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Most will agree that a university should be a safe space for academic freedom. Yet this safety is no longer available in all universities in modern Britain.

Two bad things have happened at once. The first is that the phrase itself has been captured. Safe spaces for students are used to justify the no-platforming of thinkers who warn against the oppressiveness of woke doctrines. The Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson is only the most famous of the victims: he was offered a visiting fellowship at Cambridge but then, in March last year, was denied it after protests that his views might upset students.

The second is that British universities, craving cash and students from foreign countries, have become dangerously uncritical of the terms on which they accept them. This is particularly true in relation to some Arab countries and even more so in relation to China.

In the same week that Cambridge blocked Professor Peterson, its vice-chancellor, Stephen Toope, was making a speech at Beijing University. Professor Toope praised his hosts: It is reassuring to find here a formidable institution, which seeks an open world open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation. Actually, Beijing University, like all universities in China, is controlled by the Communist Party. A world open to ideas is almost the last thing that the Chinese regime wants. Right now it is fiercely closing down the only part of China where open ideas had flourished Hong Kong.

Cambridge, enthusiastically led by its vice-chancellor, has Tooped to conquer, accepting considerable sums of money from Chinese universities and businesses (including Huawei) for various projects. More than 20 British universities have made similar devils bargains. It goes without saying that such Chinese sponsorship does not permit academic freedom. (Try investigating, or even raising, Beijings treatment of the Uighurs, and see.) Indeed, goes without saying is the right phrase: it is forbidden to say it.

As well as this direct warping of open-minded research, a university indirectly threatens student freedom whenever it accepts a dictatorships money. Since Chinas new security law in Hong Kong came in this year, the regime claims the right to persecute free speech all over the world. Chinese critics of Hong Kong among the student body here, or among senior members of the university, are objects of interest to the Chinese authorities. The Chinese embassy in London keeps a watch, using compliant students to intimidate and spy on outspoken ones. Their victims are left exposed by British university authorities.

So it is good news this week that an Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group has been set up. Based at University College, London, but independent of it, it draws on scholars from Edinburgh, Oxford etc (though Cambridge seems to be missing from the list). It wants to enshrine academic freedom in any internationalisation of British universities, and establish a code of conduct.

If such a concept does not succeed, too many British vice-chancellors will continue to go round the world offering their august institutions for rent to tyrants seeking to improve their regimes reputations in the West. And too many students, currently risking the Covid-19 virus, will also be unknowingly exposed to the virus of totalitarianism.

A regular correspondent from the West Country writes to me. She had complained about BBC bias directly to the new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, having decided to bypass the usual, dilatory complaints procedure and go straight to the top. In fewer than three weeks, her complaint had been upheld. She is in shock.

Her complaint concerned BBC Parliaments coverage of the first day of the Commons debate on the Internal Market Bill (ie, the latest bit of Brexit) last month. The Parliament channel is usually free of the running commentary by analysts making political points which is the bane of more general BBC coverage. But on this occasion the information captions which run below the live film were devoted to a series of condemnations of the man introducing the Bill, one Boris Johnson.

This is what the BBC complaints team not Mr Davie in person, but presumably acting on his orders replied: We didnt live up to our usual standards. The accumulation of detailed quotes condemning the Governments plans gave the impression that we were only interested in criticisms of the Bill.

The proper purpose of the information captions on screen is to give supporting information to enable the viewer to understand the legal processes involved in legislation, as well as key information relating to the content of the debate Where political comments are quoted from, these should be deployed on screen specifically where those comments are referred to by the Member speaking.

We didnt do this in this case and we understand your annoyance and apologise. I would be grateful to hear from other readers who may have had a satisfactory answer from the BBC. It is a genre with which I am not familiar.

When I wear a face-mask in a shop, say, or in church I feel a bit silly when I realise that people cannot see that I am smiling at them. But then I consider how many people seem to have forgotten how to smile, even when maskless, and I conclude that it is as well to keep the facial muscles in training.

Read the rest here:
Universities must beware of pacts with the devil - Telegraph.co.uk