something really important which I do want to emphasize, which is that our whole approach to this and to everything in freedom of speech is based on viewpoint neutrality. And what does that mean? That means that we will protect speech regardless of the view that's been expressed, as long as it's within the law.
- [13:15]
Nick Robinson
I'm interested in it in a sense, historically, you were teaching students for a quarter of a century or so. There are plenty of people say something changed. Three, four, five years ago. My old colleague here at BBC News went on to run Selwyn College in Cambridge and he said for his first two or three years running that college, everything was as it always had been. But when the trans issue came along, something changed. Did you detect at that time something shifted?
- [13:44]
Arif Ahmed
So, just in terms of my own experience, there's a very wide range of issues, not just that one, but a wide range of issues on which I noticed increasing reluctance of people to express controversial views. Religion would be one example. This issue about gender and sex would be another example. There were meetings that I recall, for instance, where to my surprise, when certain issues came up, there was just silence. People were simply afraid to express their views. Even meetings, including quite senior people, meetings where there were seminars, where there were students and you knew that there were students who had set views, who just felt afraid to express them, either because of other students responses or because of even what the staff would say.
- [14:21]
Nick Robinson
I'm afraid the polling showed that, didn't it? About one in three left wing academics, almost half of in inverted commas, right wing academics. So they were frightened to say what they thought.
- [14:32]
Arif Ahmed
We, the office of students have got polling that came out this summer which shows that indeed one in five academics are afraid to discuss controversial topics in their teaching. More than one in about one in three in terms of their research, the effect is more pronounced for women than for men and it's more pronounced for non white academics than for white ones. But it seems to be in some subjects consistent across the left and the right. And that's something I'd want to emphasise.
- [14:57]
Nick Robinson
So I go back to why you think it happened, what changed? Trans was an issue, but there was also Black Lives Matter. There was also the rows about Gaza and Israel. There have been a series of issues, hasn't it, at which this idea that what my job is to do is to no platform you or silence you, or to say that this speech is unacceptable was increasingly heard on our campuses.
- [15:20]
Arif Ahmed
Yeah. So I think Perhaps the right question to ask is not what changed then? When did things go wrong? But how did things ever go right? Because if you look at the history of the history of Europe or the history of this country or the history of the world, censorship is probably the rule rather than the exception. And actually, the periods where people were genuinely free to discuss all kinds of issues in controversial ways were rare. So if you think about in this country, for instance, even going back as recently as the time of Section 28 and Spycatcher, so that's not going back, what, 40 years, isn't it? So we're not going back very far. There's a long history of censorship of a range of subjects, even in this country. So I think actually the right way to approach this is to understand that freedom of speech itself, like many really important liberal values, freedom of speech itself is not a natural thing. It's not something that human beings naturally do. There have to be institutions that promote and support it. And it may be that one of the things that was happening in the period between, let's say, the end of the Cold War and the present day was that there was perhaps less powerful and less strong promotion and support for those values than there has historically been.
- [16:23]
Nick Robinson
So without, as it were, the comparison with the Soviet Union, to put it crudely, with state Communism, it was taken for granted.
- [16:29]
Arif Ahmed
That may be part of it.
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Nick Robinson
So in a sense, you're in my generation, I'm older than you, but as it were, who grew up in the Cold War. But there was a. We just grew up thinking it's like the weather. Of course, freedom of speech is a. It's a liberal democratic value as compared with what they do over there.
- [16:46]
Arif Ahmed
That may be partly. But certainly if we did think that, in a way there was a mistake there, because actually, the natural instinct is often censorship. And unless there are some institutions, and this is one of the places, I think universities can play a crucial role, where there are institutions that actively seek to protect and promote it. That's our ultimate safeguard against this.
- [17:04]
Nick Robinson
Now, I'm interested in how you make this journey, because there you are at Cambridge University, you're teaching philosophy. You're not a public figure, But a row at the university about what free speech is and isn't, what roughly five years ago, draws you in when you object to some new policy that is proposed. And on the surface, it doesn't sound very controversial, that staff student visitors had to be, quote, respectful of any opinion they may encounter. Why did you take to the barricades.
- [17:37]
Arif Ahmed
When you heard that I think in some ways it was an event that was the culmination of a sequence of events of the sort that I've been describing to you. So there were occasions where people were reluctant to talk about subjects. I'll tell you one other story. So, for instance, I have known of students at universities. I won't give you too many details for reasons that will become obvious, but I've known of students at universities, for instance, who come up to university their first term. Someone finds out that they've got the wrong sort of book that they've been reading and talking about to their friends, or they wrote a blog before they came up, when they were a sixth form, for instance, defending certain particular views, whether it's on the trans issue, on the race issue, on religion, range of issues that it could be. And then suddenly nobody talks to them, they're isolated, they're excluded. And then I've spoken to such students and I know what life can be like for that. So I had that sort of experience of what things were like, even for students running up to 2020 alongside things like cancellations, things that we'll probably go on to talk about, informed my experience of the Atlas for in Cambridge at the time.
- [18:39]
Nick Robinson
So just to sum up what the row was about, you worried, did you, that that word respectful, which sounds respectful, just sounds like something anybody would be in favor of, actually could and would be used to silence people, to cancel them.
- [18:56]
Arif Ahmed
Well, one of the dangers when you have rules about speech that are phrased vaguely, for instance, is that they leave discretion. They leave too much discretion to individual officials who will then perhaps apply them selectively and who will end up using them, for instance, to restrict views that they don't like in the case of respect. For one of the things on my mind was religion. So of course we're familiar with the idea that you can say things that you can disagree with religion. But the west has a long tradition, and in fact, we owe many of our freedoms to the fact that we are free to be quite rude about religion, actually. And in fact, not only religion, but all received views, but certainly that as well. And I feared that a demand to be respectful, for instance, of religion could be weaponized in a way that it ended up with students who expressed certain views which may not have been, you know, may not have been welcome to everybody, may have been shocking or disturbing or offensive to many, but were nevertheless an exercise of freedom of speech on a really important matter would find themselves punished. And so I preferred the expression tolerance, which goes back to sort of the distinction between tolerance and respect was really that to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to like it. But the essence of freedom of speech is that you protect views even that you can't stand.
- [20:02]
Nick Robinson
Now, when you took this view and you looked over your shoulder, there was not exactly a crowd of people running to say, God, Arif, we're with you. This is a dangerous time. You were quite a lonely figure for a while.
- [20:12]
Arif Ahmed
Well, it was interesting. So at the time, the way the rules worked for voting there, in order to get a change to the policies of the sort that I wanted, I had to get, I think, 25 signatures for a petition. So there had to be public signatures. So I went around and you had to ask fellow employees at the university, fellow academics. So I went around asking people. Quite a lot of people said to me at the time that actually they do support. They share my broader concerns. They also share my view that this is one of the ways in which those concerns could be crystallized. So a vote on this issue, for instance. But they weren't willing to support me publicly, so they were afraid. So some of them said, for instance, well, I'm thinking about being promoted, or I'm on a temporary contract, or I'm just worried about how things go in my department. Department, or I'm just worried about my job more generally, or I'm worried about what my profession will think. So there were all kinds of concerns which in itself I thought found deeply.
- [20:59]
Nick Robinson
Concerning because they had to make their.
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Arif Ahmed
Support clear publicly, because the support had to be public. And so there was a difficulty. It took me months to get 25 signatures to get my petition to even to go to a vote.
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Nick Robinson
When the vote came, you won. Overwhelming.
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Arif Ahmed
Well, that was interesting. And I think it goes to the point, actually, which shows another one of the mechanisms that's really important, I think, for. For preserving individual freedom actually is having secret voting because it means you are not subject to the sort of coercion and intimidation that can happen in all kinds of ways in these contexts.
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Nick Robinson
Before we talk to the free speech czar, Arif Ahmed, about some of the controversies there are now, I still want.
- [21:35]
Arif Ahmed
To get a sense of where this.
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Nick Robinson
Passion for free speech comes from. You've mentioned religion. You were born in a religious household, I think, brought up as a. As a Muslim. Your parents were people who come here from India. Did that in some sense shape your views of what was and was not British, if you like?
- [21:57]
Arif Ahmed
Well, I think so. There's various things. So there's a point about religion. Then there's a point about. About my conception, our conception of England. So. So my parents were brilliant, brought me up brilliantly, I owe them everything. But there was an element of religion that I soon came to reject, so. So for instance, I came to reject the Islamic religion when I was a teenager. I went to a school which actually was Christian and I also rejected that, not for reasons that are very exciting. I mean, much of it is to do the sorts of reasons that many teenagers have when they reject religion. So there's partly just an act of rebellion, but partly also just certain kinds of scientific education, for instance, you come to reject it partly also perhaps for social reasons that I found. I. I found elements of certain religions to be socially oppressive. So there's a mixture of various things that I found, I would say, objectionable.
- [22:44]
Nick Robinson
About religion, partly by the sounds of it, because it didn't give you the freedom of thought, let alone of speech.
- [22:50]
Arif Ahmed
Well, this is one of the things, of course, in the history of religion that actually religion and Copernicus and Galileo are obvious examples, but you can look at examples in Islam and other religions as well, of suppression of thought and suppression of speech. But going back to England, the other thing I would say is that I have always associated this country, I think perhaps more than any other, with individual liberty and human rights and the rule of law. And in some ways that was something that made me feel very at home in this country. Though those values weren't always exhibited uniformly.
- [23:22]
Nick Robinson
Now, it was the sense that that was threatened that led the Conservatives to propose this office for students. Free speech are the job that you currently have. It wasn't at all clear that Labour, when they came into power, would keep you or the job. Was Bridget Phillipson now the Education Secretary? Was she worried that it might remove the protections from ordinary students?
- [23:48]
Arif Ahmed
I think after the last election, what the government said was that it would review the implementation of the act and come to a decision after a certain amount of reviewing. And then it was thinking obviously about a range of things to do with. With the impacts of it, how it would be implemented and all of those things. And it came to the view in January that some elements of this legislation would be. Would be going forward, though not all.
- [24:09]
Nick Robinson
Of them, but the principle was there, wasn't it as well? Bridget Philipson said this legislation could expose students to harm and appalling hate speech on campus. Did you have to persuade us, she and the Labour Party, let's be honest, they regarded this as a kind of talk piece of legislation designed to silence people with centre left Progressive views designed to silence people who are fighting for minority rights. You had to persuade her not to get rid of it.
- [24:36]
Arif Ahmed
You wouldn't expect me to get involved in any sort of political.
- [24:41]
Nick Robinson
Persuasive argument.
- [24:43]
Arif Ahmed
But I will say as a general point that of course freedom of speech, most of all in the long run, protects minorities. So if you think about there is a line between whether or not you can restrict speech and once that line is crossed, who do you think are the people who are going to use it the most dangerous way? It may be right now that you find that people on one side find that they can use it to protect themselves against speech that they don't like and consider oppressive. But when things move, when power changes over, you'll find, for instance, just to take the example of race, you might find, for instance, that critical race theory gets banned, for instance, or that other work, you know, Black Lives Matter. So there are ways in which speech can be suppressed and restricted that eventually will turn against you. And I think that's a really important principle.
- [25:30]
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- [26:01]
Nick Robinson
But this is when you get to the complication, particularly in this country. In the United States, free speech is protected by the Constitution, famously by the First Amendment, in which the bar for limiting free speech is very high. Here we have a concept called hate speech, which is a very subjective concept. And we do end up, don't we, with people saying, I want people who are promoting hatred to be stopped.
- [26:26]
Arif Ahmed
Hate speech is a form of aggravation of speech that's already against the law. So you can have speech that's a public order offence, for instance, or a communications offence, which also is aggravated because of the element of hatred within it.
- [26:39]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
But.
- [26:39]
Arif Ahmed
But the line is the line between content that's lawful and the content that's unlawful. So it's not that speech is unlimited, but it's that the line is drawn ultimately by Parliament.
- [26:48]
Nick Robinson
And it isn't, in other words, that when I read the words of someone, I think that person hates me or hates the minority I'm in, or hates my view.
- [26:57]
Arif Ahmed
The problem with that is that if you. The problem with that really is who gets to decide and how do they decide? And once that becomes your principle, who do you think is going to explain, exploit it for their own ends, to suppress speech that does defend minorities.
- [27:09]
Nick Robinson
But does that make you, as a philosopher, let alone as the man doing this current job, think. Actually, I'm rather nervous about laws that try and govern this. Do you think the idea of anybody policing what happens online is in itself just doomed to failure?
- [27:25]
Arif Ahmed
I think in principle there can be all kinds of reasons why there should be, for instance, various kinds of moderation. And whether that moderation is content based or whether it's manner based is an interesting question. So, for instance, there might be, you know, you can think of all kinds of ways of how algorithms might work, for instance, that might address some of the issues that people see on Twitter or on other social. Social media to limit the promotion of certain things. But the thing I would say about some of these processes, there are some that are content neutral. So what that means is that they're processes by which you would, you would limit what happens through algorithms, for instance, without actually directing yourself at the specific content. The question is then who gets to decide? And then the problem is that they will end up deciding for the views that they favor.
- [28:06]
Nick Robinson
Well, we know who gets to decide at the moment, isn't it is the owners of social media platforms. So Elon Musk buys X or buys Twitter and calls it X and then changes the rules around moderation, changes the algorithms, changes who's allowed on the platform. So Tommy Robinson, who was not permitted to be on it at all, is suddenly not only on that platform, but heavily promoted by the algorithm. Is your argument that that's where the focus should be?
- [28:31]
Arif Ahmed
No, no, I think what I would say is that whilst my focus is on universities, and I wouldn't want to say how a particular social media platform should or shouldn't work. What's really important is that freedom of speech is always within the law, so that, for instance, incitement of racial hatred is not protected under any circumstances.
- [28:46]
Nick Robinson
I'm noting you being careful about going into areas that are not part of your official responsibility. Let me try on a couple, though. Islamophobia, can that ever be defined in law in a way that won't cause the courts, the police and society as a whole to have some huge row about what is and is not free speech?
- [29:05]
Arif Ahmed
Well, the definitions of what is lawful and not lawful speech will be a matter for Parliament and not for a regulator or for me. But I will say that of course, as I'VE said before, we owe our freedoms in this country has a long and proud tradition of religious dissent and religious disagreement and settling issues over religion, just like many others through words rather than through other means is. We have learned in this country as much as any country has learned that's the only way in which you can survive as a society, rather than resorting, as we did in the 17th century, to something much worse.
- [29:36]
Nick Robinson
And one other current example that will be in many people's minds is the arrest, often of slavery, of elderly people holding cardboard placards saying, palestine Action. Now, if they said Action for Palestine, they wouldn't be arrested. If they said, we believe you should act on Palestine, they wouldn't be arrested. But the words Palestine Action, because it's the name of a prescribed in the law, in other words, an organization that is deemed by the Home Secretary to be a terrorist group means they can be arrested. It's not ideal, is it?
- [30:08]
Arif Ahmed
Well, so that speech is. When speech is unlawfully in support of a proscribed organization, then clearly that speech can be restricted and freedom of speech within the law doesn't protect that.
- [30:19]
Nick Robinson
As a free speech advocate, I think.
- [30:20]
Arif Ahmed
What I'd emphasize is that whilst that kind of support for Palestine action wouldn't be lawful, that doesn't mean that students or others don't have the right to protest lawfully in favour of, for instance, Palestinian rights, or to protest against the Israeli government, or indeed to protest on the other side. As with many with all of these issues issues, you have free speech on both of these sides, but it is, as always, within the law.
- [30:40]
Nick Robinson
What about policies to promote what now, because it's used as jargon in America, is known as edi. Equality, diversity and inclusion. Your office, I think, has recently said to a couple of universities, you can't advertise jobs for EDI in quite the way that you are. And people looking at that might say, well, hold on, here is the office for students taking a view against equality, against diversity, against inclusion.
- [31:08]
Arif Ahmed
We're absolutely clear that it's quite right for students for universities to pursue equality goals. Of course, they should be thinking about diversity and inclusion and they should be thinking about equality. And there are all kinds of ways in which they can do that. So an example that we gave in our recently published guidance would be if a university properly looked at the applicant pool and tried to encourage applications from minorities who weren't applying or weren't properly represented within that institution. That's something that no doubt, if they did it sensibly, they could probably do however, we would have concerns if, when you're advertising for an academic post, you put in some sort of test. So we had the Test act in this country, for instance, for many years. So there was tests where you couldn't apply for a job, you couldn't take a job at university if you didn't accept certain religious beliefs. Similarly, if we had university applications being rejected because the applicants didn't accept the particular contested beliefs or contestable beliefs, even political ones, around equality and diversity, then that would be an issue for academic freedom.
- [32:05]
Nick Robinson
So the fear would be just so unclear. The fear would be that universities might think, or university bureaucracies might think, the Equality's officer look, if you're going to teach in this university, you have to be tolerant of trans people, you have to be respectful of Black Lives Matter. You want to avoid that, you want to say no, no, you can't impose that on somebody might be for decent intellectual reasons, wanting to say something rather different.
- [32:31]
Arif Ahmed
No. So universities obviously do have a duty and their employers have to have duties under the Equality Act. They can't harass students, they have to treat students well and they have to treat students properly, irrespective of their race, their sex, their gender reassignment status. Of course that's right, and universities have to impose that. However, that's not the same thing as saying, well, when you apply, you have to show commitment to this particular doctrine or commitment to that particular. So somebody might disagree with some of these elements, but as long as their conduct is fair towards their students, they don't discriminate against their students, then they can write and think freely and they shouldn't be tested on that. So that's where we think the line ought to be drawn. It's between conduct which universities can rightly control insofar as it's relevant to education, and actually making windows into men's souls.
- [33:17]
Nick Robinson
I'm fascinated because you are by training and for most of your life a philosopher, and yet I hear you talk more like a regulator now. I suspect five years ago, the idea of you being a regulator, what you probably would have dismissed as a bureaucrat, wouldn't you, back then, would have seemed anathema. Did this sort of role have to be created? Was it the only way, if you like, of tugging back the argument towards ideas that you and I, I think, had taken for granted years ago.
- [33:46]
Arif Ahmed
I think it goes back to something that we were talking about earlier, Nick, which was that there need to be, and I think universities ultimately can play this role. There need to be institutions and Roles that are consciously directed towards promoting and protecting basic liberal values. Otherwise those values are not going to survive. How that's realized in different countries at different times will change depending on historical circumstances. But I think our universities are well placed to seize the opportunity to play that fundamental social role, as they have done in the past. For me as a philosopher, as a philosophy teacher, and then working for a regulator, in fact, there's been surprising continuity as well, as, well, as well as difference. So I was at a university which had lots of ancient traditions, though some of them actually were not as ancient as you might think. And I'm coming to regulator, which is quite new, but in service of values that I think are very old. So freedom of speech, for instance, and higher education, the idea of an academy goes back to ancient Greece. The idea of freedom of speech goes back as far though it's been interrupted. These are ancient ideals.
- [34:49]
Nick Robinson
If we get this wrong as a country, do you look over the pond at what's been happening in the United States? Even the horror of Charlie Kirk being assassinated on a university campus, because as far as we can tell, someone didn't like what he thought and what he said. Get this wrong? Is that where we end up?
- [35:12]
Arif Ahmed
Clearly, what happened to Charlie Kirk was an appalling, appalling tragedy. And we haven't been immune from political violence in this country either, as you'll know. If you think about the dreadful things that happened with Jo Cox, with David Amos, for instance. So of course that's something that should worry all of us. And I will say that if we don't learn to settle differences, really important political differences through speech, which is an alternative to violence, then ultimately we will be staring into the abyss and democracy is not going to survive and our society is not going to survive unless we can learn to resolve, or if not to resolve our differences through conversation, to continue the conversation and to learn to live with one another's differences in a tolerant way, even if you don't like them, because that's part of what a liberal modern society is. The alternative is either violence or censorship and suppression.
- [36:04]
Nick Robinson
And how have you felt when you've seen people clearly moved by the death of someone they saw as a political ally? Sometimes a friend say, well, the answer to this is to deal with hate speech, because that's what led to his death. That's what we've been hearing from the President, we've heard from some of his closest advisors, his key policy advisor, Stephen Miller. Where does that lead us?
- [36:30]
Arif Ahmed
So I think ultimately that would be a mistake because it goes back to the point about there are strong views on both sides of many issues and people have to have the chance to express those views. There are, of course, laws against direct incitement to violence. There are laws in this country and, and laws in the United States as well. And those laws will deal with speech that actually directly incites violence. But you must allow people to express their views on really controversial topics because alternatively, there will be no alternative to violence, and that will be the abyss that we end up falling into. So I think it's a mistake to think in those terms and to think that it's some kind of tit for tat. It's not a kind of tit for tat. What we know we need to, as we did, to live in a social arrangement where people feel free to express views maybe not always comfortable, people might feel uncomfortable hearing them, and debates may not be ultimately resolved, but they can be continued. And the norm has to be expressing them through that and through democratic processes rather than through anything worse.
- [37:32]
Nick Robinson
As someone proud of the English tradition, does it stick in your craw, as it does to some, to be lectured about free speech from the United States?
- [37:39]
Arif Ahmed
I'm very proud of the English tradition. Both England and the United States have very strong traditions of freedom. And one of the things that came over on the Mayflower, I think, was a love of individual liberty. And in our own ways, our two countries have got very strong and proud traditions of that throughout it. What's preserved this, I think, is that ultimately there are people who are receptive to these ideas and there are institutions that are able to preserve them, that are focused and determined to preserve individual liberty, the rule of law, freedom of speech, which are ultimately the guarantees of any society.
- [38:12]
Nick Robinson
Now, sometimes you'll know people look at you and say, the free speech czar is from the right. They observe that you fought for the right of the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who has been on the right side, right wing side of the culture war. You fought for him to come and speak in Cambridge. They say you're an ally of Professor James Orr of Cambridge, who's a close friend of Vice President J.D. vance. He's now running a think tank to help reform uk. And they go, ah, Arif Ahmed's not for free speech, he's for me speech. As Professor Timothy Snyder put it the other day in a column, he's for speech that agrees with my views of the world.
- [38:52]
Arif Ahmed
So I would reject that absolutely. And I'll go back to what I said was our fundamental approach, which was Viewpoint neutrality. So what we're really concerned about is freedom of speech for all sides of all debates. To take examples of the debate that you describe, if you think about Professor Peterson, for instance, we would equally protect the views of people who are opposed to his views. Similarly, on issues I've already mentioned in relation to sex and gender, in relation to race, in relation to Israel and Palestine, you can protest on either side as long as you do so lawfully, and you can speak on either side as long as you do so lawfully. We will protect views on either side. And you absolutely do have that freedom.
- [39:30]
Nick Robinson
And there is another threat that you and your office have identified, which is a threat from what is grandly called in the jargon state actors from outside states who want to control what is said about them by students, often coming from those countries. We're thinking of China in particular, for example. Is that something that your office wants to do something about?
- [39:52]
Arif Ahmed
Yes, we're deeply concerned about that. So we've seen evidence and we have concerns that there's evidence, for instance, of English universities where students, for instance, who are dissidents, who have spoken out against governments of foreign countries, academics who maybe wanted to do research about the human rights records of foreign countries, we've seen concerns that they're being followed, they're being harassed. I've seen a report about an academic who is followed and harassed by a visiting scholar from another country who whispered in there, we're following you, we're watching you, whilst that person was doing research that could have been embarrassing for that country. When universities have arrangements with foreign countries, particularly obviously foreign autocracies, foreign dictatorships that have the effect of suppressing speech in England by English students or by English academics. And that's something that they need to address and if necessary, they will need to terminate those arrangements.
- [40:45]
Nick Robinson
And do you have the powers to make them do it?
- [40:47]
Arif Ahmed
Well, the law requires them to secure freedom of speech, and we think securing freedom of speech means stopping those things from happening.
- [40:54]
Nick Robinson
But ultimately you can find these institutions, you can take other action, can you, in order to ensure, to put it crudely, that the Chinese Communist Party can't, in return for an awful lot of money. For students, going to a particular institution or investment in a lab or a research instit institute can't demand that certain things are. And certain things are not said.
- [41:15]
Arif Ahmed
Correct. If your business model involves breaking the law, if your business model involves unlawfully suppressing academic freedom and freedom of speech at the behest of a foreign dictatorship, then you need another business model. It's not a balance between financial values and academic freedom. Academic freedom, freedom of speech are more important. And you have to obey the law, you have to secure academic freedom and freedom of speech. In terms of our powers, we expect there to be a condition of registration in relation to freedom of speech and a complaint scheme in relation to freedom of speech. As the body that registers universities, we have powers, for instance, to require universities to do things. We can remove their titles to universities, we can find them, we can ultimately cut off their access to public funding. So we do have powers and we think it's really important that, as I said, academics and students who are talking about human rights abuses in foreign countries, expressing criticism of foreign governments or indeed of domestic governments, any government should absolutely have the freedom to do that. And universities are where that should happen.
- [42:19]
Nick Robinson
You're not having a theoretical conversation, are you? You sound like a man who's got a few institutions in mind.
- [42:26]
Arif Ahmed
Well, we will look carefully at any institution where we see evidence of this and we will think about what are the sensible proportionate steps you might have quite soon. But we're quite prepared to act if we think that there are serious concerns.
- [42:39]
Arif Ahmed (short responses)
Yes.
- [42:40]
Nick Robinson
Now this, just to end our conversation, this passion for free speech is not just your job now, it isn't just your philosophy, it's not just your background, but you have three daughters, one's a student, two presumably hope to be. What is it like for them growing up in the home of a philosopher who cares passionately about this?
- [43:05]
Arif Ahmed
Well, the great thing, they're all so much smarter and quicker than me that actually they just. We have lots of arguments, as you can imagine. They disagree with me about all kinds of things, which is great, which I really like. What's really important, of course, is that they think for themselves, reach their own views about things. I will say so. One of my favorite works of political philosophy is the Federalist Papers by James Madison and others. And I was delighted and surprised to hear one of my children talking about it. Well, talking about Madison and Burr and Jefferson and Hamilton with great knowledge and excitement.
- [43:32]
Nick Robinson
You've got teenagers who've read the founding papers of the US Constitution.
- [43:36]
Arif Ahmed
No, she'd seen Hamilton, so I was delighted. It makes me want to see it as well. So I learn a lot from them.
- [43:43]
Nick Robinson
Arif Arman, Free Speech Czar from the Office for Students, thank you for joining me on political thinking.
- [43:47]
Arif Ahmed
Thank you so much.
- [43:49]
Nick Robinson
Well, the one time philosopher, the one time academic is now rather careful not to get involved in too many public rows about what is freedom of speech and what crosses the line to something that ought to be banned or made illegal. But I thought what was most telling about that interview was his belief that.
- [44:13]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
It is only by having new institutions.
- [44:16]
Nick Robinson
Institutions with the legal duty to promote freedom of speech, that we can be sure that we'll have it. Thanks for listening to this episode of Political Thinking.
- [44:26]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
You can find our full back catalogue.
- [44:28]
Nick Robinson
Of hundreds of episodes on BBC Sounds.
- [44:31]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
The producer is Daniel Kramer. And don't forget to check out my.
- [44:34]
Nick Robinson
Colleague Amol Rajan's podcast Radical, also on BBC Sounds.
- [44:38]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
This week Amol spoke to Gaia Vince, journalist and author of a book and about how to survive the climate upheaval. She spoke to Amal about climate migration and how the UK needs to be.
- [44:49]
Nick Robinson
Honest about the reality of mass migration.
- [44:51]
Nick Robinson (Narration/Intro)
And prepare for it now, as well as arguing that the renewables industry is inevitably going to take over the post combustion power system.
- [45:00]
Nick Robinson
Nature Nature Bang.
- [45:02]
Arif Ahmed
Bang.
- [45:02]
Becky Ripley
Hello, hello and welcome to Nature Bang. I'm Becky Ripley. I'm Emily Knight and in this series from BBC Radio 4 we look to the natural world to answer some of life's big questions, like how can a brainless slime mold help us solve complex mapping problems? And what can an octopus teach us about the relationship between mind and body?
- [45:22]
Nick Robinson
It really stretches your understanding of consciousness.
- [45:27]
Becky Ripley
With the help of evolutionary biologists. I'm actually always very comfortable comparing us to other species philosophers.
- [45:35]
Nick Robinson
You never really know what it could.
- [45:36]
Apollo Advertiser
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- [45:39]
Becky Ripley
Is that your job title? Are you a spongologist? Well, I am in certain spheres. It's science meets storytelling with a philosophical twist.
- [45:47]
Nick Robinson
It really gets to the heart of free will and what it means to be you.
- [45:51]
Becky Ripley
So if you want to find out more about yourself via cockatoos that dance, frogs that freeze and single cell amoebas that design border policies, subscribe to nature bang from BBC Radio 4, available on BBC Sounds.
- [46:09]
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