Backers of the English campus free speech bill have called for Cambridge academic Arif Ahmed to be given a key job ahead of sector thinktank director Nick Hillman.
Toby Young, founder and director of the Free Speech Union, described Professor Ahmed as having credentials as a “champion of free speech” that were “second to none” and suggested that Lord Willetts, the Conservative former universities minister who has led opposition to elements of the free speech bill, has been “campaigning” for Mr Hillman, his former adviser, to be appointed director for freedom of speech and academic freedom.
The government is currently considering amendments made in the House of Lords to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill and must decide its position on those before the bill returns to the House of Commons. Notably, peers scrapped a statutory tort that would allow individuals to sue universities and students’ unions for compensation over alleged breaches of free speech duties, with Lord Willetts a key force in that move.
