Claire Coutinho – 2023 Speech to Policy Exchange
The speech made by Claire Coutinho, the Minister for Children, Wellbeing and Families, on 5 July 2023.
As a former Senior Fellow of Policy Exchange, I am delighted to be here to speak on a topic for which you have been such strong champions in recent years.
It was your report on ‘Academic Freedom in the UK’, that planted the seeds for our Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill – and I stand here, three years after the Bill was introduced, with the Act having received Royal Assent.
At a time when many were closing their eyes to the problem and saying there was nothing to see, Policy Exchange’s research shone a light on why we needed to act.
The quest for truth has long provided us with the moral coordinates for social and scientific progress.
Where debate has been suppressed, it has only set us back.
We now give thanks to the Galileos, the Darwins, the Keplers, the Newtons, for pushing forwards the frontiers of our knowledge.
Our understanding of astronomy, mathematics, natural history or biology, wouldn’t be the same if those visionaries did not believe in freedom of speech and the pursuit of truth.
And yet, today, we see free speech under threat in the very places where the most controversial debates should be taking place – on campus.
The very purpose of a university is to create independent thinkers who are equipped with the tools to think about the world critically.
They are important training grounds for the business, political and cultural leaders of tomorrow.
And this generation will need the skills of critical thought more than ever.
The pace of change we face is transforming the world at a speed not seen before.
Take the onset of artificial intelligence (AI). The next generation of leaders will face even thornier questions than the ones we face today.
What role should Large Language Models play in education?
How do we integrate AI into the workforce without displacing human workers?
And how do we navigate copyright disputes between human artists and AI?
These are all challenging ethical and practical dilemmas with no immediate answer.
The next generation will have to approach these, and so many other problems, with an open mind. A desire to hear other opinions, not silence them.
We’re doing students a disservice if we shelter them from other points of view, and withhold the opportunity to develop their critical thinking.
And we’re setting them up for failure if we let them think they can go through life shouting down people with different views.
As J.S. Mill famously said, depriving ourselves of the chance to debate also denies us “the clearer perception of truth, produced by its collision with error”.
And yet vigilance is needed as there are those who seek to stifle debate in our universities.
Curious students are being deprived of attending events, visiting speakers are intimidated by aggressive protests, and in the worst cases, academics are losing their livelihoods – and their reputations – for the crime of expressing an opinion.
All of this is driven by a small groups of activists who shout the loudest.
Activists who can fire off a lot of tweets and draft open letters – not simply to express their own opinion, but to close down a wider debate – and by now, we’ve seen the dangers of how this manifests itself on campus.
If you’re Tony Sewell, you’ll have your honorary degree rescinded because the university doesn’t like the conclusion of a report you wrote for the government.
If you’re Kathleen Stock, you’ll be hounded out of your job by a toxic, organised campaign to get you fired.
We’ve even heard of examples of research projects on the culture of censorship in universities being censored because they’re deemed ‘too dangerous’.
In other words, we may be at the stage where research into censorship is itself being censored.
It’s even spread to disciplines as far from politics as you can imagine, such as maths.
I met with a group of mathematicians who were being pressured into ‘decolonising’ their maths curriculum by downplaying or magnifying the work of mathematicians depending on their race.
They were deeply concerned but also fearful of speaking out, because of the potential for a backlash that could put their jobs at risk.
However, when I studied maths, I used an Indian decimal system, Arabian-born algebra and imaginary numbers forged in Europe.
At this meeting I thought of the words of the 20th Century mathematician David Hilbert, who said:
“Mathematics knows no race or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.”
And yet some people see even this discipline – the purest of all sciences and one which has developed across borders for more than a millennium – as an outlet for their activism instead of being motivated by a love of their subject and the pursuit of truth.
The experience of those mathematicians is one shared by many in academia. An insidious censorship bubbling away under the surface, where students and academics with mainstream views don’t say what they think because they’re scared of the consequences for their studies or their career.
They’re censored by activists who dress up their oppression in the language of tolerance and emotional safety.
I sympathise with those who worry about the effects of toxic, hate-filled debates. I don’t want to see freedom of speech used as an excuse to abuse.
But a tolerant society isn’t one where everyone must conform to a narrow, ideological vision of moral virtue – where only those who take a certain point of view are allowed to speak their mind – a tolerant society is one which allows us to understand people we disagree with, and where minority and majority views are protected.
It should be a university’s duty to stay neutral, to facilitate debate and to protect those who put minority views forward in good faith.
Universities fail in that duty when they themselves take sides on these contested issues. They risk losing the trust of their staff and students when certain groups are made to feel that their views are not welcome.
I have no doubt in my mind that there are many leaders at the top of universities who are personally committed to academic freedom. I have heard about this commitment first-hand.
But Vice Chancellors and Leadership Boards must make sure they are not being undermined by well-intentioned internal processes that stand in the way of freedom of speech.
This pressure to conform to a progressive monoculture – both from activists and internal processes – has a material effect.
Research shows that a third of all academics in the UK self-censor.
A third.
Often, it’s academics approaching the end of their careers who are more likely to feel they can speak openly than their junior colleagues.
Your right to free speech in academia shouldn’t rely on your years of experience. It should be a right for all.
And from Policy Exchange’s own research we know that this is not just an issue for those on the political right.
While those on the right are more likely to self-censor, 42% of left-leaning academics in the social sciences report that they don’t express their views due to a fear of backlash from their colleagues.
This will have wider effects than those faced by the individuals involved. For example, there is even evidence that shows that academic freedom boosts innovation. When academic freedom rises, the number of patents filed two years later grows.
This creep of self-censorship matters.
If we don’t bring an end to this culture of intimidation, we’re allowing an intellectual sedative to be injected into the University experience.
And that’s why we chose to take action.
We legislated, as we promised in the manifesto, to defend and promote that centuries-old principle – the principle of free speech – that has been at the centre of so much of our progress as a nation.
Our Freedom of Speech Act will hold universities accountable for the state of free speech on their campuses. It will protect staff, students, and visiting speakers who advocate viewpoints of all kinds.
We’ve created a powerful new Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students. They will be able to investigate – and take action against – providers who are found to have breached their duties to uphold free speech.
Our new complaints mechanism, along with the introduction of the right to go to court, means that anyone who feels their free speech rights have been wrongly infringed will have a clear path to redress.
And for the first time, we’re requiring student unions to protect free speech.
Freedom of speech is not an optional extra at university. It is central to the university experience.
Our measures are designed to give people studying and working in universities the confidence and security to speak their mind.
At every stage of this process, they have been at the forefront of our thinking.
And I can think of no one better to fight their corner than the new Director of Free Speech and Academic Freedom, Professor Arif Ahmed.
Arif is a professor of philosophy who has written passionately in the defence of free speech in the media. He’s stood firm in the face of attempts to shut down his own speaking events, and campaigned to reform the free speech policy at his own university – with an astounding result in his favour.
He has defended views on the left and on the right, and I have no doubt he will provide strong leadership in championing a culture of tolerance and open debate within our universities.
As Arif has written himself: “Words are not a form of violence. They are an alternative to violence. Without that distinction we are lost.”
Now this Act by itself is not enough, I don’t believe that any legislation by itself can change culture, however it’s already starting to have an effect.
I’ve spoken to Vice Chancellors who are making plans to embed a culture of free speech at the beginning of a student’s academic journey.
The Provost of University College London, Michael Spence, took the right approach when he made clear that ‘[a university] is not a participant in the public debate, but a forum in which that debate takes place.’
We have already seen an emboldened approach from university leaders who are fighting back where cancel culture raises its head.
I am delighted that Kathleen Stock – despite the best attempts of some – did in fact speak to curious and respectful students at Oxford University recently, backed by strong action from their Vice Chancellor.
I am also pleased that students who disagreed were allowed to protest outside.
Both are important.
And that’s because a healthy society is one where people who disagree can do so whilst living alongside each other.
If you think about how we used to get to know each other, it was often in congregations.
In churches, local community events, even that bastion of British culture – the pub – where the young, old, conservative, liberal, could all rub alongside each other.
Now, social media has made it easier than ever for us to become entrenched in our own tribes, surrounded by people who think just like us.
It’s a vicious cycle. The more and more we use social media, the more its algorithms will feed us what we like to hear, from who we like to hear it from.
We get hooked on the drip of dopamine hits from people agreeing with us. Those who disagree with us become the enemy.
But the fundamental wellbeing of our society rests on our ability to tolerate each other. On an individual level, our ability to connect to each other is what makes us happy and well.
And when we think about the next generation, the leaders of tomorrow, what do we want for them?
To teach them that they should shut down every person they encounter who has a different view? Or to teach them to be able to understand, to connect, to persuade, to find common ground.
But common ground only exists where discussion and debate are embraced.
Free speech at university is an antidote to the toxic effects of social media. By instilling the next generation with a new appreciation for freedom of speech, we can make sure this attitude doesn’t define our society in the years to come.
The Act will give students and academics the practical framework to put the exchange of ideas over ideology, discussion over division.
But I will end on the words of the late, great, Sir Roger Scruton, another Policy Exchange alumnus and one of the lecturers I was lucky to have during my own university experience.
“Free speech is not the cause of the tensions growing around us, but the only possible solution to them…”
Thank you.
