Finally some common sense at uni

dougpschyte · 2025-06-19T08:37:39+00:00

The left won't like this.

AfghanistanIsTaliban · 2025-06-19T17:37:07+00:00

When challenged on the scale of the issue, Dr Ahmed pointed to polling carried out for the OfS, which he said suggests a fifth of academics do not feel free to discuss controversial topics in their teaching. The issues most frequently highlighted by those expressing concern were race and racism, as well as sex and gender, with women more likely to feel unable to speak out.

Here's the actual YouGov survey (commissioned by the OfS)

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/icjgzjab/freedom-of-speech-poll-outputs-yougov.pdf

Nearly half think their university prioritises free speech over causing offence. Male academics are more likely than female academics to say their university prioritises freedom of speech over not causing offence (56% vs 37%).

In other words, male and female academics have different perceptions of the administration of their universities, unless they are flocking to vastly different unis.

Male academics are also significantly more likely than female academics to say they are very confident in their understanding (41% vs 27%) [of what "freedom of speech" means in higher education].

Interestingly enough, academics still are unclear about the definition of "freedom of speech." Still want to do your research in the UK?

Around a fifth (21%) do not feel free to discuss challenging/ controversial topics in their teaching. This rises to a third (34%) of academics from ethnic minority backgrounds.

One in six (16%) academics do not feel free to discuss challenging/ controversial topics in their research and more than one in three (34%) do not feel free in other contexts such as speaking engagements and social media.

In all three contexts [teaching, research, social media], female academics are more likely than male academics to say they do not feel free discussing challenging/ controversial topics. In particular, a fifth of female academics (21%) say they do not feel free in their research compared to one in ten (11%) male academics saying the same.

n=615 for male academics, and n=619 for female academics. See slide 16 for in-depth analysis. Notice that for both male and female academics, they were at least fairly free (majority of fairly+very) in discussing controversial topics in teaching (71% male, 64% female) and research (72% male, 58%). Even for other contexts, 53% of women feel free discussing controversial topics.

Interesting that BBC's main takeaway from this is that the poor "women" (as opposed to female ACADEMICs) feel uncomfy

Sufficient_Button363 · 2025-06-27T11:36:52+00:00

Amira campbell thinks that there's plenty of protection on free speech at university's.. tell that to the thousands who were deplatformed for views that students don't like.

Title	Finally some common sense at uni
Author	Former-Dragonfly2226
Upvotes	19
Comments	6
Date	June 19, 2025 5:49 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1lf365c/finally_some_common_sense_at_uni/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/finally-some-common-sense-at-uni.1554670 https://theredarchive.com/post/1554670

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