Free speech risks being compromised by equality laws, Cambridge don warns

Free speech risks being “compromised” by equality and diversity legislation, the frontrunner to be the new tsar on the issue has warned.

Prof Arif Ahmed, a Cambridge don who is on the shortlist to become the Government’s free speech champion, said that “well-meaning” initiatives aimed at promoting inclusion can end up undermining discussion and debate.

Downing Street announced plans to create the post last year, following a string of disputes over so-called “cancel culture” at universities.

Prof Ahmed, a philosophy lecturer at Cambridge, was recently at the centre of a row over an invitation he sent to Helen Joyce, a gender critical feminist, to address students at his college.

Ms Joyce has argued that men and women have been “redefined” by trans activists, with laws and policies “reshaped to privilege self-identified gender identity over biological sex”.

The event sparked major campus protests, with the college’s LGBTQ representatives saying they were “unanimously disgusted by the platforming of such views”.

The college’s master, Prof Pippa Rogerson, described Ms Joyce’s views as “hateful” and vowed to join the student boycott of the event.

Prof Ahmed said the saga showed how there are some “senior people in universities sometimes who are very often well meaning, they have aims for the university and for the colleges which come from a place of genuine concern about equality and diversity and a desire to protect minorities”.

But he added: “I think those well meaning intentions can sometimes be subverted often by small groups of people who can use it as a way to shut down legitimate debate and legitimate free speech.”

Prof Ahmed has recently been appointed to the board of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, meaning he will be among experts charged with enforcing equalities legislation.

Speaking in a personal capacity, he described how the recent events in Cambridge were just one way in which equality and diversity legislation and initiatives “risk being misapplied or misunderstood in ways that compromise free speech”.

He told The Telegraph: “We saw an illustration of what could have been another one of those cases - it could have been a case where the event was shut down, prevented from happening by people who are well meaning.

“Simply because they were influenced in the wrong direction by a small group of people who think that the best way to protect rights is to shut down anyone who speaks on the other side, which is a mistake.”

'Disturbing' change in attitudes over the years

Prof Ahmed said there has been a “disturbing” change in people’s attitudes over the years which has led to society placing less value on free speech. He added that one such change has been the attitude of younger people, and their “complacency” on the issue.

“The majority of students have no interest in shutting anyone down, they want to get their degrees - but a small number of highly politically motivated actors who think the best way to promote their political aims is to shut down anyone on the other side,” he said.

Prof Ahmed is on the shortlist to become the Government’s new free speech tsar, which would give him the authority to investigate any such breaches at universities and advise the higher education watchdog on imposing fines.

The chosen candidate will be appointed to the board of the Office for Students and will investigate possible breaches of free speech legal duties, such as universities no-platforming speakers or dismissing academics because of their views.

The position is being created via the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament and which ministers hope will receive Royal Assent early this year.