University staff and students can make provocative statements on subjects such as Israel and Gaza as long as they do not break laws on incitement or harassment, under proposals by the government’s campus free speech tsar.
Arif Ahmed, the newly appointed director for academic freedom of speech at the Office for Students (OfS), said universities and colleges in England that infringed the rights to expression of individuals would face fines under the new complaints process.
Ahmed said he would not pronounce whether students or staff voicing support for a “global intifada” against Israel, or the use of slogans such as “from the river to the sea”, would be protected by the new rules before their introduction in August.
“I’d be reluctant to say any particular phrase is always going to be acceptable or always not, because with many of these things it’s going to be depend on a variety of factors. I’m definitely not going to say: oh you can always say something or you can never say something, for that reason,” Ahmed said.
“There’s always going to be the line between what the law permits and what the law doesn’t permit. Speech that amounts to illegal harassment, stirring up racial hatred, inciting violence, stirring up religious hatred – none of that would be protected.”
The limits of free speech and antisemitism on campus have become controversial in the US after a congressional hearing in which the leaders of three elite universities appeared to equivocate over how to deal with statements supporting genocide against Jews.
