One of the defining features of “culture wars” is that the two sides can take completely opposing messages from the same set of facts. Belief and identity skew our perspective, and reality is bent to fit each tribe’s already held views.
Luckily, there is something for everyone in our new surveys of students and the public on freedom of speech in universities.
Universities have become a key arena for free speech debates, fuelled by rare but high profile and vitriolic examples of academics or visiting speakers being “cancelled”. To some, these are only the visible symptoms of a more systemic and subtle “chilling effect”, where minority views are suppressed by the groupthink of largely left-leaning staff and student bodies.
