St Andrews University is spending nearly quarter of a million pounds a year on its equality and diversity staff but nothing at all on freedom of speech. I know this because an organisation called Alumni For Free Speech sent a freedom of information request to the university, then told me about it, and now I’m exercising my free speech by writing about the subject. So what’s the problem?
I’ll tell you what the problem is. First of all, £235,000 is a lot of money and in lean times, large amounts of money being spent on what is, undoubtedly, a controversial area must be justified. St Andrews tell me it’s only 0.2% of their annual staffing costs; they tell me too that the money is necessary to effectively discharge their statutory duties on equality. I also realise that railing against money being spent on EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) can make you sound like an angry old white man who doesn’t get it.
But, having spoken to quite a few people about this in the last few days including lawyers and academics, I think it’s important to try and put the £235k into proper perspective because the bigger point here isn’t really that lots of cash is being spent on EDI, it’s that nothing – not a penny – is being spent by St Andrews on another equally important, and pressing, subject, which is the protection of freedom of speech on university campuses.
One of the vice-principals at St Andrews told me I was looking at the subject the wrong way round and that their university strategy includes the promise to promote and defend academic freedom and freedom of speech.
