A victory for free speech at Cambridge
The success of Helen Joyce's talk at Cambridge bodes well for furthering debate around sensitive matters
Despite continued efforts to undermine free speech, Helen Joyce’s talk last Tuesday marks another hopeful victory for open debate and academic freedom.
Helen Joyce is an author and journalist, well known for her views on gender and transgenderism. She advocates for an understanding of sex that is rooted in biology. Her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality discusses the increasing trend of people self-identifying their gender.
Professor Arif Ahmed of the University of Cambridge invited Joyce to give a talk at Gonville and Caius College, titled “Criticising gender-identity ideology: What happens when speech is silenced”. Predictably, the announcement of this talk received backlash and calls to boycott the event.
The talk, according to Joyce, was a success. In a tweet after the event, she praised the audience who asked challenging questions, writing that she was “very grateful to the young people who turned up and asked probing questions… You should genuinely be proud of yourselves.”
It is not an easy feat to attend a talk given by someone you disagree with. To approach someone with opposing views and ask a thought-provoking question takes courage, grit, and a respect for genuine debate. It is much easier to have tea and pretend it is not happening, or to bang pots so that no one can be heard.
This, unfortunately, is exactly what some students did. The Telegraph writes that the college ran a “welfare event” with tea at the same time as the talk, to act as a “safe space” for students who felt upset by the topic. Students also encouraged one another to disrupt the event by banging pots and pans, evident in this video shared on Twitter.
The students were not the only people who attempted to undermine or condemn the event. Master of College and Senior Tutor, Professor Pippa Rogerson and Dr Andrew Spencer, sent an email to students, writing that they consider Joyce’s views “offensive, insulting and hateful to members of our community”. The talk, they wrote, does not contribute to the aim of making Caius “inclusive, diverse and welcoming”. Therefore, they decided that they would not be attending the event.
Joyce’s response was fiery. She rightly raised the point that people from great academic institutions, such as the University of Cambridge, make “a show of defending free speech, open debate and academic standards out of one side of their mouths even as they say ‘however’ out of the other.”
This remark sums up the crisis that many of our universities are facing: a thinly-veiled support for free speech and academic rigour dissolves at the first time of asking. As soon as the university, its staff or censorious students are given an opportunity to defend basic liberal principles their authoritarian tendencies are exposed. They don’t really believe in freedom of speech; it’s merely expedient to say they do. This often leads to silencing controversial speakers through de-platforming or protesting outside the event. This occurred at my own university; Exeter students have protested many speaker events, including Dan Peña, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Katie Hopkins just to name a few. There are countless other examples I could give from other universities across the country.
It is a true shame, although entirely unsurprising, that some university students and professors alike support the silencing of an important conversation and debate, and no less disappointing to see it in a world-leading university such as Cambridge. In an article with The Spectator, Joyce wrote that the professors “have given license to the little totalitarians who wish to see me silenced rather than debated.” She explains in a podcast with ex-Mumford-and-Son Winston Marshall that their aim to control language and make people too scared to speak out is what makes them totalitarian.
It is a sign of the times that the students’ and professors’ emails and protests to speaker events have become predictable and expected. But not everyone is deterred. The talk still went ahead. The event sold out. Many people support Helen Joyce and her message. And, perhaps most importantly, a genuine and open discussion was fostered. Differences of opinion were respected, and the value of free speech was upheld.
A further reason for optimism comes, once more, courtesy of Arif Ahmed. As proof that some academics are keen to work with students who wish to explore ideas without trepidation, Professor Ahmed is putting on two events for students at Cambridge, exploring ideas such as toleration, liberty, universalism and totalitarianism. Further information here.
Rachael Powell is a liberal arts graduate from Exeter University and writer based in London.