Last week, David Bass, our Director of ED introduced our three-part series thought leadership series: Academic Freedom, Freedom of Speech and Equality Diversity and Inclusion, including the first piece in the series in which Dr Robert Simpson, Associate Professor at UCL, set out in detail how EDI, academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamentally aligned and complementary.
Today, we hear from Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith, University of Oxford, on why the UK HE sector should value and defend academic freedom of higher education. Naomi sets out the role of critique as a defining feature of academic work, and therefore of disagreeing well, building knowledge and supporting better democratic and societal discussion.
In the third piece in the series, Prof David Ruebain, PVC Culture, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Sussex, will explore some of the complexities, difficulties and potential solutions at the boundaries of free speech and EDI but sets out why leaders across the sector should have confidence in their equality and inclusion values and initiatives.
